English Dub Review: Junji Ito Collection “Used Record / Town of No Roads”

No privacy allowed.

Overview:

A girl becomes obsessed with her friend’s record. Elsewhere, after a young schoolgirl gets tired of her family peeping in on her, decides to go visit her aunt in a faraway town.

Our Take:

The haunting record that everyone is obsessed is a mystery in more ways than one. It’s rare, being a one of a kind item, but it was also supposedly recorded after the singer’s death. While the melody itself is compelling, it’s been surrounded by death from the start. After hearing it, people are compelled to possess it for themselves, by any means necessary. This includes hunting people down and killing them for refusing to turn the tape over.

Interestingly, the most curious part of the record is how infectious it is. Not only is it a luxury item, but it also coaxes the dead to sing the same song. At the very end, after the two girls are killed, their corpses begin to sing the same song from the record. This doesn’t seem to be a phenomenon with the dead in general, merely with those who have been touched by the record.

Unfortunately, the animation this episode doesn’t help that factor at all. The final scene of the first segment shows the corpses singing, but it isn’t apparent that it’s coming from them. For all we know, it could be part of the background. DEEN’s lack of animation quality is notorious, and here it’s no exception.

The second one is another oddball horror, which features horror in lack of privacy. The town that X ventures into is all connected, and people go wherever they please. This structure also means that there’s no personal space anywhere, and those who obstruct the paths to have their own space are punished swiftly by the town. Everything is communal, and there’s no way for anyone to have their own lives. There are also those that are constantly watching and have even morphed into monsters because their curiosity is so unending.

A horrible place for anyone, but especially for Saiko. Her family is constantly peeking in on her, and she has become uncomfortable with everyone’s gazes. Her skittishness ends up helping her survive, as she’s more observant than most. The town is her worst enemy in all respects, since its curiosity is absolutely never-ending, and she has to get out of there as soon as possible. It works, but somehow the pacing makes the eeriness of the town seem off.