Welcome back friends! This month I attempted to choose a spooky anime to highlight – one that I had actually never seen before – and boy did I get more than I bargained for! So without further ado, the next Anime Outcast!
Title: Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up
Watched on: Funimation
Languages: Japanese
Genres: Horror, Comedy
Year: 2011
Seasons: 1 (12 episodes)
Overview
*Contains Mature Content*
As mentioned above, I had never seen Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up, but I thought I’d give it a try in the midst of my search for a new horror anime to watch this spooky season (one can only watch Hellsing so many times a year). The basis of this show is that a the Demon king sends his nephew, Ghastly Prince Enma and his trusty band of sidekicks to the human realm in order to send escaped demons back to the underworld. It’s listed as a comedy/horror mix, but typically I enjoy a few laughs mixed in with my terror. What I got was more of the…off-brand, Japanese, perverse version of Scooby-Doo. I know – sounds wild, right? It was.
A few minutes into the first episode, I was ready to turn it off and leave it in my “never revisit” pile of anime disappointments. The episode was chalk full of kitschy “American pop culture” references and even included a chase scene that could have been pulled directly from a Scooby-Doo episode – you know the ones. Then, just as I was about to turn back and restart Castlevania for the 80th time, the first villain battle scene began. Enma uses his magical fire staff gifted to him by his uncle to fight every demon. What was the very first demon’s weapon of choice, you ask? A phallic sword that literally grew from his pelvis as if arousal from the battle had granted him a weapon. To top that off? The demons name was the “Mug Mugger” because he stole people’s faces. Now we have a show folks!
In turn, the episodes remained vaguely the same, with the demons rotating out (each more inventive than the next) and some semblance of a storyline barely peeking through the seams. I must stress the perverse side of this show, as if the phallic sword didn’t enough, but THIS SHOW IS NOT FOR CHILDREN. I repeat, THIS SHOW IS NOT FOR CHILDREN. The fill scenes are coated with your typical bondage, orgasmic, damsel in distress content and half of the storyline is Enma trying to feel up his partner Princess Yukiko of the Snow Women Clan (who reminds me greatly of our beloved Bulma – blue hair and all). Overall, I’m not sure I’d ever watch this one again unless to show my friends the chaotic nature of it, but I thought I’d share with the likes of you all incase you’re looking for a cringe-worthy, one-season show to fill your time with.
Until next time!
