Twilight of the Cockroaches

No futuristic robots smashing everything to bits. No planet-worshiping sailor girls beating the crap out of the enemy-of-the-week. And definitely no cute little pokeydigi-creatures running around. Instead, we have the story of two roach tribes’ quest for survival in two separate units of Japanese housing.

Yes, roaches; those pesky little insect creatures that crawl around behind our walls and under our kitchen cabinets. In this anime, these little critters are intelligent adversaries to us Homo sapiens, which in this case are portrayed by a lonely Japanese man and woman.

How exactly does this quirky little movie fit into the anime universe? There is a definite Japanese animation flavor to the flick, from the look of the characters to the setting itself. We have a mix of both live action and animation, similar to Disney’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. But again, there are no anime heroes as we tend to usually see, with super or mystical powers fighting aliens, ninjas and the like.

We follow the story of the roaches’ plight through the perspective of the young female roach Naomi. Having a strong heroine is not that uncommon for anime from the land of the rising sun and sailor moon.

Naomi is a 19-year old roach on the cusp of her wedding nuptials to her fiancé’, Ichiro, the son of one of the prominent political roach families.

They are part of the large tribe that lives in the house of Mr. Saito, who has come to tolerate the roaches sharing his living space. We see early on that Saito’s wife leaves him with their son in tow, which seems to throw Saito into a deep depressive state that makes him care little that his dwelling is infested with roaches. To him the roaches offer a minor diversion from his despondent life.

The younger generation of roaches has only known this time of prosperity for the tribe. They don’t realize how lucky they are not to scurry in murky corners under the cover of darkness to secure their next meal and survive another day.

But the older members of the tribe know better. They remember the days before the truce with Saito, when they had to scamper around for their daily sustenance. They recall the fallen members of the tribe who were killed by Saito, who was intolerable of the roaches when his family was still together.

The younger roaches ignore the elders’ old war stories as only that—stories. How could they believe that their friend Saito had ever run a reign of terror against the tribe? The elders surely must be telling tall tales.

We are introduced to one of the main characters at the same time our heroine Naomi is. While sleeping with Ichiro in their home (which is one of Saito’s sneakers), Naomi is awakened by a mysterious roach stranger, Hans, who is from the roach tribe of another human dwelling across the field from Saito’s house.

Hans is injured in his dangerous journey from his tribes’ house. He is brought to the roach leaders. But he never leaves the mind of Naomi, who somehow feels a deep-rooted attraction to Hans.

It turns out Naomi’s grandmother is from the other tribe, which is why she has her attraction to Hans. She made the same journey that Hans has, and raised a family with Naomi’s grandfather.

Naomi’s grandfather has told her it is her fate to be the one to carry on the roaches’ bloodline. She would be the mother of the next generation of roaches, a stronger, smarter roach better designed to fight man and his weapons used to kill roach kind.

Hans recovers and confers with the roach leaders during the Armistice Day remembrance, which celebrates the peace that had been negotiated with Saito. Hans sets off to return to his tribe to once again take up the fight for his tribe’s survival.

With the wedding to Ichiro looming, Naomi decides she must be with Hans. She doesn’t understand it, but something inside her is telling her she must be with Hans, not Ichiro in order to fulfill her legacy.

She makes the dangerous trip across the field to be with Hans. The most bizarre scene in the whole movie is when Naomi runs into the talking turd. Yeah, really, a talking pile of dog turd, which gives Naomi advice and directions how to find Hans. Definitely one of the strangest movie moments I can ever remember.

Naomi survives a heavy rainstorm in which she nearly drowns, to finally reach her destination: the house of the woman who lives across the field. She is nearly killed by the woman, who sees Naomi on the kitchen floor and tries to squash her. But Naomi escapes by running under the refrigerator, horrified that the stories about the humans killing roaches are true.

Naomi finally finds Hans and stays with him. "I’m alive. I’m still alive", Hans whispers to Naomi every time he safely returns to her after a night of fighting to find food. Staying with Hans, Naomi becomes pregnant with his children.

That tribe leads a much different lifestyle from Naomi and her tribe. They are under constant attack from the young woman who lives in the house. Hans is one of the brave soldiers who constantly put their lives on the line in order for the tribe to survive.

Meanwhile, Ichiro is left to try and embarrassingly explain what happened to Naomi to the roach leader, who was planning to attend the wedding. But he is now having second thoughts, not wanting to lose political face if Ichiro is left standing at the altar without a bride if Naomi doesn’t return in time. Ichiro does not want to postpone the wedding, ready to face his fate, whatever it may be.

Another sinister force is set in motion leading to the roaches demise. Saito and the woman who lives in the house across the field become romantically involved. She does not tolerate her roach neighbors, and in an effort to please his new lover, Saito slowly starts breaking the "peace accord" that the great leader claims to have made with him.

But Saito’s girlfriend freaks out after seeing the roaches on Saito’s table during Naomi and Ichiro’s wedding, and she smashes them, killing many. Ichiro and Naomi never get married because of the disruption. All hell, as well as the supply of roach spray, has broken loose on the roach tribe.

The cans of roach spray are portrayed as some sort of all-encompassing destroyer of the roaches. They are illusory of the weapons of mass destruction dropped on the Japanese people some 40 years earlier.

We see in black and white still photos the suffering and death inflicted on the tribe by the deadly clouds of roach spray.

First Saito, and later both Saito and his girlfriend are given the roles of the large holders of destructive power.

Analogous of the United States, and based on this movie, the Japanese people still hold resentment over the atomic bombing of their nation by the U.S. military.

While relations are patched up currently between the two countries, much like the relations between Saito and the roach tribe, the message here is never be too trusting of good relations. They can change quickly to bad without too much provocation.

See themselves as holocaust victims, which mirrors what the director sees the Japanese people as. The Japanese themselves were subjected to the worst man-made force ever, the atomic weapon. They had to learn to survive from the two weapons of mass destruction that the U.S. dropped on the Japanese people, much like the roaches had to learn to survive: by forging an alliance with their oppressor.

Not only are they lovers, but Saito and his new girlfriend are good exterminators too. The girlfriend brings over to Saito’s house every kind of roach eliminating product she could find on the store shelves. She seems to really dig killing of the roaches, and Saito himself gets caught up in the enthusiasm.

There is some discussion of religious belief in the movie. We see the roaches’ leader talking to his tribe, talking of the genocide that the roaches have been subjected to by man. According to the leader, God chose the roach to inherit the world, not man. The roaches shall prevail.

Naomi’s tribe leader tries to go talk with Saito to clear things up. It turns out his great "peace accord" with Saito he claims to have forged was nothing more than dumb luck. If Saito’s family had not left him in his depressive state, he would have squashed the leader back then like the little pesky bug he was.

But the leader turns up dead, impaled to a dartboard with on of Saito’s darts, blood slowly trickling down the wall. Saito has killed him, leaving no doubt in the viewer’s mind that there will be no continuation of the peace between Saito and the roaches.

It is too late for the tribes. They didn’t see the warning signs that things were going to turn bad. Saito and his girlfriend wage an all-out attack on the roaches in retaliation for the tribes attack on Saito and his girlfriend, and needless to say, the results ain’t pretty. Dead roach bodies pile up quickly from the carnage. As expected, the tribes are basically wiped out.

Hans meets a quick death, getting smashed by a book. It is left to Ichiro to get Naomi to safety. But just as we are led to believe he will survive with Naomi, Ichiro is shockingly killed with a pellet gun just as he finally learns to use his wings to fly. Saito mercilessly guns him down as he soars into the upper echelon of the house’s ceiling.

And just for good measure, Naomi’s grandfather, the wise sage who foretold Naomi of her ultimate fate, dies. Knowing his time is near anyway, he flies above Saito and the girl, and drops a bomb of roach crap on the head of Saito before flying outside and falling to his death.

In the end, the prophecy holds true, as we see that Naomi has become the mother of a new tribe of roaches, again with the use of black and white still photos. Many of the children are in the likeness of the fallen hero, Hans, which we are to presume will lead to a more resilient roach in their ultimate battle against the humans.

Voice acting is average at best. There is no dialogue spoken by Saito or his new girlfriend. They give us their perspective throughout their movements and interactions with each other and the roaches.

Animation isn’t the best. Dull coloring and flat, 2D animated characters don’t always blend with the 3D live-action world of Saito’s house they are placed into.

But remember this was made in 1987, before the days of the availability of good computer-generated animation. If this movie was made with today’s technology, the animated quality could be knocked up a few notches with the assistance of some good CG animation.

We only hear the roaches dialogue, and there is nothing special in the quality of voice acting presented in the movie. It isn’t bad; it just isn’t very good either. But this is what we have come to expect for the most part from anime voice acting for the most part.

The live-action acting is not bad. Interestingly, as Saito and his girlfriend don’t have any dialogue, they have to communicate through expressive acting. Both actors are effective at conveying this, because we know what they are thinking without having to hear words spoken. It isn’t hard to understand Saito and his girlfriend’s moods. We are able to see that on our own through their facial expressions and physical actions.

The story is strong. It is what saves the movie from anime mediocrity. This is a good movie from the respect that it is so different from what you would normally see in an anime picture. More complex and deep-rooted issues are examined than normally would be in an anime movie.

Give it a chance. But be forewarned: after you watch it, you might not want to swat or spray that roach in your kitchen quite so fast again.

Reviewed by Lee Cieniawa