"Saishu Heiki" or "Stink Bomb" is a Japanese anime short film from 1995 that runs for 40 minutes and was written by Katsuhiro Ôtomo and directed by Tensai Okamura, both pretty prolific in their fields. This film is easily over 20 years old already now and the story is about a young man who takes the wrong pills and eventually ends up as an environmental and military catastrophe. It is an extremely bizarre story indeed, but somehow it is actually working. Maybe my preference for this one is that I also liked the animation style here and that most of the characters were interesting enough by just being there and without really in-depth exploration and background elaboration. The twists and how a seemingly harmless story initially becomes more and more dramatic by the minute were both well-handled. You actually get curious about what happens next, to the protagonist and in general. This is not typical anime style, but still successful from my perspective. The voice actors did an okay job as well as much as I can be a judge of that as my focus was mostly on the subtitles which yours should be too unless you actually are fluent in Japanese. I am generally not that big actually on anime that isn't particularly recent, but this felt like a well-rounded effort that never drags and succeeds from all production value perspectives. A little film that is as bizarre as it is entertaining. Go see it.
4 Reviews
Goofy short
Jeremy_Urquhart6 January 2024
Memories (2/3): Stink Bomb - 6.5/10
Stink Bomb is perhaps the best Japanese film about bureaucratic boobery that isn't Shin Godzilla. It's a good deal sillier than the first short film in the Memories anthology, but it's still fairly entertaining, following a ridiculous young man who accidentally turns himself into a bioweapon.
It does feel like a bit of a goofy kaiju movie parody, and even if that's the only real joke the short has, at least it's a funny joke, and at least it's only a short film, rather than them trying to stretch something like this to feature-length. I had fun, but it probably won't stick with me.
Stink Bomb is perhaps the best Japanese film about bureaucratic boobery that isn't Shin Godzilla. It's a good deal sillier than the first short film in the Memories anthology, but it's still fairly entertaining, following a ridiculous young man who accidentally turns himself into a bioweapon.
It does feel like a bit of a goofy kaiju movie parody, and even if that's the only real joke the short has, at least it's a funny joke, and at least it's only a short film, rather than them trying to stretch something like this to feature-length. I had fun, but it probably won't stick with me.
epic anime masterpiece
loozzotys23 November 2021
Stink Bomb
WeAreLive19 September 2022
Warning: Spoilers
The next one is the worst of the stories. It is some coward that was purple (Nobuo Tanak) accidentally took some what looks like a contagious. This pill is very nuclear level dangerous that it turns this hapless man into some kind of deadly weapon that stinks up anywhere he goes.
This segment was honestly really dumb. I don't get many question like why didn't the idiot of a protagonist like not read the damm lab because taking the pill? Why did he think it was a good idea to fall a sleep at work. The guy could have even tried to jump into a river or something to clean out the stink or to spit out the table. The ending I don't know what was stupid them not finding a cure for the guy or them bringing him to the government office in his current condition.
In comparison to Majestic rose, this short has an excellent idea of an environment turning nuclear because of a bad smell but has poor excuse and doesn't exactly come across as terrifying. If anything this feels more like a hilarious bad comedy. It's just literally the main character running around town with a bad oder making people uncomfortable.
However I will admit at least the art style and visual make up for it. As well as the dub cast by this time Sound Cadence Studios including Stephen Fu, Mike Pollock, Steven Kelly, Bill Butts, Gianni Matragrano, Karen Kahler, Krystal LaPorte, Kira Buckland and Christopher Guerrero was excellent.
However, overall it's getting a very bad 4/10.
This segment was honestly really dumb. I don't get many question like why didn't the idiot of a protagonist like not read the damm lab because taking the pill? Why did he think it was a good idea to fall a sleep at work. The guy could have even tried to jump into a river or something to clean out the stink or to spit out the table. The ending I don't know what was stupid them not finding a cure for the guy or them bringing him to the government office in his current condition.
In comparison to Majestic rose, this short has an excellent idea of an environment turning nuclear because of a bad smell but has poor excuse and doesn't exactly come across as terrifying. If anything this feels more like a hilarious bad comedy. It's just literally the main character running around town with a bad oder making people uncomfortable.
However I will admit at least the art style and visual make up for it. As well as the dub cast by this time Sound Cadence Studios including Stephen Fu, Mike Pollock, Steven Kelly, Bill Butts, Gianni Matragrano, Karen Kahler, Krystal LaPorte, Kira Buckland and Christopher Guerrero was excellent.
However, overall it's getting a very bad 4/10.
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