Main cast: Hosoya Yoshimasa (Tsujii Kōichi), Mitsuya Yuji (Tsujii Sōichi), Saitō Yuka (Sayuri), Aoyama Yutaka (Taigasu), Ola Junko (Mari), and Sakaguchi Shūhei (Yūji Hirano)
Director: Tagashira Shinobu
The Room With Four Walls is a perfect example of why making an animated show out of Itō Junji’s works may not be an automatic home run.
The story itself is a simple, if macabre and brutal one: Sōichi is a monstrous kind of practical joker that just won’t quit.
His brother Kōichi is trying to study for an exam but he is constantly bothered by loud noises and strange happenings in his room. He blames his younger brother, but Sōichi insists that the house is genuinely haunted… even after his older brother catches him in the act.
For plot reasons, their parents believe that it’s better to have a carpenter come over to soundproof Kōichi’s room instead of dragging the younger brother to military school or something.
A mysterious and ominous-looking Taigasu shows up and, with Sōichi’s help, transforms the room into small cramped space insulated by four thick layers of walls. Taigasu says that four is just about right because it sounds like “death” and hence four levels of walls will cause sounds to “die”.
Guess what? Even in that now super cramped room with barely any space to move, poor Kōichi still hears those annoying noises!
Sōichi is actually a character in a few stories by the author, but I suppose this particular adaptation can’t stand him and doesn’t want to see him again, so this episode reverses the fates of the two brothers. This move makes this episode more of a morality tale than a brutal kind of macabre. Since I personally loathe Sōichi even in the source materials, I’m not sorry to see this happen.
However, this episode robs the story of its terrifying sense of claustrophobia because the artwork and animation just aren’t it, sadly. Poor Taigasu and Sōichi look more like clowns here, and the whole thing ends up being an ordinary kind of meh.
However, Where the Sandman Lives makes this episode worth a look, because it has some really lovely body horror. Had this show been aimed at kids, this is possibly that episode that makes them unable to sleep peacefully for at least a few days, heh.
Mari is approached by her depressed friend Yūji, who tells her that he has a problem: each time he sleeps, someone… maybe something… tries to break out from inside his body. While doing so, it pulls the man inside the body—the whole process is like turning a shirt inside out, come to think of it.
The man is worried that, soon, whatever that is inside him will take over and become the “outside” him, while he will be trapped inside his own body as a result of this.
Mari is understandably skeptical, but agrees to help her friend by watching over him and ensure that he doesn’t fall asleep. Of course, she doesn’t believe him and doesn’t take the precautions he asks of her, so she realizes the hard way that her friend is, yikes, telling the truth.
Despite nearly having died, our dim-witted heroine decides that the best way to help her friend is to tie herself to him as he sleeps. Guess what happens next.
Mari in the source material is an idiot like this one, but in end, she is given the agency to choose her fate, and she does. Here, though, it’s more of a let’s laugh at that idiot kind of thing, and indeed, it’s fun to see such an imbecile gets her just desserts.
The story may not be the most memorable, but oh, the body horror certainly is. I’m impressed because given how the animation and art of this show so far haven’t been impressive, the body horror scenes still manage to come off as pretty good considering the limitations of the show. If I were evil, I’d definitely play this episode at some kids’ birthday party.
Anyway, the last segment elevates the entire episode a bit. Skip the first segment and go right to the second one, and nobody will get hurt.
