Pupa

Abandoned by their abusive parents and with only each other to depend on, siblings Utsutsu and Yume Hasegawa find themselves led astray by beautiful red butterflies that have appeared in their world. Unbeknownst to them, these crimson winged heralds trumpet the beginning of a cannibalistic nightmare—a mysterious virus known as Pupa is about to hatch.

After succumbing to the full effects of Pupa, Yume undergoes a grotesque metamorphosis into a monstrous creature with an insatiable desire for flesh; Utsutsu, on the other hand, is only partially affected, gaining remarkable regenerative powers instead. Reaffirming the resolve to keep the promise he made to himself years ago, Utsutsu is willing to sacrifice everything in order to always be there for his precious little sister.

Pupa tells the story of a loving brother's desperate struggles to save his sister while protecting the world from her uncontrollable hunger.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hasegawa, Yume Main

Kido, Ibuki Japanese

Hasegawa, Utsutsu Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Yamamoto Supporting

Imari, Ai Supporting

Narumi, Kyoko Japanese

Arita, Sisters Supporting

Kurosawa, Yurika Japanese

Hotoki Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Arita, Yuuhei Supporting

Mikami, Shiori Japanese

Onijima, Shirou Supporting

Yusa, Kouji Japanese

Hasegawa, Sachiko Supporting

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Mitsui Supporting

Maeda, Kunihiro Japanese

Shinjuku, Gorou Producer

Mochizuki, Tomomi Director, Sound Director, Script

Kido, Ibuki Theme Song Performance

Yamazaki, Erii Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Jul 17, 2015

Laora-inn

Recommended

This anime, I think, can't be understood literally.

It's a story about complicated and extremely painful relationship between brother and sister who were abused by their father since early childhood. The siblings are alone in whole world, adults are some kind of threat for them; so they begin to build their own world, their... cocoon of maturity.

The beginning of anime underlines: it's a story about siblings' love, and, actually, there IS a lot of love. Maybe, too much. But children haven't ever known what "normal" love should be. Their father abused them, their mother ignored them, and such type of relationship was "so it ... be" for them. They are used to be beaten and to protect each other; now they are alone, they are closer to adults by age (but aren't adults YET), they can be free of abusing... More than it, their abuser wasn't interested in them during some time.

But they love each other so, so much, how should they express it? They were beaten and protecting each other before; now they are not beaten, can't feel pain and take more pain to protect the other.

And yeah, there is the virus, "Pupa" (which seems an allegory of being teenager, not child and not adult), and sister must hurt her brother to stay a human, not a monster. Literally she _eats_ him, but he's regenerating from time to time - he is also infected, regenerating is his only possibility.

All of us can understand the subtext of biting, eating and drinking blood - a sexual desire. The scenes between brother and sister, when he "helps" her, looks more like sex, than like anything else. They are partially naked, they are moaning, touching, she hurts him, he is bleeding, like a virgin girl - gender roles are vice versa, and this is the dark side of incest, like in manga "Berserk" (Serpico and Farnese), there a girl is absolutely dominant. But in "Berserk" we have other setting, the sexual desire's expressing more literally, and the parents are not so abusive - as a result, Serpico and Farnese are not so crazy for pain. They can express their love with other tools.

Brother and sister in "Pupa" can't. Why? Because they are only pupas, cocoons. So their relationships are painful and horrible - they are not used to normal life, normal love, all is complicated and causing pain... now.
But their cocoons may become butterflies someday - this is meant to be an adult.

You can understand "Pupa" only with allegorical thinking - and tremendous scenes from series are just footprints of reality, fantasies built around feelings grown in sadistic family.
Fantasies, in which brother sacrifice his body for sister - not vice versa. He is her victim, her food, her desire, her crucified love; all we know that men can be cruel and love in one time. Women can too - anime shows it.

Here we have a system of forbidden motives - incest and awful bloody love as the strongest. But it's definitely LOVE, mixed with desire and need in own sibling to be alive, to be a human; our morality's protesting, because most of us have good parents and don't know how is it to be beaten every day.

With the fact that this anime is short (imho it's good; I could understand the main idea and like it, now I'm interested in manga) and that it's thought to be a horror, not a family drama about teenagers who are siblings and love each other in forbidden way... I think it's not strange that it is underrated.

Personally I had my pleasure to watch it - story and characters are real for me, I liked music and art... And extremely liked subtext of the story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 2, 2024

rae-ok

Mixed Feelings

I randomly discovered this anime, and I don't think it's that bad, but it obviously isn't good either.
I was very shocked by the gore tbh. I didn't read the synopsis or anything like that so, that completely caught me off guard. Another thing I didn't really like was the fact the episodes were only 4 minutes. I wasn't sure about the anime starting, but I honestly think it had potential. It's got a good story line (to me at least).
I heard that the manga makes more sense than the anime so, I plan on reading that to make sense of whatever the heck that ... anime was supposed to be.
P.S. I don't know about other people, but to me some of the scenes seemed kind of incest-ly and it's gross.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 17, 2014

Marow

Not Recommended

When I first heard of Pupa it seemed rather interesting and worth looking forward to. Based on the horror manga with the same name, Pupa tells the story about two orphaned siblings who only have each other to rely on after severe domestic violence. However, one day they are both infected with the Pupa virus which turns the younger sister Yume into a grotesque man-eating monster while the older brother Utsutsu gains regenerative abilities.

This is, to put it bluntly, an exciting premise and Pupa appeared to have all the elements to make a memorable horror anime. While there had been mixed opinions from those who ... had read the manga, I figured that at the very least it would make for an experience unlike any other in recent years.

What I personally found to be noteworthy was how Pupa appeared to be the complete opposite of the recent brother and sister relationship trend in anime that often danced around incestuous undertones. Here we would instead have an older brother who had to sacrifice his own body to satisfy his little sister’s cannibalistic hunger. Rather than a cheerful outlook it was cynical one full of dread and hopelessness.

Ironically, much like a cruel joke, it was the actual anime adaptation itself that became full of hopelessness. You see, Pupa was originally announced in early 2013 yet all buzz around it quickly faded due to a lack of news. Months passed and finally a vague air date was revealed: the fall anime season. Eventually the fall anime season approached, however Pupa was nowhere to be seen. The staff apologized for the delay and announced the series would instead air in the winter anime season 2014. At this point in time there were also some bad rumors floating around, mentioning how Pupa would be a short five-minute anime and not actually full-length.

Today, we all know the result. Indeed, Pupa ended up only being a couple of minutes per episode. As you might understand, this is a format that makes the actual horror atmosphere a disservice. It is impossible to create a proper eerie atmosphere with such little time, especially if the story is to move forward in a reasonable manner. Speaking of the story, it is nothing but haphazardly told nonsense. It jumps from one event to the next with little to no explanation and ends in the middle of nowhere.

To make the story even more difficult to follow, Pupa suffers from heavy censoring for no obvious reason. It is also incredibly inconsistent – sometimes censoring a mere knife while letting loads of guns pass – and often covers the whole screen with censor beams, effectively destroying what little that was left of the actual horror.

Exactly to who is Pupa aimed towards? Fans of the manga will be disappointed with this mess of an adaptation while anime viewers will be utterly confused. I cannot come up with any good explanation myself other than that this is the worst anime I have ever seen.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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