Koibito no jikken

Koibito no jikken: Disturbing Guro Anime

KI2002
Do you know about the term "guro"? While it's mostly used in Japan to describe a piece of media that's cruel or bizarre, many people in the West see it as an umbrella term for anything to do with gore and mutilation. It's definitely something that only people with niche tastes will be able to appreciate. I'm one such person. Just to clarify, my tastes for what I want in fantasy do not reflect what I want in reality. I'm not going to jam a drill into someone's eye and let it spin because I saw it an in anime once. I'm sure it's the same for many people who have a fascination with guro, quite frankly I don't see what makes it so different compared to something like Cannibal Holocaust or A Serbian Film. Starting to get off track, sorry.

Anyways, I think of myself as someone who can stomach a lot of stuff. I've played through Demonophobia, watched Genocyber and even given Euphoria a couple of playthroughs. I'm not going to claim myself as someone whose braved through the hardest and most obscure guro media out there. I don't want to lie to you. As a matter of fact, that's what this tale is going to be about. My first foray into finding an obscure piece of guro anime and my experience with it. I'm not expecting anyone to take this as fact but I want to get this off of my chest. If anyone's interested in seeing this, just send me a private message and I'll try to get the video for you guys. Don't take that as a promise though, it'll be hard to get again for me.

To explain why that's the case, I need to talk about how I got it in the first place. As with every kind of hobby, you tend to get bored of watching the same kind of things over and over again. Everyone knows the depths of how far these pieces of media are allowed to go and everyone has expectations. When going into something like guro or a shock movie, you can expect that everything done by these fictional characters never happened in real life. It's an exaggeration of reality by intentionally going as dark and shocking as possible but it never becomes reality. But about a week ago, I decided I wanted to see if there was anything that could shatter that expectation. Maybe I'd see something based off of something from reality with little to no changes and that could shock and fascinate me. So I decided to boot up Tor Browser and take a dive into the internet to see if I could find what I was looking for.

Obviously the first place to look for was a torrent site. If it's the best place to get some free regular anime, you'd agree with me saying that it'd be the best place to find some underground anime, right? Anyways, it took a while to look for one that wasn't just selling porn or snuff films but I eventually found one. Can't remember the exact name for it now but it was something like GURSCAPE, all caps included. Had a logo on the start page with a colourised page of a Junji Ito story, it was from one of his Tomie stories. It was a members only torrent site that asked that in order to keep a membership, you'd need to post your own findings and seed them for other users to download. Typical stuff, it's the norm for some of the more "high class" sites so I decided to take my chances and make an account. Using a burner email just in case with a hard to guess password, I made the account and got to roaming.

Presentation of the site was pretty schlocky, just a black background with blinding white text for submissions Most of the ones I could see on the front page were of some fansubs to some classic 80s anime but nothing new to be seen. So being a curious guy, I skipped all the way to the last page. The last page had some ones I'd never seen before but didn't have any subtitles. All except for one though. An OVA called "Koibito no jikken". This one had some subtitles to go along with it but no description as to what I actually was. Deciding to bite the bullet, I copied the torrent link and got it downloaded to my external hard drive. Now I didn't really have any intention of going through with what the site wanted me to do so I deleted my account off of there and deleted the burner email in case they tried to get revenge or whatever. So with that done, I got to the Anime folder I downloaded the OVA to and looked at the thumbnail to see if I could get a clue as to what was in it. Only thing I could see was a silhouette of a woman walking down a dark hallway. It was hard to see much details from there but it still was a bit unnerving. But without further ado, I pressed play.

It began with crudely drawn yellow kanji on a black background, the subtitles underneath gave the title as "Lover's Experiment". After that it slowly transitioned into a montage of city shots of Shibuya at night. The title stayed on the screen as cars drove around, sweeping past them into apartment buildings and into their windows. Some people were watching television, others were having a meal. It eventually stopped at a window where the lights weren't on inside. It was a bedroom, the blinds halfway closed. The scene then went inside the bedroom, with a man and a woman in the bed. Smoke passed through the air as the man lit up a cigarette close to his face. The light showed off a worn out and dishevelled face, a stubble dotting his cheeks with heavy bags under his eyes. It was in a detailed art style, out of something from you'd see from Ninja Scroll or Neo Tokyo. The kind of film where the animators were allowed to do whatever they want with as much money as they need essentially. He looks the side of his girlfriend and she faces him. She has less wrinkles than he does, having the kind of face that looks pretty even without makeup. She wears a playful look as she cuddles him.

[Maki] I want to try something different for tonight. [Koichi] Mild or extreme? [Maki] ...It's fine if we do extreme today right? [Koichi] I thought we agreed that we'd do extreme once a week. We did extreme three days ago. [Maki] Sorry sorry, forget it... [Koichi] ...Fine, just don't make a mess.

Maki made a squeaky noise before pecking Koichi on the cheek, getting out of the bed and dressing herself up in some skimpy clothes. The boyfriend switches on a lamp to the side of him and follows after her, wearing nothing but some boxers and a shirt. He wanders into the bathroom and hugs Maki from behind, who gives him another kiss on the cheek.

[Maki] I think this is going to be a very good night for me. [Koichi] Why's that, because I'm doting all over you? [Maki] Hehehe, that is one reason. The other reason...is that I think you're starting to come around for these nights. [Koichi] Come around? Is that a fair statement to make? [Maki] I'd say so yeah, you're letting me break the rule today aren't you? [Koichi] True that may be, don't expect me to start joining in with your stuff anytime soon. [Maki] Of course not honey, I wouldn't force you to do anything you wouldn't want to do. Now come on, we'll need to get moving before the bar closes. [Koichi] The bar again? My co-workers tend to be there this night... [Maki] They'll never see me. I'll promise that. [Koichi] If you promise...alright let's get going.

Scene cuts to Koichi and Maki in a car, driving away from their apartment to a bar. The scene lingers on the driving part, letting the sights and general ambience of the city just take centre stage. Eventually though the two of them get to the bar, Maki walking in first as Koichi lights another cigarette. He stands by the front entrance and keeps tapping his foot as the ambience gets drowned out by his muttering.

[Koichi] It can't be helped. [Koichi] It can't be helped. [Koichi] It can't be helped.

Maki eventually comes back out holding the arm of a drunken salaryman. Koichi turns around briefly before looking back at the two of them from behind. He follows closely behind, overhearing the conversation.

[Salaryman] Ehh, are you sure this is the way to the hotel? [Maki] Not the exact way obviously but it's a good shortcut! [Salaryman] I see, I see...say, are you really going to do that thing with the-

Koichi looked away and focused his hearing attention on the cars driving by. A moment passes and the two in front head down an alleyway, Koichi pursuing. The sound cuts off at this point as Maki holds the Salaryman in a hug, looking slightly scared. The salaryman pats her on the head and drapes an arm around her back. Koichi takes out a pipe from his pocket and slowly starts to approach the couple. The camera takes a POV shot as he keeps walking down, the only sound being heard is his deep breathing. When he reaches the Salaryman, he pulls his arm back and bashes the pipe to the side of the man's head. He staggers and holds himself up against a wall, needing another hit to the head for him to sink down to the ground. It moves away from the POV shot as the two look at the unconscious man on the floor.

[Maki] I love you Koichi. [Koichi] I...I love you too, Maki.

It then cuts back to them at the apartment, Koichi resting down newspaper pages all over the floor and moving the bed on its side to a wall. He sets a chair down and then looks outside the window as Maki enters the room. The shot lingers on Koichi looking outside while Maki can be barely seen in the background placing a gag on the naked Salaryman's mouth and placing a paper bag over his head.

[Maki] Finished! Ready to see if he's pure. [Koichi] Take your time, no need to rush.

The camera then went back into the bedroom as Maki stood in front of the naked man who was tied to the chair by his arms and legs. The table next to her had an assortment of tools and weapons but she kept a hold of the simple scalpel for now. She pressed her ear against the man's chest and kept it there as she listened to his heartbeat, something I could hear at this point.

[Maki] Sounds like it's working...now to see how it looks.

The scalpel in her hand came back up as it shone in the moon light. Maki then wasted no time in stabbing the scalpel just below the collar bone and dragging it around the Salaryman's chest. She dug it in up and down, taking good care as to not stab too far deeply down. All the man could do in response was to screech past the gag and bag. Maki eventually cut off a chunk of skin, taking some muscle and deep tissue along with it due to not cutting it perfectly. She grabbed a flashlight from the table and shone it into his chest. The camera held onto a shot of the Salaryman's heart being in the center of the frame, Maki taking it upon herself to hold onto the ribs and pressing it down to get a closer look. After a while she backed away from the chest and clapped to herself as she giggled.

[Maki] Great news darling, he's a pure hearted man! [Koichi] That's good to hear. You need me to watch this part, right? [Maki] What would be the point of this if I wasn't spending time with my lover?

Koichi stubbed out his cigarette on the window sill and came to join Maki, glancing away to avoid giving himself a look of disgust at the sight before him. Taking a seat down behind him, he kept his eyes forward as Maki then took out a hammer and began to break the Salaryman's bones. His foot kept tapping on the ground as she kept bashing the hammer on his kneecaps. Shards of bone splintered out as the hammer moved onto his arms. It then got swapped out for nails as she dug them underneath the Salaryman's fingernails. Once she ran out of nails she grabbed a pestle from the table and smashed the fingernails as they were, blood splattering the floor close to Koichi. His hands clenched together as he kept watching.

[Koichi] It can't be helped. [Koichi] It can't be helped. [Koichi] It...can't be helped...

Maki then took out a power drill and drove it into the stomach of the Salaryman, letting it spin around inside as the screams turned into sobbing. She left the drill in there as she took out the metal pipe Koichi had earlier and smashed it against his legs. She continued to break the rest of his bones for another minute or so until she stopped and grabbed the knife from the table. Ripping out the drill, Maki then began to skin the Salaryman alive. He had become silent but his heart was still beating. The knife drifted and sliced off as much as it could before all that was left on the chair was a bloodied mess of a human being. Maki then turned to Koichi and smiled.

[Maki] I think you deserve to have some fun. [Koichi] ...What do you mean? [Maki] You can do the final blow. [Koichi] Maki, honey...w-we've already broken one rule today right? We don't need to break another. [Maki] But you understand this. I've never met anyone as special as you. You've yet to see that you've got the potential to be even greater than what you are now. We'll have to take this step eventually, why not rip the band aid off and do it now? [Koichi] I...okay. As you wish.

She handed him the hammer she used earlier and stood behind the man as she held onto his shoulders.

[Maki] Thank you for being a friend, Mr. Salaryman. [Koichi] ...It can't be helped... [Koichi] It...can't...be helped...

It got back to being a POV shot as Koichi struggled to raise the hammer above his head as he prepared himself to end the Salaryman's life.

[Maki] But before you do anything...I've got a surprise.

Before Koichi could respond, Maki tore off the paper bag and let Koichi look at the man's face. It was a middle aged man, same age range as Koichi. He wore broken glasses and his hair was a mess.

[Koichi] G...Gaku? [Maki] Surprise! It's your co-worker Gaku! After hearing your complaints about him yesterday, I couldn't help but feel as if some payback was needed. [Koichi] I...I complain every night about these people... [Maki] That's another surprise for you...we've been doing this to people you knew for a long time. I don't want your life to be filled with miserable people so...we got them out of your life. [Koichi] Why...why would you... [Maki] Because you're the love of my life. I wouldn't do this for anyone else- [Koichi] WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!? You cold hearted fuck, I complain about some grievance I have in my day to day life and you just make these awful decisions without me knowing? [Koichi] Do you know how much I've given up for us to be together? Any kind of social life with actual friends and family, I've left behind because of you. And you DO THIS TO ME? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Maki could only stare at Koichi as he screamed at her. Tears swelled up in her eyes before she started to openly sob, collapsing onto the ground.

[Maki] Koichi...I'm sorry Koichi...I've ruined everything...

She picked up the power drill from the table and held it to her temple.

[Koichi] W-wait calm down, we can talk this through. [Maki] We can't. I'm the problem in your life now...so I have to go. [Koichi] Don't you dare, please. I may have given up everything but...I can still have you... [Maki] But I'm awful. [Koichi] It's better than being alone. You can't let me be alone...so please just calm down...

Koichi tried to grab a hold of the power drill but Maki pulled the trigger and shoved the drill as far she could into her brain. She fell onto her side as she laid motionless on the ground having killed herself. Koichi himself was motionless as well as the camera panned away from the scene. A hard cut to black gave way to the ending of the OVA and thus the end of my experience with the anime.

Now ordinarily I would include a download link to the video in question so that you guys could see this but unfortunately my hard drive got fried from a virus that I got from some other torrent sites. It's going to be out of commission for a while and it'll be completely reset when it comes back so for now I don't have access to the video anymore. I'll be on the lookout for GURSCAPE and the download link but again, no promises. Especially after the trick I pulled on them to get that torrent link without doing what they wanted me to do. For now though, I hope my telling of the story will suffice and satisfy some of you guys who wanted to "see" something new and obscure. I'll hopefully be seeing you guys soon, we'll have to see though. Later.