MUSICAL

Prior to a screening of “The Obsessed,” director Takahashi Wataru highlighted what he saw as a lost sense of selflessness and sincerity in being loving to others. That notion colors undergirds the story of his quirky new film, an anime quasi-musical about a man named Giuseppe who throws himself into every “obsession” with myopic, all-consuming abandon. 

For example: The character’s interest in grasshoppers leads him to practice hopping, which then sees him become a professional triple-jumper. Each of these new hobbies, lifestyles, and professions are abandoned for the next the moment that inspiration strikes, as we see when Giuseppe leaves behind a burgeoning athletic career because he suddenly feels like being a private detective. And then a sculptor. And then a welder. And so on. Since his first passion is for singing, “The Obsessed” takes on the characteristics of a musical, as our hero expresses his mercurial feelings through song (much to the annoyance of his boss at the restaurant where he works). 

When Giuseppe turns his fleeting attention to a balloon seller named Pechka, his romantic obsession takes more of a philanthropic turn than anything else: He simply dedicates himself to making her life better in every way possible. Wataru and his team of artists depict this as an odyssey, one which takes Giuseppe to increasingly outrageous extremes as he does everything to please his crush short of actually spending time with her. 

The deliberately wonky, angular line-work of Arakawa Masatsugu’s character designs contrasts sharply with the film’s painterly backgrounds, which smudge together generic European geography with specific British architecture so that the Alps seem to exist just north of a town that visibly resembles London. The film’s stylized, childlike drawings not only reflect Giuseppe’s highly mutable nature, but also his innocence and naiveté as well. He can be an incredibly frustrating character to watch, even if sometimes by design; his excitability over new things can make him seem a bit tactless, and audiences can’t help but fear that his obsession with Pechka might disappear as fast as it materialized. Intentional or not, Sano Masaya’s voice performance in the lead role is sometimes a bit too breathless and whimsical for the material at hand.

Giuseppe understands how things work (and even how to communicate with mice, as his rodent friend Cielo sometimes occasionally narrates the film and rides around in Giuseppe’s hair a la “Ratatouille”), but he’s  fundamentally disconnected from the world around him. That disconnect can be traced across the character’s interactions Pechka. Algebraic symbols appear when she speaks, but her immediate and material needs are easy puzzles for Giuseppe to solve, whether that’s caring for her hospitalized mother or digging out of debt from the (ridiculous) gangster Mr. Twist, named for how much he likes that style of dance. 

Wataru’s has contributed to a dozen “Crayon Shinchan” feature films across nearly three decades at Shin-Ei Animation, and his experience with absurdist mayhem reveals itself in delightful ways throughout “The Obsessed.” His talent for such things is most clearly expressed through wild digressions, such as the inexplicably action-packed and technically impressive car chase sequence in which the aforementioned Mr Twist floors it across town in his fancy coupé. Sometimes, Wataru’s talents are displayed via small and silly little touches, like a hospital war where everyone is coughing at the same time. 

In any case, the film feels as excitingly changeable as its art style, something which pushes into more emotionally fraught territory during its last half hour. Giuseppe begins to take his attempts to fix everything too far as he tries to heal the old wound of a lost love, an effort that’s both selfless and self-centered in equal measure. It’s interesting that the peril of the film’s final stretch is almost entirely self-inflicted, which makes the occasional shrug around Giuseppe’s obsessions feel a little out of step with the rest of what would otherwise be a rather emotionally mature arc. Even so, the project’s visual craft keeps its surprisingly spiritual finale afloat. The background art, which is in flux throughout “The Obsessed”, moves further into abstraction as the once vaguely natural tones of buildings and landscapes are deconstructed into white lines on purple-tinged paintings. 

If only the music were able to keep pace with the dynamism of the film’s visual design. Unfortunately, the songs have a tendency to drift towards a very similar sound, which stands out in the context of a project where everything else is so imaginative. Still, there are bright spots in that score: Pechka’s final song brings things home, and leaves Wataru’s film on a high note. And, as with some of the conflicting writing around Giuseppe, it’s very easy to forgive any minor trespasses in “The Obsessed,” a film which flaunts its immense visual creativity at every turn, and finds something new to obsess over wherever Giuseppe happens to look.

Grade: B

“The Obsessed” screened at the 2025 Tokyo International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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