Gokurosama is a contemporary tale told in an understated slapstick style. The heroes of the story are people, animals and touchscreens. Life proceeds mechanically, as if on an escalator, to the beat of dinky music that evokes the adventures of Super Mario.
In the sleek and sophisticated set of the mall, things glitch and get blocked and stuck. Just ask the chiropractor! His job is to unlock stiff backs, but his own tools fall victim to the same problem: his folding chair can no longer be straightened out, his work table starts acting up, with parts popping out totally randomly, and his cabinet’s sliding door stops sliding.
In this ultra-technological world, the best-case scenario is that humans become mutants – either people equipped with a protrusion in the form of a screen, sometimes pocket-sized and sometimes giant-like, or creatures that could be described as half-man, half-animal (such as the huge monkey-men) or, simply, robots (the waitress clones). In other cases people simply become objects: the paralysed old lady turns up in the section for lost and found property, going round like luggage on an airport’s baggage carousel.
Seeing the decapitated monkey-man run after is head confirms that this is a world that could really make you lose your mind!
