In relatively recent times certain gentlemen of the blogging persuasion have turned their minds to the question of studio identities. Now, having just dropped Gainax’s increasingly mediocre Shikabane Hime adaptation, and knowing my inability to describe Manglobe’s Michiko to Hatchin without recourse to hyperbole, it seems obvious to turn (for a current example of studio-identity-in-action) to Madhouse’s latest murk-fest, Kurozuka.

Madhouse’s gothic dalliances can’t really be read as part of some dominant approach uniting all their work (I mean… Kaiba), but it’s still notable that in Death Note, Shigurui, Claymore, and Kurozuka (and maybe others I don’t know about) they’ve repeatedly used a highly similar palette. These shows are dominated by bleached out faces and dark corners, illuminated by bursts of rich colour. The direction in these shows differs a great deal, but always uses strong variations in pace and movement.

The obvious exception in the list I just provided is Death Note, because it uses these same forceful presentational devices in a manner which is frankly hilarious. The others strive for horror through violence, Death Note seeks a triumphalist edge. The fact that it does this is notable in that it does so using many of the same tools which prove so disturbing in the other series.

If we compare the use of Madhouse’s trademark colour burst we see that the bright red blood of Claymore and Shigurui and the hallucinatory insanity of Kuro’s killing rage is mirrored, in Death Note, in camply deranged glowing-eyes. The fact that the more serious-business series don’t end up falling accidentally into the glee Death Note inspires shows the importance of two things in these gothic horror series – relative restraint and finely judged music.

Restraint in Kurozuka? Well, here and there. Shigurui is an example of deadened tone and stark presentation which lies at the opposite end of the camp spectrum to the megalomaniac adventures of Yagami Light. Along with Claymore, Kurozuka tries to play a balancing act between inaction and excitement. At moments it will pull out those long tense pauses, or challenge us with its grim vision of the future. But it’s only ever a breath away from obese bullet-time assassins and mid-air acrobatics. Restraint is used intermittently. Since the plot jumps around ceaselessly, this can prove quite disjointed and unsatisfactory.

The series has to preserve a tone which is at once capable of old-school nosferatu narrative, uneventful urban misery, and absurd awesome vampire kicks. It has to balance things without a coherent narrative to bridge the gaps. The plot is there to provide mystery, not glue. Claymore could move organically from personal crises to glorious swordy fun within the confines of a logical narrative – Kurozuka cannot.

There’s a definite disjunction between the fun and the sickening in this series. In episode 6 the bad guys massacred their opponent in revoltingly lurid and sadistic scenes, which seem to invite the applause of gorehounds the same why Shigurui did. Yet the grand finale to the same episode was a fight scene straight from the heartland of fun. Lashing cables chasing our hero as he flipped and somersaulted around a comic-book villain. There was no sickly splattering blood or vile crunch of bone. There was a creepy monster and a great action scene. We went from deploring killing to revelling in it.

Contradictions like this are why it matters so much that it is Madhouse at the helm. Because they’re one of the studios who bring us into the scene by lavishing attention on the little details. And it’s things like lighting, on-screen composition, and (vitally) the music, which have to take the pressure of immersion off that stubbornly allovertheplace mystery tale.

Like Claymore and Death Note, Kurozuka gives us a crunching and dark edged OP. Like Claymore it scores its action scenes with rhythmic rock from the same school – generally keeping the song firmly in the background, as our minds are occupied by fast moving action. Industrially gruff guitars and an obsession with light and darkness define the feel of the series.

So this is our dystopia – drawn in much less cold colours than the Japanese past of Shigurui. A world of dark-tinged electric guitars and civilian massacres. In looking closely at the setting I’ve got to turn to the mangaka with a certain distaste. His creation is near-farcical in its bluntness. A construct of nuclear bombs, quickly evoked post-war recovery, identikit military villains, dull ghetto streets. It’s a singularly unoriginal nightmare, which has been fortunate to receive such professional realisation.

The fundamental strength of the story is in scope rather than imagination. The vampiric conceits are intriguing just the central love story is stunning, because they are outrageous. After this vast journey through time and place and bonkers plot-fu the dystopian gothic we end up with seems unfittingly generic. There’s a feeling of having walked in on an epic tale at precisely the point where it disintegrates into the dream-pillage of a bloodthirsty sci-fi geek. We even got one of those muscle-growing, body-morphing, human flesh blob, scenes. Boring things like that can really break the mood.

Which is why I care so much that it’s Madhouse at the helm. Because for all that Kurozuka seems most interesting when Kuromitsu takes over from Kuro’s stoic killing sprees, and in spite of the fact that show is much more effective in it’s silly excesses than its dystopian pretensions, their role in this series is all about elevating a weak setting and making it effective. Their distinct approach to presenting the gothic is more important than the actual story.

This is but the latest entry in the annals of Madhouse Gothic. A series of serious manga adaptations which bring to the original manga stories a fullness of shadow and texture and sound. Which use superb production to try to elevate the darkness of the page into something more visceral. Kurozuka is potentially rather good seinen stuck in a bankrupt dystopia, with Madhouse covering it up with recourse to their full bag of tricks.