Under-ART-ed

Chances are – you aren’t aware of Andrei Khrzhanovsky, Garri Bardin, Vladimir Tarasov or that There Lived Kozyavin , or the harsh truth they presented – unless you grew up in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, whilst many Disney animations lost their relevance in my life other than their obvious nostalgic worth, a weird turn of events exposed me to the lost world of Soviet animation and their ever-relevant messages as I near my legal drinking age. My first encounter with a soviet animation (stop motion), was a Facebook video, with the work’s crux dealing with the concept of miscommunication and man’s tendency to enforce one’s own understanding over another. However, if I were to try explaining the video with just my words to compensate for my inability to have retrieved the lost work, I’d just be confirming the video’s message more. Instead, I’ll thank it for having made me aware of the existence of old soviet animation, which led me down the journey of salvaging a sizeable number, if not...

It wasn’t a surprise to me when my social media newsfeed was teeming with people elated about Ghibli films finally finding a place on Netflix to stay, whilst Dorohedoro – well, whilst it stayed lost somewhere in the dark, nowhere to be heard of on any Facebook posts, or anywhere in the many anime forums that I’m a part of. The only thing that got my attention was one of those small promotion windows that one views when already on the Netflix site – with the image of a slaughtered head lying on the grass with open eyes and mushrooms sprouting out of it. Sadly, I haven’t managed to find the frame anywhere on the internet, so just my words will have to do for now - but you get me by now, I believe. As a matter of fact, this is where I think, Dorohedoro’s magic lies – in making the grim so appealing. The series itself is based in a fantasy world with sorcerers and humans living in different environments with an obvious conflict of interest, as the central character – a person with a liza...