The opening text crawl of Koji Morimoto's ETERNAL FAMILY tells us about six strangers who have been gathered together, had their memories erased, and convinced they are a family. The reason? Science, natch. But in order to pay for the experiment's operating costs, the scientists sell the surreptitiously recorded footage of the fake fam to a television broadcasting company. The ensuing reality series is a huge hit, and these six deeply disturbed people become stars ignorant of their own celebrity.Ben is the father; he is an actor by trade and the only family member who has not been brainwashed. Working for the broadcasting company, he carries around a blow-up doll with a hidden camera installed in its gaping mouth. A-ko, the mother, suffers from constipation, an affliction that will contribute heavily to the incident that sets the story in motion. Akiko is the elder daughter; she is a pyromaniac divorcée looking for love. Sasuke is the oldest son; he's a graffiti artist that huffs paint fumes and occasionally fires his machine gun. Sae, the younger daughter, speaks through a hand puppet. Michael is a baby; he's always carrying a pair of scissors. A dog named Tamasaburo and a chicken are the titular family's pets.One day, after a bad bout of constipation, A-ko causes a plumbing disaster that releases her and the rest of her family into the "real world." The broadcasting company pulls out all the stops and offers a whopping 200 million yen per family member to whomever can find them. On their brief journey, the unknowing prisoners learn of their renown just before being captured and returned to a state of tabula rasa. In the final moments of the series, Tamasaburo helps his family escape the brainwashing machine. Ben gets fired over this and begins searching for these five strangers he now calls family.In retrospect, ETERNAL FAMILY appears to have been much more prescient than a 1997 audience might have expected. Debuting a year ahead of Peter Weir's THE TRUMAN SHOW and right on the precipice of the reality TV boom of the late 90s, the series seems to understand the morbid curiosity with which TV watchers consume this most cynical of genres. The extreme propensities that each of the family members possess is an apt satire of similar casting choices in shows where the point seems to be "put these people in a confined space and watch them implode." Mercifully, Morimoto's story isn't quite as contemptuous as this. Ben's final actions cement a much more uplifting sentiment: that family doesn't necessarily mean blood.The animation is pretty wacky — a visual cousin of works like Hiroyuki Imaishi's 2004 film DEAD LEAVES. A noticeably lacking budget leaves everything a little on the sloppy side, but the art direction by Hiroshi Kato manages to hide the brunt of these issues. The music is all over the place — from barely-there to bombastic, rhythmic action supplements — but nothing about it is very memorable.In 1997, Studio 4˚C began releasing ETERNAL FAMILY in 53 30-second installments, and the episodes were collected for a DVD release in 2004. I know I've been calling it a series, which it is, but watching it compiled feels much more like a filmic experience. The 30-second segment serial is an experimental format, and just like in the scientific world, experiments can fail. In this case, the format's victim is undoubtedly the story's pacing. The need to have something "happen" in each segment makes the whole thing feel choppy and needlessly breakneck when watched uninterrupted. The limited runtime leaves little room for dialogue, therefore necessary exposition doesn't come across naturally — or at all. I imagine the expository text crawl was a late-game addition when someone on the production crew realized that the thing didn't make any damn sense. These problems really did a number on my viewing experience, and although it wants to be, ETERNAL FAMILY isn't a lot of fun to watch. The total runtime clocks in at just under 30 minutes, so you won't have to put up with it long.Koji Morimoto's ETERNAL FAMILY is violent, misanthropic, and darkly prophetic. Despite this, it manages to strike a sympathetic chord in its final frames. However, its limitations — both involuntary and self- imposed — encumber its potential for success.

I didn't know about the whole 53 segment publicity spot thing, that changes my view of the movie a little, but I'll stick to my original impression here.Alright, this movie isn't going to appeal to everyone, but it could, if you gave it some time and thought. I'm a big fan of Studio 4C, I think they are one of the most original and creative studio's out there, and their efforts are helping keeping this downtrodden medium alive and vibrant. It's definitely an artist's company, which to me means that first and foremost it has to be interesting and genuine to the creator, and we have the privilege of being along for the ride. Even if some works just seem like exercises in randomness, the amount of effort and thought put into making the piece happen should make people think a little deeper about what they saw (it's obviously not for the money). That being said, the fact that this is an Original Video Animation (OVA) and not a feature film is an indication that what we are in for is more along the veins of a thought exercise/whimsy/what-if? than a full-fledged story would be. It's less accessible and takes more effort, and it may not be "worth it" in the sense of catharsis or moral lesson, but you'll always get an interesting train of thought out of it.So onto the OVA. I won't ruin it for you, but you have to know the premise to watch the movie, and they even include a text blurb in the beginning which tells you what is happening. The concept is that several "social dropouts" are brainwashed into thinking they're a family and made to live together as an experiment, isolated from the rest of the world. Their lives are filmed, and made into a TV show, which everyone watches and it's a huge success, until there is an error and they escape.The movie is very surreal, unnerving things are happening left and right but no one even blinks, it's all part of the flow, and we are just confusedly watching. It's best to take it in 30 seconds at a time instead of as a continuous narrative, and they even give you a little time to figure in each new piece into the puzzle, with brief images of cogs. That's a fairly obvious motif, but I figure I'll mention it anyway. If you look at it like that, then it'll seem less like a weird but pretty visual collage, and you'll see the threads of a story. Not everything has meaning, a lot of it is just a backdrop to help articulate the characters, their problems, and how they deal. The clips get more cohesive as the story progresses, but it's not linear, so you have to pay attention.In short, though I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for Studio 4C animation, it is still a vivid and energetic little film worth your time. Even if you take away the eye candy and narrative trickery, there is a fun story to be found. As a one-time watch it can be a little frustrating, it get's really fast paced and some times the editing is too choppy. I think if I could contextualize it better, then maybe I could fill in a few holes, because some parts of it seem to be things that only a Japanese person would get, especially the strange system of logographic (kanji/Chinese lettering) puns. Well, hope that's helpful, enjoy it, and post your thoughts here.

Eternal Family (Eikyû Kazoku) is another extremely original and underrated work from Studio 4 c and Kôji Morimoto, creator of one of the best anime of all time, Mindgame and animator on several important anime works of past years (Animatrix Beyond, Akira, Kamui, Cobra, Ghibli Kiki. This work is composed of 53 little totally crazy clips originally produced for TV publicity spot. The Plot (if there is one): a brain-washed family live in a micro-society totally cut from the world: in a word, mad characters, speaking chickens, dancing frogs and most of all an incredibly beautiful, dynamic and original animation work: you'll never see other anime like this.PURE MADNESS.