Gleipnir’s first episode pings between being a fascinating psychological thriller and a creepy erotic comedy. It starts weird and only gets weirder.
Plot summary
Shuichi has a secret: that, for some unknown reason, he’s suddenly able to transform into a monster. He also has… urges. Dead animals, girls, danger. He can sense them all, intensely so, and has trouble resisting them.
Is the Gleipnir anime any good?
Before seeing this, I must admit I’d picked up the odd murmuring that Gleipnir starts weird and only gets weirder. This first episode pings between being a fascinating psychological thriller and a creepy erotic comedy. It has the “boy getting caught staring at a girl’s panties scene” that’s been repeated in anime ad infinitum, but then also has the classic “adrenaline-fueled giant teddy bear on the verge of sexually assaulting a girl” scene. A girl that later turns out to be something of a suicidal psychopath. Yup. Where this is all headed is anyone’s guess, but since I’m partial to a messy sexual apocalypse, let’s see how far Gleipnir dares to go.
Stray notes on Gleipnir
- I couldn’t help but compare Gleipnir to Flowers of Evil (Aku no Hana). Claire dominates Shuichi like Nakamura does Kasuga, exploiting both his lust and his shame to bend him to her will. The secret they share, that he nearly raped her, is akin to Nakamura catching Kasuga stealing girls’ gym clothes. From this point on, just as in Flowers of Evil, she can break him down, right to his very core.
- The word “Gleipnir” is from Norse mythology: it is the chain that binds “the mighty wolf Fenrir”. Who is Gleipnir in this story? Considering how Claire dominates Shuichi, I suppose it’s her, with him cast as Fenrir.
- After Interspecies Reviewers was pulled from streaming last season, you would’ve thought that Funimation had had enough of such risque, sexually charged anime?
What did you think of Gleipnir‘s first episode? Anime doesn’t get much stranger than this, does it?