Fantasia Review: Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack (2012)

This is a film where you need an audience with you to watch it because otherwise it can become a bit of an almost painful experience.

Gyo is based off a manga by one of the most famous horror managakas out there, Junji Ito. This is the first of his works to be animated, and so enough hype did surround it. It's all about disease carrying fish who leave the water by walking on land with their robotic legs. At a runtime of only 70 minutes, the story never takes a breather, and instead jumps right into a disgustingly horrid tale.


As horrors go, this film definitely falls flat. It's hard to be in fear when a shark try to break through your door because rather than being scared, you can't help but want to laugh. Also, rather than go down the conventional scare tactic road, this film chose to go down simply a gruesome and revolting one. To give an example of that, naked blown up bodies that fart a lot with a tube up their but is just one of the things Gyo has to offer.

This anime also tried to offer a romance story along with its fish apocalypse, and this part actually took on an important part to the story. It was just a generic romance about a fiancé who would be stopped by no fish for the man she loved!

A few other characters made the cast as well, but due to time constraints, you don't get much of a sense of who they are. For the little that the film does offer on the characters, they're actually an extremely unlike able bunch. On one hand, you had a character who may was being teased by her "friend" because of her looks, and I expected maybe the story could have done something more with that, but her character ended up having the complete opposite of a redeeming moment. Along with her, there was another character who just liked to have sex all the time. I didn't care for either, not that I really needed to.

Anyway, when I described this film as one that needs an audience, it's because it's less of a horror and more of a campy film that can provide some laughs, in all honesty. It's revolting in every which way, complete with even some potential tentacle rape to put the cherry on top of the fish gut ice cream. Within the time this film ran for, it didn't offer much at all. If you can find a group of friends who want a laugh or you just love to put how disgusted you can get to the test, then sit back, keep your expectations low and enjoy what little this film has to offer.