Roots Search

The 80s OVA boom really was the gift that kept on giving. Wow! All original animation straight to your home on VHS! What could possibly go wrong? A lot, actually. For every Angel’s Egg, there was a Psychic Wars. For every Gunbuster, an Angel Cop. And for every Record of Lodoss War, there was a Roots Search. Roots Search, or Roots Search: Shokushin Buttai X (“Life-Devouring Alien X”) is the stuff of legends. A primo bad anime. The stuff only talked about in hushed tones lest you invoke its unholy wrath. While there were no doubt bigger turds out on the market at the time, there’sjust something about this 43 minute one-shot that draws people in with its crap factor. By all accounts, it should’ve been completely forgotten about, and for a while - it was. Nobody knew or gave a damn about this for a good 20 years until Justin Sevakis of Anime News Network dredged it back into the public consciousness for his Buried Garbage series. From then on, it went from just another crappy mid 80s OVA to one of the titans of bad direct-to-video anime. And considering the competition, that’s saying a lot. The story focuses on Moira (Keiko Han), a young woman currently working aboard an ESP research station with her colleagues Scott (Kaneto Shiozawa), Norman (Banjō Ginga) and Marcus (Osamu Kobayashi). Moria appears to have some kind of precognitive ability that lets her see into the future, but this doesn’t do her many favors as all she can see are the gruesome deaths of her three shipmates (by the way, the space station is absolutely huge, yet there’s only four people on board?). During a routine checkup, a mysterious ship called the Green Planet suddenly warps into the station’s sector. Moira and Scott form a search party, only to find the crew massacred, the only survivor being the enigmatic Buzz (Kenyu Horiuchi). As they move the unconscious man back to their station, the crew uncover a cardboard cutout looking alien with a vagina mouth sealed in the medical bay. From that point on, all hell breaks loose. If the story sounds familiar to you, it probably is. The concept of a crew of astronauts coming across a psychotic alien killing machine that slowly picks them off is as basic as you can possibly get for a sci-fi horror story. It’s an idea that has been done to death and for the first half of the anime, Roots Search doesn’t exactly bring much to the table, outside some unintentional comedy and incoherent pacing. To give an example - mere seconds after ordering the specimen be fired into space, Marcus returns to his room only to be psychologically attacked by the alien as it dredges up his deepest fear: his old boss! The alien then fires a bunch of stone pillars at Marcus, goring the shit out of him and turning him into a human dartboard. Upon discovering his eviscerated corpse, Moira and Scott don’t seem terribly fussed. In fact, Moira seems more interested in the newly awakened Buzz; getting all doe eyed and airheaded upon spotting him peering around the corner, ignoring the mangled body stapled to the ceiling. After that, Marcus is never mentioned again and the next scene sees Moira waxing philosophical about the nature of God and humanity while Scott tries to put the moves on her. Therein lies the problem with Roots Search - Its script is so disjointed and bizarre that any attempts at horror or building tension typically fall totally flat. That’s all thanks to a combination of the strange faux-religious existentialist dialogue, awkward exposition and incredibly odd character interactions. Every time it seems like something scary or interesting is about to happen, the OVA will undercut it with some laughable dialogue or throw a curveball at you, usually involving Moira’s ESP powers which somehow lets her and Buzz fall madly in love despite only knowing each other for an hour and a half max. I will admit that there are a few moments that are actually somewhat effective. The flashbacks to what happened aboard the Green Planet, while brief, have a fairly tense and ominous atmosphere to them, mainly thanks to the heavy usage of shadows and bold coloring. The sequence where Scott is tormented by the spirit of his deceased lover Katherine, complete with bathtub suicide, is also quite creepy. Unfortunately, any genuine tension that is built up quickly goes down the drain when the Alien stops mindfucking the crew and instead turns into a big pile of writhing tentacles that try to take over the ship. At that point, the psychological horror aspect vanishes completely, and the OVA turns into a generic sci-fi action romp as Buzz and Moira attempt to trigger the self-destruct system and escape. This all coalesces into an ending that… happens. Yeah, the OVA just sort of stops and shrugs its shoulders before cutting to the credits; smooth jazz ballad accompaniment and all. Resolutions? Character arcs? Who needs ‘em. It’s fairly obvious Roots Search (why is it called that, by the way?) had a low budget. Allegedly most of its limited funding came from the yakuza, of all places, one of the few truly interesting things about this short. The art style is simple and generic, dare I even say ill-fitting. There’s an almost cuteness to it that feels completely out of place next to the whole cosmic horror sci-fi psychodrama shit, making the graphic violence and body horror stick out even more (especially when it’s not that well animated in the first place). Animation is stiff and janky, with it really falling apart in the final 10 minutes. The titular Alien X itself is also a true sight to behold, looking less like a terrifying alien monster and more like a melting candle. The animators seemed to realize this too, as its physical form is quickly done away with and replaced with this Lovecraftian mass of flesh and bone that honestly isn’t much better. More creative, sure, but it’s still pretty goofy. Speaking of Lovecraft and cosmic horror, that’s one thing I have to give Roots Search some props for. The alien itself is a character in its own right instead of being a silent killer that exists purely to slaughter the crew. Its motivations stretch far beyond the typical “kill/eat/breed” operandi of these sort of villains, even if the reveal of just what it is could’ve been handled better. But beggars can’t be choosers. You have to take what you can get. There’s not really much else to say about Roots Search. It’s your typical shitty OVA that lined the shelves in the 80s, destined to rot in the bargain bin. I have to wonder why it even received a western release to begin with, courtesy of Central Park Media. Then again, given some of the dogshit they used to foster onto consumers, it seems right up their alley. Despite its reputation, I wouldn’t say it’s as comically horrible as some other stuff on the market at the time. Definitely not “worst anime ever made” stuff, even if it does suck. Roots Search is definitely of a low quality, but there’s worse out there, and amongst the poor animation and nonsensical script, there are one or two cool ideas that are worth exploring. But guess what? You don’t even have to watch Roots Search to see them done better! For some reason the movie Event Horizon is strangely similar to this silly piece of shit. Religious imagery and references, a demonic alien force using the crew’s worst fears to drive them mad, an abandoned ship where the crew all killed each other, bathtub related suicides, airlock deaths. It’s near one-to-one in some cases. Probably a coincidence, but it would be pretty funny if Paul Anderson and EH writer Philip Eisner actually stole a bunch of ideas from some dumb horror anime for their movie. Anyway just watch that instead of this. It’s much better. Roots Search is owned by Nippon Columbia. It was licensed by Central Park Media but has gone long out of print and will likely never see another release.