Housing Complex C - Everything We Know
For many fans of anime in the United States, Cartoon Network's Toonami was probably their first introduction to the style of animation. Britannica notes that anime was originally inspired by dense manga comic books, which heavily influenced the style going forward. Surprisingly enough, the first successful anime studio was Mushi Productions in 1961, which was founded by Osamu Tezuka, a famous manga artist. Since then, the world has been filled with the likes of powerful heroes that can ascend to untold levels of skill, half-human vampire hunters, fantastic creatures that are contained within spheres, and goofy pirates that possess unique abilities. These examples are just a small sampling of the diverse offerings of anime, and the style of animation seems to only be limited by the imagination of creators.
As mentioned earlier, many Americans' first experience with anime was probably with Toonami, a special block of time segmented from the normal Cartoon Network and Adult Swim shows. Where Cartoon Network usually focuses on programming for children, and Adult Swim tends to focus on comedy, Toonami is all things anime. These days, Toonami typically takes over the Saturday night line-up with several hours of anime, which is usually a combination of already established shows and original series made specifically for Toonami, like "Fena: Pirate Princess" and the adaption of "Shenmue." Recently, Toonami released a new original show called "Housing Complex C," but what else do we know about the series?
What is the plot of Housing Complex C?
The plot of "Housing Complex C" follows Kimi Shirokado as she moves into a low-rent housing complex. Unfortunately, it appears as if there is something supernatural afoot with this collection of apartments, and soon the denizens of "Housing Complex C" are terrorized by extra-dimensional apparitions in the coastal town of Kurosaki. The real question is what does Kimi have to do with all of these happenings, and is she the cause of them, or the solution?
Speaking with Toonami Squad at Anime Expo 2022, Maki Terashima-Furuta spoke about what viewers may come to expect from this new series and said "It's a horror show but it's a miniseries, so there's only four episodes. And my goal, and I've been telling Jason this ever since we started producing 'Uzumaki' together, is to start a horror anime genre on Adult Swim." They continued, "I can't talk too much about the story because I don't want to spoil it, but when you see the video message [revealed at the panel], he talks a little bit about it. But it's really scary." Terashima-Furuta also brought up that "Housing Complex C" is partially inspired by Lovecraftian horror, so there is plenty of madness and insanity brought on by exposure to eldritch fiends.
Who is in the cast and who is involved with the production of Housing Complex C?
According to Animation World Network, the main character is a young girl known as Kimi, and there are several other characters involved in the limited mini-series. As noted by IMDb, Kimi Shirokado (Xanthe Huynh) is joined by Yuri Koshide (Kayli Mills), and the two characters quickly become friends. Rounding out the cast of characters is Yuri's father Seichi (Sean Chiplock), Yuri's mother Keiko (Suzie Yeung), Takashi Takamura (Jack Eberle), Kisou Kobayashi (Doug Stone), Kentaro Yoshii (Michael Sorich), Mitsuko Momochi (Caitlin Glass), Toshi Wada (Janis Carroll), and Kanchan Mia (Bob Carter). Considering the location and setting of "Housing Complex C," most of these characters are neighbors, travelers, or workers in the supposedly sleepy and quiet town.
Yuji Nara is the director of "Housing Complex C," the executive producer is Jason DeMarco from Warner Bros. Discovery, the video game developer known as "amphibian" is the writer, and the show is produced by Maki Terashima-Furuta for Production IG USA. The Japanese animation studio tapped for "Housing Complex C" is Akatsuki, which has been involved in shows like "The Promised Neverland," "Attack on Titan," and "FLCL Progressive." Needless to say, "Housing Complex C" certainly has a lot of great talent involved with its creation.
How many episodes are in Housing Complex C?
As reported by The Nerd Stash, "Housing Complex C" was released on October 2, 2022, at midnight EDT. This was a perfect time considering the subject matter of the show, as well as the typical start time of the Toonami block of television shows on Cartoon Network. We also know that "Housing Complex C" is a limited series, and only has four episodes in the television show. With that in mind, the story of "Housing Complex C" moves at a brisk pace and doesn't drag its proverbial feet like many other anime shows. No worries here that the show will needlessly spin its wheels to fill up airtime, and four episodes almost make a movie as opposed to a full-fledged television series. Either way, "Housing Complex C" has a definitive start and endgame in mind in terms of story and runtime.
What does the fan response look like for Housing Complex C?
As a horror anime, "Housing Complex C" might not be for everyone. The user ratings on IMDb put the show at a rating of 6.7 out of 10, with 41 people submitting reviews at the time of this writing. A good chunk of the user reviews places the show at a perfect 10, though there definitely is a varied spread of scores. However, despite this user-generated score, one user review said of the show, "The horror elements fail to impress, they're crudely drawn and actually make me laugh, there's no suspense, just a lot of little girls squealing and being obnoxious ... If you're not an anime fan this is definitely a hard pass, there's nothing of substance here."
There are more positive responses to "Housing Complex C" over on Reddit, like u/VilAlesund, who said that the show really nails the establishing shot of the series. u/Xenovia-the-Quadra offered a more nuanced review of the show. According to them, the positives of the show are its mysterious nature, the obvious inspiration of Lovecraftian elements, and that they absolutely love the intro song. The negatives, in their mind, are that the show jumps around chronologically and starts in the middle of a story, shows off a Deep One too soon, and that the show is only four episodes, which they felt the show really deserved at least 12 episodes. In other words, "Housing Complex C" is probably not for the casual viewer, and is more aimed at fans of the anime genre.
Is there a trailer for Housing Complex C?
Considering the fan response so far, the trailer for "Housing Complex C" is just as spooky and unsettling as one might expect. The trailer on YouTube starts off with idyllic images from the seaside town of Kurosaki, which includes scenes of lounging cats, the ocean back-lit with a colorful sunset, and people walking along a path. However, it becomes immediately apparent that something is wrong because a haunting tune is being played and there are slight imperfections in the trailer that resemble that of a VHS tape.
From there, the brief 20-second trailer goes on to display glowing rocks, extreme closeups, blood being poured on somebody, a red moon, crows, and a vortex. It is certainly a lot to unpack in just a brief amount of time, but as mentioned earlier, there are currently only four episodes in "Housing Complex C," so the trailer is probably brief so as to not spoil too much. One can definitely extrapolate the tone of the anime though, and it is definitely something that should check all of the boxes for fans of anime, horror, and horror-based anime.