LE PORTRAIT DE PETITE COSSETTE: ART, OBSESSION, AND GOTHIC LOLITA

BLAKE MORRISON - Writer, 3rd Year, English and Japanese

"Sorry Akiyuki Shinbo, but no amount of your patented extreme close-up and dutch angle shots with added head tilt can save Mayori Sekijima’s shoddy script"

SPOILERS FOR LE PORTRAIT DE PETITE COSSETTE

Published in 1764, The Castle of Otranto by Henry Walpole is generally considered to be the first Gothic novel and was even identified as such by Walpole himself with the subtitle “A Gothic Story” that he appended to the novel’s second edition. However, the use of “gothic” as a stylistic marker did not originate in literature but rather in the 17th century as a term for non-classical/medieval architecture. Going back even further, the original denotation of “gothic” was simply “Of, pertaining to, or concerned with the Goths or their language.” Of course, most people don’t think of the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, or the fall of the Roman Empire when they hear “gothic” in this day and age. To us, “gothic” is a stylistic term first and foremost, whether for architecture, clothing, music, or stories. Centuries after the architectural and literary meanings of “gothic” came into currency, the term “gothic lolita” was coined to describe the gothic variety of Victorian-inspired frilly dresses called “lolita” fashion that became popular in Japan in the 80s and 90s (the relation to Vladimir Nabokov’s novel isn’t supposed to be direct, thankfully). This brings us to Le Portrait de Petite Cossette, also known as Cossette no Shouzou, often described as a gothic horror anime but is better described as a gothic lolita horror anime. Cossette no Shouzou is three episode original OVA released in 2004 that was produced by the now defunct studio Daume, directed by Akiyuki Shinbo, best known for directing the Monogatari series, and written by Mayori Sekiji, best known for writing the scripts of quite a lot of anime that aren’t that well known (but he did write the scripts for three Initial D movies in the 2010s). I can’t comment on Sekiji’s recent writing as I haven’t seen anything he’s written other than Cossette, but even Shinbo’s idiosyncratic directing style that is always at least cool to look at even if a bit affected at times could not save the overly expository dialogue and thinly developed characters of Cossette no Shouzou

Cossette no Shouzou is a gothic horror anime that isn’t nearly as horrifying as it is interesting to look at. Although there are plenty of interesting shots in all of Cossette’s three episodes which make for an engrossing atmosphere, the intrigue of the story largely wears off after the first episode, which basically explains the broad strokes of the plot that the next two episodes rehash. To recap, Cossette is about an incredibly dull fine arts major, Eiri Kurahashi, who works at an antique store and one day discovers an ornate glass through which he can see a girl invariably dressed in gothic lolita fashion, the titular Cossette. Eiri ends up repeatedly drawing this girl that only he can see, becoming more and more obsessed with her. Given that Eiri is the main character of the story even if Cossette is its poster-portrait girl, I expected the story to delve deeper into Eiri’s psychology. Unfortunately, Sekiji’s script doesn’t delve into much other than the standard artist’s dilemma of the anxiety of influence and the implication that Eiri’s artistic obsessions leave him romantically and sexually repressed in his relationships to the women around him, of whom there are surprisingly quite a few who are clearly interested in him. Eiri eventually discovers a portrait of Cossette and has a supernatural vision in which her spirit reveals that he is the reincarnation of Marcello Orlando, the man who murdered her who was also her fiance and the one who painted that portrait of her. Eiri unwittingly agrees to let Cossette’s evidently vengeful spirit exact revenge against him, a revenge which takes place over several drawn out surrealist dream sequences filled with gloomy churches, skeletons, crucifixions, and other familiarly gothic imagery along with hilariously excessive amount of blood. Although I didn’t enjoy this anime, I have to admit that the supernatural premise and visuals of Cossette fit nicely in the gothic tradition that The Castle of Otranto began with a giant helmet that appears out of nowhere to crush an aging lord’s only son. The hallmark of gothic narrative, which is practically synonymous with gothic horror, is the inexplicable, the supernatural, but Cossette makes the fatal error of revealing most of its supernatural elements in its first episode and dedicating far too much of its following run-time to Cossette exposition dumping, explaining clearly and monotonously what has already been implied by the visual storytelling. Cossette coming to the “genius” revelation that Eiri isn’t actually responsible for her death after he has repeatedly said this very thing to her without eliciting any reaction from her was a particular low point in the writing.

Admittedly, I found the ending of Cossette somewhat satisfying. The reveal that the apparition of Cossette haunting Eiri is not the spirit of the person herself but of the portraits that Marcello did of her and Eiri’s subsequent decision to destroy the portraits of her both felt uncontrived and fittingly climactic, although I would have preferred these developments to have occurred earlier in the story, which would have cut out much of the needless rehashing of how tragic Cossette’s backstory is that the second and third episodes indulge in. Even if Eiri is a paper-thin character who can be summarized as “young artist obsessed with the portraits of a gothic lolita girl,” his resolution to break out from under the shadow of the art that has obsessed him is a compelling metaphor for any artist struggling with their influences. But by the time Cossette reaches this compelling albeit predictable thesis, it’s already over. I won’t deny that the visual direction by Akiyuki Shinbou is stellar. I particularly enjoyed the use of tracking shots and the effort put into the animation of objects, backgrounds, and odd perspective shifts even if the character animation was usually either stiff or completely absent sans the mouth-flaps. Mayori Sekijima’s script, however, needed several more drafts in order to do the visuals justice. In particular, further exploration of Eiri’s pathologies that lead to his obsession with Cossette in the first place would have easily elevated the script. People who are really into the gothic horror aesthetic or Akiyuki Shinbou’s directorial style will enjoy this anime much more than I did, but for me the lackluster writing holds it back from being another original anime whose abundance of style fails to hide its dearth of substance.