When I first saw that title, Psycho Diver, I immediately had a vision. A vision of an eighties splatter movie featuring the ghost of Jacques Cousteau pursuing Captain Birdseye and his teenage friends around an abandoned ship in the middle of fuck-knows-where. Unfortunately – well, you may think it’s very fortunate – it’s not.
Psycho Diver is an anime flick based on the novel Mashobosatsu by Baku Yumemakura (err… haven’t read it!) about a young pop star, Yuki, whose career is in danger after a bunch of crazed religious fanatics have started fucking with her career. No, this isn’t the return of the PMRC! It’s actually a cult Yuki has joined, fronted by her mother, who, for some reason, are causing her to slip into trances, and her managers need this sorting out fast.
Enter Bosujima. He’s a Psycho Diver. In case you didn’t know what that means, and there’s absolutely no reason why you should, a Psycho Diver is a psychic employed to “dive” into a person’s subconscious and sort out their mental health problems. Look at it this way: Before the opening credits have even come on, one of Bosujima’s fellow Psycho Divers has exploded all over the screen. Scanners In Tokyo perhaps?
Although he’s a Psycho Diver, Bosujima is more of a Private Dick ( I should think so too! Doesn’t anyone remember modesty?), as is apparent by his old-school gumshoe voiceover that runs throughout the flick – a nice touch I thought, although his voice at times sounds a bit like some LA gangsta rapper. Psycho Diver’s also exciting, with a lot crammed into its pretty short running time (just over 45 mins); my favourite scene is a high-speed car-vs.-truck duel on the freeway – the stuff white-knuckles are made of. There’s kaleidoscopic trip scenes too, good ones that don’t feature goblins and talking animals, which are nice for pillheads and acid causalities alike. Other than that, all the usual anime clichés are here; tough guys, fit birds with big eyes, fighting, bloodshed, and even some ace Japanese pop music (by a band called Garden) – although I get the impression it’s been Westernised a little. Oh well. What more can I say, except: It’s good.
