The anime version of Pet Shop of Horrors includes only a few stories from the manga, and one of the episodes seems to stand out in a very strange way.
Pet Shop of Horrors is, in its essence, a moralizing series. It takes place in the US where a small pet shop trades in all sorts of strange creatures. These creatures seem to be custom-made to punish the people who commit different types of crimes or mistakes. Of course, there are exceptions, and every story stands out on its own. However, the last episode made us scratch our heads the most.
We will try to spoil the anime as little as possible, but not spoiling it here is difficult. So if you want to avoid spoilers, you have been warned.
Four episodes were included in this 1998 series. The first two episodes are moralizing; in them, people come to the titular pet shop and get what they want but under a few conditions. They agree to the conditions and then proceed to break them, which leads to horrible outcomes.
In the first episode, a couple, who had recently lost their daughter to addiction, are sold a living, breathing copy of that daughter by the pet shop. The parents are too used to giving their daughter what she wants, for example, drugs. In the end, they do not keep the rule of not feeding her anything other than vegetables. They end up feeding her cookies, and it ends horribly for them, as the "daughter" they had acquired from the pet shop was actually a… rather dangerous animal, let us leave it at that.
In this case, the moral is quite clear: parents lost their daughter because they could not refuse her anything, even things that were bad for her.
Once they treat the acquired second "daughter" the same way, they show that they have not learned the lesson and are punished for that. This is what moralizing stories do.
The second episode is similar. After the death of his fiancée, who was also a popular idol, her manager buys from the pet shop what appears to be a mermaid, who looks remarkably like the idol. He becomes abnormally attached to the mermaid, and it soon turns out that he was actually complicit in killing the idol. In the end, let us just say, he forgets to feed the mermaid. This story is a little less purposively crafted; there is little moral aside from not killing and needing to remember to feed your mermaid. But it is still moralistic in nature, and the people who are at fault are punished.
In the third episode, things change up. It is harsh and deals with depression, and there is little to no moralizing, just a lot of pain. But a rule does get broken, and the punishment, however desired, takes place. It is a beautiful episode dealing with complex feelings, but it does not confuse us the way the final episode does.
Indeed, the fourth episode is strange in unexpected ways. In it, no rules are broken because the main characters purchase a very special supernatural being. It is Kirin, which is a creature from Chinese Mythology that is connected to rulers.
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In the anime, the ruler-to-be is actually neither of the buyers; it is Nancy, the wife of one of the buyers, Roger. Roger comes from a long line of politicians and is hoping to become a president soon. He is doing little for that, and his friend and assistant Kelly does all the work. At the same time, Roger's wife does not seem to be interested in being the First Lady; all she wants is a white picket fence and children.
Kirin works in mysterious ways, though, and that includes taking the consciousness of Kelly, who also seems to have a crush on Nancy, and placing it into Roger's body. The two men end up in a car accident, and Kirin lets Roger die. Kelly, though, remains alive within Roger's body, possibly because he seems to have true feelings for Roger's wife, who is the person Kirin probably serves. The story ends with Kelly, who Nancy believes is Roger, promising Nancy children and a nice White House.
Kelly does not seem like a bad person, and you might argue that Roger was punished for not caring enough about his wife. Even though he did not break a rule, he was hardly a nice person. But we ask, why is nobody worrying that Nancy is now married to a completely different man and does not even know it?
This episode boggles our minds. It is not moralizing, and even though it is probably supposed to be disturbing, the ending does not seem to suggest that Kelly is about to disclose his identity to Nancy. That is why this episode is so different and strange.
In the end, Pet Shop of Horrors is a good anime for those who love the bizarre and the horrific. It tackles different themes, including very mature ones, and it also has its fair share of comedy. But sometimes it gets a little too strange. Specifically, in its last episode.