‘Memories: Stink Bomb’: the funniest moment in anime history
The medium of anime has primarily detailed fantastical or science-fiction worlds with either the utmost seriousness or cutesy charm. One facet of entertainment that has often fallen by the wayside with anime, though, is comedy. While anime films certainly have their humorous moments, it’s a rarity that they are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.
Queue the 1995 science fiction anime Memories, executive produced by Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo. The film is made up of three short pieces: ‘Magnetic Rose’, directed by Koji Morimoto and written by Perfect Blue’s Satoshi Kon, ‘Stink Bomb’, directed by Tensai Okamura and written by Otomo, and ‘Cannon Fodder’, written and directed by Otomo himself.
Both ‘Magnetic Rose’ and ‘Cannon Fodder’ toy with existential themes with a seriousness that’s often attributed to anime itself, with the former providing a narrative of space-faring multiverse possibilities and the latter serving as an examination of the fickle and biased nature of warfare.
However, sandwiched between the two is arguably anime’s funniest ever moment. The ‘Stink Bomb’ segment focuses on Nobuo Tanaka, a lab technician suffering a terrible bout of flu. Seeking a remedy, Nobuo unknowingly swallows a pill that is part of a biological weapon program and suddenly begins to emit a deadly odour from his body, instantly killing anyone within his smell range.
As events progress, Nobuo must make his way back to Tokyo, completely unaware of the fact that his smell is causing mass instances of death, including to the entire populace of the city of Kofu and all the wildlife surrounding it. The army of Japan makes the decision to assassinate Nobuo, but the odour affects their weapons targeting system, leading to increasingly desperate attempts to capture the smelly young man alive.
As stated, it’s a rarity for anime to prompt much more than a wry smirk or a cute smile from its regular offerings, particularly in the worlds of Studio Ghibli. The likes of Akira and Ghost in the Shell, meanwhile, mostly elicit serious cerebral responses from their audiences due to their high-concept themes.
That’s what makes the ‘Stink Bomb’ segment of Memories all the more impressive; the fact that the audience in the cinema I saw the film in were genuinely laughing out loud, consistently, is a testament to its prowess as a work of comedy. There is something uniquely brilliant about how this unwitting young man makes his way towards others with the mark of certain death about him, despite not knowing why anyone was seeking to flee his approach, as all the while huge defence force systems aim to take him out once and for all.
Like most comedy, the funniest moments in ‘Stink Bomb’ come from the genuine tragedy of Nobuo’s situation. He’s a well-intending, if somewhat daft, man who serves perhaps as a metaphor for someone who just wants to be loved and accepted despite other’s reservations about him. ‘Stink Bomb’ is a truly unrelenting piece of anime, and while the opening segment of Memories, ‘Magnetic Rose’, is the most celebrated, it’s the middle sequence that is undoubtedly the most memorable.
Check out a scene from Memories: Stink Bomb below.
