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Make no mistake about it, if Violence Voyager wasn't an animated outing, this disturbing, captivating and wild ride into the deranged would've been the type of film that may never have even seen the light of day, too much for audiences to bare, audiences who would've been unable to digest its eccentricities, ultra-violence and crazed plotline.

Born out of the mind of Japanese filmmaker Ujicha, Voyager utilises the painstakingly long to do "gekimation" animation process of creating hand-painted cardboard cut-outs no bigger than playing cards and using them against painted backdrops with real life effects thrown in, it's an odd, beautiful and creative way to tell a story, that is unlike anything you've seen before and likely to see in the future.

For all the creative magic on show here in Voyager, it would've been for naught had Ujicha failed to deliver on the storytelling front but thankfully Voyager's unpredictable and eventful plotline will keep those that fall under the films spell hooked from start to finish.

To be clear, Voyager is not for everyone, it's probably not even for 99 out of 100 of people but for those that are willingly to be participants in this journey to an amusement park that you won't want to be lining up to visit, Voyager will be an absolute delirious delight.

Born from Japanese creatives of old that includes robotic infused sci-fi and Kaiju themed monsters, Voyager is a body horror that feels like something David Cronenberg may conjure up in his most depraved of nightmares, as Japan based American boy Bobby and his one and only friend Akkun spend one of the final days of Summer exploring their local mountainside where they stumble upon the mysterious Violence Voyager amusement park.

To say much more about what transpires within Ujicha's tale would be a disservice to the films oddball happenings and unnerving moments but suffice to say viewers that are offended easily or those that find blood thirsty horror too much to bare (even in cardboard cut-out form) should stay well away from Voyager as there's unlikely to be anything here that would make them think that this outing is anything more than a sensationalist event, with goals to shock and offend in equal measure.

Search deeper in the film however and accept it for the unbridled ride that it is and Voyager is one of the most unique, energetic and artistic creations to reach feature form in some time and establishes Ujicha as a unique filmmaking voice, happy to explore the human condition just as equally as he is comfortable brutally murdering adolescents.

Final Say -

Hard to describe in words, Violence Voyager is best seen to be believed and while not for mass public consumption, Ujicha's vibrantly creative trip to the extremes is a gloriously off-kilter ride that is destined for cult-film status.

4 water pistols out of 5

Just saw this at the Calgary Underground Film Festival and am kind of at a loss to describe this film. I'll admit I was very disappointed that the version screened was an English dub as the Japanese cast was stellar and I'm a big fan of both Daisuke Ono and Naoki Tanaka (from Cocorico).

Violence Voyager is very firmly rooted in the ero-guro-nansensu movement, with a heavy emphasis on the grotesque and absurd. The animation is done with painted paper cutouts that occasionally interact with 3D elements, this style is very similar to the 2007 version of Dante's Inferno which was animated with cardboard puppets. Everything about Violence Voyager is a labour of love, from its creation by one man, to the creation of the park in the story (also by one man), love is the main motivator of all characters. There are many references to kaiju and tokusatsu films ( I mostly spotted Gamera monsters like Guiron). This film is not for the easily disturbed and there is a lot of body horror, child nudity, and violence. While there's a lot of laughter to be had it's mostly out of bewilderment and general absurdity rather than the genuinely comedic. In all this is a great film to go blind into if you love the truly bizarre and underground, or have a passion for guro. Skip the English dub if you're able.

Bobby and Akkun are two schoolboys who stumble upon a remote amusement park. Not quite sure about entering they are lured in by a charismatic park manager... the entertainment inside looks a little silly even for the young kids like Bobby and Akkun... but as the boys delve deeper into the park its dark secrets begin to emerge and it's not long until all hell breaks loose.

There are moments when you walk out of the cinema and ask yourself : what have I just seen? VIOLENCE VOYAGER is a horror movie that is entirely made of cardboard puppets. This is not an animation, the puppets are just being moved across the screen, but it creates an eerie feeling that all is not what it seems (the same feeling the movie characters experience when they enter the amusement park).

While the puppets' expressions look silly and over the top and their voices are often grotesque and the dialogue is clumsy, what produces laughs from the audience is also scary as hell. This is what a Brothers Grimm fairy tale must look like in a child's imagination, and for a grown up like me it is a Junji Ito horror manga coming to life.

There's not much to say here, but to suggest you experience it for yourself. Created by one man this is a unique film that will either make you walk out of the theatre straight away or will have you mesmerised.

It took significantly-longer to make than his previous Geki-mation movie, "Burning Buddha Man'" and there is improvements in technical concepts but Ujicha's unique arthouse style remains the same.

It is a truly bizarre and warped 80 minutes + where the journey of Bobby, an American foreign student, has his life changed in an incredibly brutal and sad way.

The tiny artistic drawings of characters with their own props were shot on a Fujifilm camera by Ujicha himself. The hand-drawn figures were done in great detail by Ujicha as well as the storyline.

Ujicha made a concept movie similar to Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and Toy Story with emphasis on a mad scientist and people-fused-robots instead of dinos being the focal point.

It is also a romantic movie and a childhood dream of escapism. Yet it all goes very wrong. I don't want to give the storyline away but you have to watch it to discover.

Fabulous release on Third Window Films, yet again. 8/10. Listen to the Director commentary and interview for unique insight into his weird and wonderful mind!

When you think of Japanese animation, it's all big eyes and inappropriate panty shots, which is why director/writer/editor Ujicha's Violence Voyager is completely out of the ordinary in every... single... way. No, this isn't a typical anime-it's something very different: a no-holds-barred, surreal horror flick that just happens to be animated like a children's storybook. By that, I mean it's as though the characters of an illustrated Roald Dahl book stepped off the page and started moving around their bizarre, twisted environments.

Violence Voyager isn't animated in the traditional sense-the characters are rendered as detailed, hand-painted cutouts and "puppeteered" in a technique called "geki-mation." It takes a moment to get used to, but once you're in the groove, it works magnificently and gives the film a unique look and feel.

The uniqueness doesn't stop at the presentation, with the story following Bobby-a young American boy living in Japan-who goes on a quest to climb the mountain outside town with his friend, Akkun. On their journey, they discover a mysterious theme park hidden in the woods. The owner, Koike, lets them in for free and equips them with water pistols to fight off the "robot invaders" that populate the facility. They soon run across a group of children trapped in the park whose bodies appear to be undergoing unexplainable, nightmarish changes. To Bobby and Akkun's horror, they find the exits sealed, and the children must band together to escape.

Between the art design, the creepy music, and an overall sense of dread, Violence Voyager is a really impressive piece of work that managed to take even me-someone who feels like they've seen it all when it comes to horror-off guard. It's truly twisted in a way that only the Japanese seem to pull off, and the disconnected-from-reality animation allows it to go places live action never could.

The crudely depicted but graphic violence (against children, no less) is grim and unsettling, and I loved it. I didn't know where Ujicha was taking me, but I was strapped in for every chicane and hairpin he barrelled me around. This is what I'm looking for in horror: something that takes me to the edge of what's acceptable, something that shows me things I've never seen before and presents them in a unique way. Violence Voyager delivers!

And in being such a unique work, it restricts itself to what I could only imagine is a niche audience. If this thing made it to the mainstream of Netflix, the chorus of indignant cries would be deafening. Beyond the disturbing nature of the story, there's a decent amount of child nudity, and even though they're just drawings, they'd no doubt send the wowsers* into a frenzy.

I personally wasn't bothered by any of the questionable material. After all, it's just animation. Or, should I say, geki-mation? If I had to nitpick anything, the narrative leaves more than a few questions, but it's so batsh!t AND apesh!t (in fact, an ape and a bat fight alongside the main characters at one point) that it really doesn't matter. I feel like there are some references that were lost in translation here and there, but I was having so much fun that I wasn't bothered.

I'm sure Ujicha has hidden metaphor in there somewhere too. I'd hedge my bets on it being about puberty and coming of age-I mean, the characters' bodies undergoing radical changes and shooting wads of white goo all over the place has gotta mean something. But then again, it could just be pure insanity.

If I had to pitch Violence Voyager to a studio exec, I'd say it's Stand By Me mixed with Pinocchio, mixed with Jurassic Park, mixed with Battle Royale, mixed with The Human Centipede. Yes, that's right. It's all those things and more. Hunt it down if you know what's good for you.