Gokiburi-tachi no tasogare

The cockroaches replace humans while the humans replace gods?

That's one way to interpret it no?

A commune of cockroaches live and play in a dude's apartment in modern day (well late 80's) Japan. Nobody bothers them. They bother nobody.

Until said dude's girlfriend moves in.

Stereotypically, the female decides this place needs cleaning and what we get is Armageddon seen from the floor.

Of course there's your rivalries between the peace-nicks and the aggressors. And Naomi is our female eye of the storm. Do they fight, run, or die? Find this to find out. It isn't easy. Not even in Japan. There are a few old VHS copies floating around the used shops however.

This combination of live and anime reminds one of "Heavy Traffic" at times. I caught this in an art theater in Philly during a run on rare anime showings. Didn't stand out like "Robot Carnival" but still kept my attention.

And anyone with knowledge of Japanese life might like it too.

How much you will enjoy this film depends greatly on whether you can set aside the usual reactions to verminous insects. Do that and Naomi, this movie's star, is actually kind of cute, in the way that naive 17-year-old girls often seem. With a human face and torso beneath her antennae and black carapace, she enjoys pool parties in the toilet bowl, smooches with her childhood sweetheart and is attracted to Kurt, the handsome soldier cockroach from the neighboring tribe. Her tribe's human host is a live-and-let-live sort of fellow, unlike the girl next door, sexy but merciless toward roaches. Disaster comes when the two people fall in love.

Everything is seen from the bugs' viewpoint, full of large and potentially dangerous objects. Trash, on the other hand, is full of wonders. The photography and animation are extremely well-handled. The biggest flaw is that the characters are pretty much one-dimensional, with the differences you'd expect between roach and human society too-little explored. But this is far more adult and more thought-provoking than the usual movie cartoon. And unlike other animated animals, these roaches don't sing.

This is not a movie for Cockroach haters like I.But noooooo,someone (whom shall remain nameless for the point being)forced me to watch this piece of crap movie!

But in "Twillight",they make the Cockroaches look (yes,it's true^^;)cutesy and humanoid,which adds quite a bit of injury to the insult and they make cockroaches look like sweet creatures,instead of the annoying little pests like they really are!Plus,there is a rather out-dated allegory,if you can pay attention to the movie much longer.

The only parts I liked in this nightmare of a movie is where the broad that moves into the apartment with her slob boyfriend,tries (and sort of suceeds) to kill those damn annoying cocokroaches!

If you wanna see this badly otakus,I just might wish you good luck finding an un-damaged copy of this film!

This is a movie (half live action, half cartoon) about the true lives of cockroaches. The basic plot is about a group of cockroaches who have always known peace. One of the female cockroaches meets a cockroach from across the field. These cockroaches have always known war. This movie is very quiet and very loud. Good cinematography, good dynamics. I think that roaches are probably closer to this than we could ever imagine. The fact is, they are living things just like us....so anything is permittable where the level of information is small. I give this movie an 8 out of 10.

leejarrodevans

Twilight of the Cockroaches is one of the strangest films I've seen in a while, and even though I only learned of its existence within the past week, I can't remember how exactly I stumbled across it. Still, it's not so obscure that it can't be found on YouTube, which - to be perfectly honest - sometimes feels like the only place to find older, lesser-known movies, outside of paying some obscene price for a second-hand DVD copy off Amazon.

This is a Japanese movie that mixes live-action footage with animation. Usually, it's animated characters with backgrounds that either are or simply look photorealistic, with some human characters appearing in live-action footage every now and then. The animated characters are all humanoid cockroaches, and the film's about their struggle to survive in an apartment that once had a peaceful occupant who let the cockroaches live alongside him, but circumstances change and the insects find themselves threatened.

It's not about to make me change my mind about cockroaches (anyone living in Australia will understand - they're a nightmare here), but I don't think that was the point. I'm pretty sure it's all an allegory for the Second World War, and how easily one side can dehumanize and obliterate the other. That might be a simplistic reading, but one of the genres this is tagged with is "family," so it may be a way to get that sort of anti-war message across to younger viewers. That being said, there are some bizarre moments and slightly edgy scenes that make this very much not feel like a family movie at times.

It's oddly paced and not always entirely engrossing, but it is pretty consistently interesting, and I appreciate how strange it is. It's probably good for Japanese animation fans who might feel like they've seen it all, but I could also see people getting turned off pretty quickly, due to the odd tone and strange premise. Definitely an engaging curiosity, if not quite a great movie.