In 1973, the Japanese equivalent of Walt Disney decided to adapt a 19th century book about the feminist history of witchcraft into an animated prog-rock musical about a medieval peasant girl who gets gang-raped on her wedding night and then turns to Satan for help with her revenge. This is really a thing that happened. Strange even by the impossibly high standards of Japanese cinema, the wild and exhausting "Belladonna of Sadness" was conceived by Osamu Tezuka — the godfather of manga — as the third and final chapter of Mushi Productions' Animerama trilogy (a series of explicitly adult animated films that also included erotic riffs on "Cleopatra" and "A Thousand and One Nights").

Tezuka would drop out of the…

The way things have always been. The way things have always been done. The way things will always be. A trinity of poisonous lies.

A world run on murder, rape, torture, privation, the annihilation of all known being in exchange for second-order abstract value meaningless without the existence of life on earth. Is this not sacrifice enough? What more should be sacrificed and for what?

The Satanic Witch draws their power from the time and space after trauma, privation, torture, rape, death, when what has been allotted by the empty promises of rights and station and labor and position has been stripped from you by the very entities who proposed giving you these things in the first place. When all…

Belladonna of Sadness is based on Jules Michelet’s Witchcraft, Sorcery and Superstition, a novel that chronicled witchcraft, and the persecution of women accused of it, in Europe. It is an unusual and rather dubious Japanese animated feature that centres on a recently married French woman, Jeanne, who is raped on her wedding day and then disowned by her husband before meeting the devil (quite literally a cock in more ways than one) whilst in exile. What follows is Jeanne’s drawn out humiliation and systematic debasement.

This is a hentai film masquerading as worthy art yet I found its subject matter troubling. Supporters will say the film’s depiction of sex is frank and provocative yet I found it all rather repellent…

Definitely going to get some heat for this one, but just a reminder that everyone has some hot takes, so with that being said let’s start
I honestly couldn’t tell you a hint of what this film was trying to get at. It felt provocative for the sake of it, essentially playing out as hentai, due to the overuse of sexual imagery and violent sexual acts. Any subtlety or nuance was thrown out the window in exchange for psychedelic overtures and long, boring exposition by a narrator
The film looked nice, but I didn’t find myself awestruck by the animation like I thought I would be
I will say, the music was absolutely fantastic, but I didn’t feel like it…

“Belladonna of Sadness” had long been known as an odd, erotic, animated masterpiece, but it wasn’t until 2016 that it started building wider public attention with its restoration and rerelease. Eiichi Yamamoto’s film was destined for controversy in both the 1970s and 2010s. It’s a highly sexual story, and I’m sure there are some film critics who would go as far as to call it pornographic. While it’s certainly sexual, I think fixating on just that ignores the artistry of its animation, which is largely unparalleled nowadays. It’s incredibly colorful, abstract, and psychedelic while maintaining a clear narrative. The ending is absolutely gorgeous and surprisingly even relates to The French Revolution. Its inspirations are widespread and unconventional, but they work…