Penance for Your Sins: A Review of Pet Shop of Horrors

I'm not quite sure how well-known or popular the manga series Pet Shop of Horrors is. Early in high-school I borrowed the first few volumes from one of my friend manga-sources, and quite enjoyed it, although I never finished the entire series (I think I read about 4 books). Therefore, when I recently completely randomly came across the fact that there was a 4-episode OVA of the series, I was definitely intrigued since I had all but forgotten about the fun little series. After getting ahold of it, I sat down for the hour and twenty minutes the show took to watch.

Pet Shop of Horrors takes place in Los Angeles, and centers specifically on a pet shop in Chinatown, with this proprietor, Count D.

This man is a huge troll, knows it, and is awesome for it

 The store specializes in exotic pets, and the plot of the series revolves the various patrons who come to Count D's shop to get pets. They all have problems of some sort, and the plot-central characters always get introduced to very special pets, who go beyond even the exoticness that is standard for the pet shop. The soon-to-be owners almost always fall instantly in love with their new pet, and Count D will sell it to them, always with 3 special rules that he warns must not be broken. 

Mermaid pet!

Of course, being a horror series, the owners almost always end up breaking the rules, and then HORRIBLE THINGS happen to the owners, resulting often (but not always) in their death, and what looks like a vaguely human pet turns out to be not. Some vaguely moral lessons is usually taught along the way.

Who's a good girl th- OH GOD THE HORROR

Over all of this is the arch-plot of a LAPD officer who is following the strange series of deaths, all of whom visiting the pet shop before dying, but can't ever get conclusive proof. He and Count D have a fun little troll relationship.

The one big complaint I've seen leveled at the series is that it gets pretty formulaic, as you might be able to glean from my above summary. With that said, a 4-piece OVA is perfect, since right as you start to understand the formula the show ends. Even being familiar with the series as I was, it was quite enjoyable to watch and see chapters from the manga brought to life, and the series did an excellent job of capturing the tone and art style of the manga. I wouldn't call it particularly scary or anything, but overall it's quite enjoyable.

The one odd thing is that the show was animated by Madhouse, so I was expecting pretty high quality animation. However, when it started I actually thought the show was from the 80s or something, and I had to actually check to confirm it was made in 1999, which seemed kind of surprising. I'm not sure if this art style was intentional for artistic reasons, whether it was a limited budget, or what; it wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting. Similarly, the music felt like it was straight out of an 80s movie like Blade Runner or something similar. 

If you like slightly creep situations and weird moral statements that involve horrible things happening to bad people, though, it's an excellent little series, both the anime and the manga. If that sounds interesting to you at all, it's definitely worth picking up the anime, since it's so short it's a very small investment of time. I have no real complaints about the anime; it's a fun little anime, if you don't mind some slight datedness.

-HTMC