Nuigurumâ Z
Director: Noboru Iguchi
Writer: Noboru Iguchi, Jun Tsugita
Based on: Kenji Otsuki‘s novel Hōsei Ningen Nuigurumā, which is in turn based on Tokusatsu’s song Tatakae! Nuigulumar
Cast: Shôko Nakagawa, Rina Takeda, Takumi Saitô
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
Yumeko Ayukawa’s (Shôko Nakagawa) life is pretty chaotic. She rocks her lolita fashion, but she’s clumsy and just lost her job again. So she shows up at her recently divorced sister’s doorstep to move in. But Yumeko’s niece is less than excited about this – she’s been looking forward to spending some time alone with her mother. When Yumeko’s sister dies, she has to take care of her niece. She is helped by teddy bear Busuke who has come to life through an alien life force. When Yumeko and Busuke literally join forces, they become Nuigulumar (Rina Takeda), a superheroine. But Busuke isn’t the only alien force on earth.

I like crazy Japanese movies, but somehow Noboru Iguchi regularly manages to barrel past me with his films. There were good moments, but it was just a little too much of everything for me.

This movie has pretty much everything – from dancing zombies [so we weren’t the only ones] to a suicidal teddy bear [which was honestly rather hilarious, though it shouldn’t be]. But the sheer density of crazy ideas put me on overload pretty quickly.

Therefore it would have worked better for me, if they had maybe done a couple of things less and made the entire film a little less frantic.

What was extremely interesting though was the queer subtext. Yumeko’s niece (I forgot her name and there is not much info about this film out there yet, so I couldn’t find it either) falls for Nuigulumar, basically. At first she believes a guy (Nuigulumar based her look on him) to be the real identity of Nuigulumar, but when it turns out that everybody – Nuigulumar and the guy – actually are women, the niece just shrugs it off. Didn’t seem to change anything for her.

So, much like Hentai Kamen, this would probably be worth a closer look from a feminist media analysis perspective. Unlike Hentai Kamen it did lack the proper entertainment value for me.

Summarizing: Okay.