I am a stubborn person. So, despite seeing all the "not recommended" reviews and commentators who said how they regret wasting their time on this, I still kept it on my list and decided to give it a chance.
I was determined, thinking The People were wrong.
They weren't.
Now, I am a huge fan of horror anime and the story seemed more than interesting.
Siblings that only have each other? Mysterious red butterflies? Cannibalistic nightmare?
Yes, please!
But then I finished the first episode, the second, the third... and before the fourth ended, I started writing this.
Quickly I found out that the only thing that worked well was Maria's character. Oh, and the bears. I liked the bears.
(I wanted a spoiler-free review but... it contains spoilers!)
Slightly incestuous, awfully stupid, and short. (Okay, the short aspect might actually be a blessing in disguise...)
I won't even comment on the convenience of the parasite giving the host "an impressive regenerative ability" (which practically means that even though he's been eaten, he's still alive... which is great because, for some reason, he's more than willing to let his sister eat him over and over again) nor how utterly idiotic and NOT EXPLAINED AT ALL was the whole "turning into monster" thing was.
The fifth episode is what I want to address.
Let's say that Yume was a monster from the whole beginning.
How did that come to be? Why did it happen? What was the story behind that very important detail??
The images of a killed baby, eating the bird... those were something. How did we get to Utsutsu defending his sister from the mother - if she was nothing but nice to her son, trying to "protect" him from his sister?
And did the woman really beg her husband to beat her?? I feel like I'm not even making sense while typing this...
Then the incestuous feeding came and I have to quote the person who said "Why doesn't he just take pain killers, chop off his arm or something and let her feed on that for a while - it would be a lot less painful than slowly being eaten alive" - and I have the answer for that. It's too smart of a move for this shi*show.
We get to watch Yume lick her brother, eat her brother while she moans "Onii-chan" in a shot where we see her butt. Wonderful. That's what we all came for, right?
And this quote from the show was great too: "Enduring the pain that I could almost confused with pleasure..."
And while we're at it... if he's infected too, why does he not need to feed?!
And just when I tried to compliment something about the show... the incestuous monster babies made me back up. I do have to admit that the name "Incubation" was a clever pun.
During episode 9 something weird happened. I stopped hating it. The kidnapping helped the story, the talk about quick organ regeneration almost helped us understand how Pupa works. But in a span of two minutes... it was over.
In the end, we were all left with more questions than answers.
What were the red butterflies and what was their meaning?
How did Pupa really work? Were there more cases?
Why was Yume constantly hungry but Utetsu wasn't?
Was Yume really born a monster or was there something else to it? And if she was born a monster, was Pupa the reason she changed (back) into it?
What is the backstory behind Utetsu's scar? Was it Yume? When, how and why?
What happened to Maria and the babies?
Come on! Their hairpins got their own backstory but the really important things were left for our imagination?!
Or is the answer hidden between the pages in the manga?
Truth to be told, I do not care enough to search for the answers, so... thank god it's over. (Just like Yume said in episode 10 after too much yet not enough happening and then we got two episodes of... God knows what that was.)
