First Impression: Housing Complex C

There are some PRODIGIOUSLY strange goings on around the old housing complex in the seaside village of Kurosaki. The old folks in the run-down apartment building seem to live out their lives complaining about the heat and doting on nine-year-old Kimi, a young girl whose bubbly personality has charmed the old residents. During a journey in the old store room to find a shaved ice machine, Kimi and one of the residents discover that the store room is some sort of ancient cave complete with mummified dog and ancient relics that, of course, they decide to touch on and remove from the cave. Good grief. Why do people insist on taking obviously cursed relics from caves!? Leave that crap right where it is! But I digress. In addition, foreigners are moving into the complex from the local fisheries along with their representative, his wife and city-girl daughter Yuri. As the family makes the rounds introducing themselves to the neighbors, one of the locals, a heavily made-up woman named Mitsuko, talks about her shut-in son Hideo. Yeah, nothing creepy about that at all.

Later on, Kimi and Yuri meet up and become friends rather quickly. Kimi decides to show her new friend the storage area/cave from earlier that day, and after a few jokes, the two girls discover a room filled with creepy drawings and an ink pen. The girls return the pen to Hideo, who gives our girls a bit of fanart as thanks. The next day, there are even more strange goings on, including dead fish scattered all over the yard and the foreigners praying loudly, much to the chagrin of the landlady. Most disturbingly, Kimi discovers Hideo dead in front of his computer. DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN…?

Okay, so I’m typically not one to go for horror anime. As I’ve made clear countless times, I am a Slice-of-Life fan. If I want to be scared, I’ll check my bank balance after an anime convention, thank you very much. I decided to give this one a shot because it’s a new show airing on Toonami that looks interesting to me, and the premise is intriguing. I was not disappointed. The first episode held my attention and did not let it go for a minute, introducing a lot of different storylines but not feeling overloaded. This show left me with so many questions when the ending credits rolled. Typically I get frustrated when an anime does this, but in this case, the questions are what will have me tuning in next week! Who is this girl Kimi? Where are her parents (baby girl wasn’t holding a phone when she was “talking” to her “Mother”)? What’s the deal with these foreigners? Why do all these old adults live in this run-down apartment complex seemingly in the middle of nowhere? What on earth happened to Hideo? And the most important question of all…and one that I asked out loud to absolutely nobody…WHY IN THE WORLD DID KIMI JUMP OFF THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING SCREAMING “OPTICAL ILLUSION”?! I swear Kimi is one fry short of a happy meal or one rice ball short of a Fruits Basket.

So, where does that leave us? Oh, I’m going to be following this one! Housing Complex C is the first show I’ve been intensely interested in since Assassination Classroom. Typically I give a show five episodes to see if I like it or am going to drop it, but since this show is only four episodes anyway, I’ll stick around and see where the narrative leads. If you’re into creepy mystery stories and don’t have a problem with some demonic imagery, this one is right up your alley.

Housing Complex C is currently airing every Saturday on Toonami, and streaming on HBO Max the next day!

Josh
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3 thoughts on “First Impression: Housing Complex C”

  1. Oo, this one sounds really good! This is kind of giving me Kokkoku vibes, and I really liked that series. Kokkoku was more of a thriller mystery than a horror series, which I kind of like better. Hmm, I wonder if Housing Complex C is available on CrunchyRoll or HiDive?

  3. “WHY IN THE WORLD DID KIMI JUMP OFF THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING SCREAMING “OPTICAL ILLUSION”?!”
    It was a prank (gone wrong), she was playing a joke on the old men by pretending to stand behind the balcony railing instead of in front of it, but then she slipped and fell. (little girls aren’t known for thinking out their pranks carefully)

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