"Loups=Garous" and its release seem like a bizarre occurance. The anime film is a cross-production between Production I.G. and a studio called "TransArts," although I suspect the later was more involved with what came out. With a bold color palette, it crosses the lines between upbeat JPOP and horror and science fiction, and typically, not smoothly. But the most unusual thing about the film is the dub by Sentai Filmworks: with a cast of nearly all female characters, they mistakenly cast one of the girls as a boy, and rewrote the script to make her a love interest to the main character rather than simply a cool potential friend. That type of mistake is unheard of, and occurs here simply because the girls a young enough to have relatively flat chests and becuase the character preferred shorts to skirts? I can't imagine what backlash, if any, occurred to the error, although it is very possible Sentai FIlmworks sought to force a romantic plot to take advantage of the then-current "Twilight" vampire films.Speaking of the English dub, Sentai Filmworks originally had a bad reputation for dubs, and this was one of their earlier products. The dialogue feels awkward and forced in an already poor script. I highly recommend watching this with the Japanese dub, which is much more competent, although it too doesn't impress (the "acting" score I give here is an average between the two). There are elements to the story that sound intriguing. In a near-future, society is heavily monitored, with individuals using credit-card sized "monitors" to "see" their world (a mix of smartphone concepts with more futuristic data-analysis tech). There's a plot behind the scenes of an attacker killing young girls at night. Meanwhile, Hazuki is a shy individual given the task by her school to complete a group project with students she hasn't met before. One of them is the silient boy/girl person. Another is a talented hacker (who happens to have a giant homemade bomb in her apartment just in case the system starts doing things she doesn't like). And the third? A pink-haired girl we see getting attacked in the opening scenes. There's also a Chinese woman named Myao (prenounced "Meow") who knows Karate. No particular reason for her, other than an extra character we belive can fight off potential attackers. But don't worry about that, we have to focus on the group project: recreating a pop-star music video!Again, let's look at the individual elements. The science-fiction tech seems cool, and that all food has become vegetarian ("killing living things for food just seems cruel now") makes for a good hint of the horrific reveal near the end. The horror elements are... fine, although they never really improve beyond standard campire story scares. The mystery is what is happening or who is behind it makes the story more watchable, although some of the logic choices are simply strange: one character doesn't cite her entire story of a murder scene even though there was no reason not to, and in later action scenes, it's common for characters to appear out of no where to save the say, even though they were supposed to be elsewhere. And that peppy high-school life and fun of doing a class project? It might have been more fun if it was part of another movie.
Generally, there are a handful of good ideas in the story, but the weaker elements bring it down. Even worse, the genres don't work well at all together. The story just sucks, and the tonal shifts make it all the more baffling. And what does the title come from? "Loups Garous" is French for "Werewolf," a term one of the characters calls themselves due to their dark secret, but it is never explained why they randomly use French instead of English or Japanese. I do admit there is fun to be had in the movie. Along with the bad dub and pop-rock inspried soundtrack, and the bright colors and bold character design against the darker themes, the movie comes across as one of those "so-bad-it's-good" projects. It's one of those films you could show to a anime club, without too much fear of the story being too scary or violent to offend anyone, as everyone would be too busy laughing throughout at the variety of writing choices. Thankfully, it isn't hard to find the physical release for a cheap price.