New York underwater a Netflix splash?
Neo Yokio pushes pop-cultural cross-pollination
Among the notable attributes of “Neo Yokio,” a new fantasycomedy anime send-up on Netflix:
It was created by a rock star, Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig. Hip-hop artists are all over television; rock guitarists, not so much.
It’s a Japanese-American coproduction. British and European producers are a growing presence in U.S. TV; Asian, not so much.
It’s got quite a cast for a show you’ve probably never heard of. The voice actors include Jaden Smith, Susan Sarandon, Jude Law as a flying-robot butler, and the world’s most famous fashion blogger, Tavi Gevinson, as the world’s most famous fashion blogger.
It’s ridiculously easy to binge. Originally made with commercial breaks for FXX’s Animation Domination block, the six episodes can be watched in less than two hours if you skip the credits.
That’s probably about the right amount of time to devote to “Neo Yokio.” There’s a fair bit of international pop-cultural crosspollination taking place in the show, and there’s pleasure in picking out the references. It will be a limited pleasure for many (if they feel it at all), but for the fan of this sort of thing, it will be sufficient.
The show takes place in an everyday New York — the Guggenheim Museum, San Remo apartments, Midtown hot-dog carts — with some major differences. The city is underwater below 14th Street, as is much of Tokyo in the classic anime series “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” one of the many shows to which “Neo Yokio” pays homage.
This submersion (only the twin towers peek above the waves) is presumably linked to demonic attacks the city began to suffer in the 18th century; the supernatural warfare, and a subtly archaic, courtly atmosphere, are also familiar from Japanese cartoons.
Koenig and his fellow producers, including the prolific Nick Weidenfeld (“Metalocalypse,” “Black Dynamite,” “Children’s Hospital”), use this anime lens to present a fantasy of upper-crust New York that’s critical and affectionate, recognizable and eccentric.
Smith voices Kaz, a floppyhaired emo boy who happens to be a “magistocrat,” part of a family endowed with demon-slaying powers. This gives him status — he’s No. 2 on a leader board of the city’s bachelors displayed above Times Square — but he’s neoriche, patronized as a “rat catcher” by the old-money types he protects. And his job keeps getting in the way of his social life.
The show derives a lot of its humour from Kaz’s earnest attempts to belong, which occasion some reasonably subtle mockery of the city’s social stratification and of a certain strain of tragic millennial mopiness. “Some people think it’s just a place for the children of the elite to socialize,” he says, visiting his old prep school. “But I believe it’s a place for the children of the elite to learn and grow.”
Told that the day’s special at an uptown restaurant is squid ink fettuccine, he says approvingly, “That is the most melancholy pasta.” (Actually, that sounds like something Smith might have ad-libbed.)
Koenig was born in the city, grew up in northern New Jersey and graduated from Columbia University, so he knows the territory. He also knows his pop culture, both Japanese and American — echoes of “Heathers,” “Gossip Girl,” “The Boondocks” and “Grey Gardens” pass by, and one mendacious character is a very thinly veiled take on Taylor Swift.
The show’s visual grounding in a simple, fluid style of anime is guaranteed by the involvement of two established Japanese production houses: Production IG (known for the various “Ghost in the Shell” TV series) and Studio Deen (“Ranma ½,” “Rurouni Kenshin”).
Viewers may check out the show for the art, but if they stick around it will be because the satire resonates with their experience of life in New York. If they don’t, it may be because they find the humour too precious, the same way some music fans find Vampire Weekend songs like “Oxford Comma” a little too adorable.
Here’s a test: If a defensive reading of the line, “Yes, my girlfriend broke up with me to take a finance job in San Francisco,” makes you chuckle, “Neo Yokio” may be for you.