Demon City Shinjuku

Title:Demon City Shinjuku
Makai Toshi Shinjuku
魔界都市〈新宿〉
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Madhouse
HORI Hideyuki
R1 License - Central Park Media
TSURU Hiromi
YARA Yuusaku

Genichiro Izayoi is fighting Levy Rah to prevent him from turning district outside of downtown Tokyo into Demon Central. He loses. Now ten years later, Shinjuki is known as "Demon City" and no one goes there for obvious reasons � it is full of demons. However it is time for phase two of Rah's plan where he turns Earth into a place for demons to live.

Rai-sama must convince Genichiro's teenaged son Kyoya, armed only with a wooden sword, to take up the fight against Rah. Joined by the teenaged daughter of the world president, Sayaka, the duo must enter Shinjuku to prevent Rah from finishing what he has started.

~82 minute movie.

OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 7 8 8 6 7 AstroNerdBoy #
I'm not into horror, but I checked this out when a co-worker brought it in. Fortunately, there are no rapes or nudity in this movie and very little gore either. For me, this is a good thing but your tastes may vary.

This is a standard "demons take over the world" anime and pretty much plays by the book as far as plot. Some things are so obviously telegraphed that even a child would pick up on it. Still, I have to say that I did enjoy watching this movie.

Problems? Besides being a tad bit predictable, Rah is your standard villian who is power-hungry and will do anything to get it, including destroying the world. That has been played to death in my opinion. Also, getting to understand the power that Kyoya has would have been nice. While he may look like he's in his early 20's, he supposedly is still in high school. So let's say he's 17. That means that when his father died, he was 7. I just had a hard time buying that he trained himself to do the things his father could do, including the power to make a wooden sword cut like an energy sword. Plus I couldn't help but think of Kyoya as a more mature Kuno Tatewaki with all of that wooden sword business. :-)

Bottom line: There are a lot of flaws, but I still enjoyed this title. Note that the video quality on the DVD looks little better than a VHS Rip which is unfortunate. However, this title is worth a rent I think.

Last updated Tuesday, September 23 2003. Created Monday, June 23 2003.

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