During the gory, glory days of Anime in the 89s and 90s, Yoshiaki Kawajiri managed to secure himself as a talent to watch thanks to his ability to balance the classic themes and visuals of the genre into a form that not only was unbearably cool, but still carried that infamous edge that Japanese animation managed to evoke during that time. Spinning together stories of secret global agencies policing a treaty with demons, superpowered ninja trying to stop a coup, or a trio of criminals forced to uphold the law in a city of the future, the director managed to balance fantastical premises with the type of twisted sexual content that was bewilderingly prevalent at the time to winning effect, however, with 1988’s Demon City Shinjuku, Kawajiri decided to shift his usual focus into something a little less adult orientated.
Of course, to describe a film packed full of demonic beasties as “less adult orientated” just goes to show how messed up the genre could get in the late 80s, but could a noticable decline in naked flesh manage to make a difference?
Ten years ago, meaty faced satanist Rebi Ra attempted to open a doorway that would allow the denizens of a demon realm to come spilling into our reality like coins jackpotted out of a slot machine. The only thing standing in his way was earnest hero Genichirou who tried to use his skills in the chi manipulating art of Nempo to thwart these evil plans, but after a desperate battle, not only is Genichirou first stripped of a leg, an arm and then, ultimately, his life, but Rebi Ra manages to call forth an earthquake that destroys the city of Shinjuku and turns it into a demon plagued wasteland for a decade.
We skip forward to find that Genichirou had a son, Kyoya Izayoy, who has grown into a talented, if egotistical, practitioner of Nempo and he’s approached by the astral form of Aguni Rai, his father’s old master, to try and save to world after the evil of Rebi Ra rises once again. It seems that the robe wearing villain is making another push to allow demons to rule the world by attacking the world president and keeping him in stasis thanks to some demonically possessed flora, however, when Kyoya refuses Aguni’s request, his mind is changed when he’s approached by the virtuous Sayaka Rama, the president’s daughter, who convinces him to enter Shinjuku and fight Rebi Ra.
Whether Kyoya is drawn in simply because he was thinking with his little kendo stick, or because he actually has the heart of a hero is something that will be vigorously tested as he is forced to battle with various creatures in order to get withing striking distance of his enemy, but after getting aid from smirking street rat Chibi and the mysterious Mephisto, both Kyoya and Sayaka manage to get closer to their goal. But can the unprepared Kyoya possibly have a chance against the man who killed his father when he had the power to turn an entire city into demon central with only a single sword strike?
One of Kawajiri’s main talents is the ability to throw in a multitude of disparate influences into a story and make them all feel like they all totally belonged together all along. Take Wicked City for example; a flick that spot-welded the horror and spy genre together to create a memorably stylish hybrid that also chucked in its fair share of body horror and a spit of Hentai just for good measure. However, with Demon City Shinjuku, the director seems to be trying to create a world and a story that is striving to be more accessible to a general, more tentacle adverse, audience by upping the fantasy and keeping the more overtly horror moments under wraps.
Unfortunately, it’s a gambit that doesn’t quite pay off and while it’s tremendously unsettling to criticise a film for NOT having multiple sequences of grotesque, recoil inducing “erotica”, the noticable sense that Kawajiri is holding back proves to be strangely distracting. Maybe I’m just too used to the deranged, creepy shit that anime movies of this era used to pull, but isolated moments of Mephisto battling a sexually voracious women with limbs that stretch like taffy now just feel weirdly out of place and a half-hearted attempt to hint at the depravity that Kawajiri himself used to employ.
While I’m obviously not saying that anime needs explicit sexual content to thrive (Studio Ghibli’s been doing just fine without it), the more straight horror/fantasy approach here just ends up making Demon City Shinjuku rather forgettable as the director’s usually spot on talent for world building just seems off.
I mean, the film with its purple skies and inventive fight sequences is certainly stylish enough, but none of it particularly hangs together as a whole and instead just feels like a procession of decent action sequences that never really connects to make you properly buy into this world.
If demons stalk the ruined streets of Shinjuku, snatching up stray cats with their hungry tendrils, how and why are people still living there and trying to make a business (One guy even has a fucking food stand) and the addition of smug sidekick, Chibi and the unnecessarily enigmatic Mephisto add absolutely nothing to the story other than raising narrative questions the script simply can’t be fucked to answer. It also doesn’t help that the central villain is lazily presented as entry level evil without a single nuance and our heroes are so unfeasibly bland that you’re not actually that bothered if they fail or not.
To be fair, a lot of the criticism directed at Demon City Shinjuku usually comes from the fairly atrocious English dub that throws in bewilderingly unnatural bursts of profanity at the slightest drop of a hat and an array of insanely off putting accents that range from headache inducing cut glass english, to the type of Transylvanian brogue that would make Dracula feel self conscious busting it out in a conversation and it makes taking all the hellish histrionics that little bit harder to take seriously. And what the hell is up with giving Chibi a thick mexican accent that sounds like it’s come straight out of a Speedy Gonzales cartoon? However, Kawajiri isn’t exactly a slouch when it comes to mounting handsome looking action scenes and while they are hardly a patch on the type of stuff seen in his other productions, they still manage to carry you through even if the mostly don’t make a lot of sense.
The moment that sees Kyoya square off against a spider-legged monster who can phase through matter as they brawl on a moving subway train (no explanation to how it still works after a decade) is pretty cool and the opening battle between Rebi Ra and Genichirou may actually be the most atmospheric action scene the director has ever overseen (it was certainly striking enough to pop up in the cyberpunk misfire Johnny Mnemonic), but as Kawajiri’s ability to marry up style over substance seems to wildly off here, we end up with an exceedingly pretty, sporadically cool film that just doesn’t hit the target.
The devil’s literally in the details….
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