WTF Japan (Animated)?!?: Wicked City

For once, I'm watching an Anime not picked out by me OR Bob.  Like I mentioned in my previous Review, I get weird stuff all the time, since I...well, like weird stuff.  This film (or OVA) was given to me by my brother, so it should be interesting.  I've gotten recent stuff like The Devils and Meet The Hollowheads from him, so the bar is pretty high.  Made in 1987, this film has quite a few parallels to stuff that would follow it.  The story involves our hero working to keep the peace between the world we know and the world that exists in the shadows.  Sound familiar?  Yeah, it is a bit like Men in Black (created as a Comic in 1990) and Hellblazer's John Constantine (who first appeared in 1985 and in his own series in 1988).  When a long-term Peace Treaty is approaching fruition, our hero must team with an unlikely partner to keep one person alive to make it to the Signing.  The other worldly creatures (who are basically Demons) are on the attack, however, and time is not on their side (one time in a more literal sense!).  Can our duo save the day and make peace?  To find out, read on...

Our hero has a big date in this big city, but it doesn't go the way he planned.  You see...

She has a freaky-spider-mutant thing switch places with her and it tries to kill him.  It is polite enough to do it after they have sex.

Wait- is that a positive?!?

After the odd introduction, our hero is teamed up with a lady-demon-thing (who isn't a spider) to protect an important person.  You see, a 500-year Peace Treaty between both groups hinges upon him.

The problem: he's an annoying, perverted asshole.  Oh and he has the Tri-Force on his Track Suit.

The trio get targeted by a number of freaky Demon things including this early prototype of Quicksilver and...

...whatever the hell this is.

Oh and meet the most famous part about this movie.  It's hard not to see why, huh?

The sort-of-nice Demon Girl is captured and our hero risks everything to rescue her.  He succeeds, even if it costs him job.

In a neat twist, we learn that the mysterious man was actually there to protect THEM, as the plan is for them to have a half-human/half-demon baby to broker peace.

While not quite tentacles, you still can't be surprised to see a sight like this.

In the End, the main Demon is killed and our heroes apparently are going to have a baby.  The future sure looks bright...although I don't know if this actually has a sequel or follow-up.  The End.

It is easy to see why this one is remembered by many, even if it is for just being kind of freaky.  The Story is a pretty simple, but does at least have one twist working for it.  Other than that, it is a series of Scenes involving people being attacked by monsters.  Really, this is just Story, Monster Attack and more Story- repeat.  At one point, there MAY have been two non-attack Scenes in a row, but I can't confirm that.  With that said, the attack scenes are pretty good and visually-dynamic.  My problem is that the whole 'Demons are really powerful' thing is a bit overdone.  Our hero narrowly escapes death once, has to be saved a second time and only wins the third time since the Demon knocked him out and assumed he'd be knocked out forever (or something).  This issue with power is what makes me question how good this MiB-style Agency really is.  Their best guy has to be saved when facing down two low-level guys and another (his other Partner) has his one good move stopped & gets killed.  Fun Fact: Demons can do sonic screams that can knock off one of your arms (but just one).  In fact, our hero shoots a Demon's arm off later, so that must have just been 'a cool animation trope' at the time or something.  I know that Ninja Scroll is chock full of body mutilation, so that could be it.  Of course, the guy behind this apparently also worked on said film/show, so...maybe not?  Either way, the film lives up to its bizarre reputation- for better and for worse.  The salacious content will scare many away, but there are (and will be) plenty of fans out there for it still.  If nothing else, it lets us know what happened to the famous head-crab monster from The Thing...

Next up, I found out that there is a live-action Version of this film too.  If all goes well, I will just go ahead and cover that one too!  Stay tuned...