Demon City Shinjuku- Radd Movie Review

What's up everyone, it's your boy NornRad89 here bringing you another rad movie review today to talk about Demon City Shinjuku from 1988. Yes, continuing our anime horror review series. This one I was very excited to talk about because this is a first time watch for me and it's directed by Yoshiaki Kawairi. I hope I didn't butcher that name, but he is the director who brought us the likes of Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D, which are two films I'm very fond of. So I was really excited to talk about this one. You're gonna be hearing my positives, the negatives, the rating, and then I'm gonna send you all home. So let's do this. Roll it. So Demon City Shinjuku centers around a town that has a central part of it that ends up being demolished kind of by an earthquake and ends up being turned into a wilderness of just demon riddled wilderness where people run rampant in there. You know, it's evil and it's sacrificed basically this part of the town. In the first 10 minutes you end up finding out, this is not a spoiler because this happens in the first 10 minutes, our main antagonist Rebi Ra and one of our protagonists Genichiro, who's the father of our lead protagonist that you end up finding out later in the film. They are battling it out right now and Rebi Ra ends up, you know, committing to the demon side and wants more power. He's evil. So, you know, Genichiro is trying to stop him, is unable to, and then basically sacrifices a certain part of the town and they end up calling that part of the town Shinjuku. And then we fast forward 10 years later where we meet Kiowa, who is the son of our lead protagonist from the beginning and he's our next, you know, hero to take the journey, the hero's journey to finish what his father was unable to. So now let's kick it off with the positives right away. Is that one key positive is I love Kiowa, our lead protagonist character. Man, he's one of those snarky attitude protagonist characters. One that is very sure of his abilities and knows his abilities and is very cocky and kind of doesn't even want to go along with the, you know, saving the city or saving the world at some points, you know what I mean? He kind of has to be talked into a little bit, warmed up to the idea. It's basically because of the president's daughter Sayaka. Yes, the president's daughter, her father ends up getting kidnapped by like a plant demon and that's being controlled by Rebi Ra and that's basically so Rebi Ra could basically take his teacher out of the picture because that's somebody that he's worried about, you know, foiling his plans. So now Kiowa is, you know, and the daughter, the president's daughter Sayaka, sorry, I'm butchering these names. They have to go to demon city Shinjuku to go take down Rebi Ra and finish, like I said, what his father Genichiro was unable to. Another thing I like about this film is basically our hero's journey. I would basically compare this to like a Highlander type film, you know, it has that good like hero's journey type film to it. It's got a lot of demon elements though and horror elements, a lot of great fight sequences. That's another huge positive right there is when we're talking about the works of Kawaiiri like Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D, you're going to get really cool, awesome fight sequences, very fluid animation and the cinematography looks great. Even the colors and the color palette and the way it's very grimy, very gritty, dark, you know, you can tell this film has a very certain aesthetic. The way they use the music, the atmosphere, like I said, the animation all goes along with setting this atmosphere of this film and like I said, it's right up my alley because it has, like I said, this Highlander type vibes, very action oriented, but also a lot of horror vibes as well. Talking about the horror vibes, we got to talk about the designs of our creatures, the demons, our little mini bosses that Kiowa and Sayaka end up fighting along the way when they're trying to get to Rebi Ra in the center of the city and yeah, those fight sequences are off the charts and the creations and the designs of the characters. I also like the fact that we're dealing with a protagonist that's throughout the movie, there are certain times where you think he might not make it, you know what I mean? Like he looks like he's going to fail and stuff like that and yeah, pulls it, you know, out of the last like ditch effort, pulls it out of his ass, you know, a victory. So I really like that aspect that this film goes a long way of making the fight sequences really memorable and like all the mini boss sequences are really cool. Another cool positive is that when looking up information about this film, I found out that the first 10 minutes of this movie, basically the introduction about Rebi Ra and Genichiro and them being friends and them fighting for control over the city and trying to stop Rebi Ra and Genichiro, that's not part of the novel. So this film actually goes a way of adding a little bit of lore, a little bit of background to the story that we don't get if you read the novel. So I thought that was a really cool idea. Well, let's talk about some mixed in negatives because this wasn't a perfect film in terms of huge negatives. My main, main negative with this film is our third act. Our final fight is very much reminiscent of like Laurie Strode and Michael Myers in Halloween Ends. You just want so much for it, so much more. It's like a little flavor, a little taste of something great, but it's just, it ends in a whimper really to be honest. So that's one thing that I was very surprised because throughout the film, we're building up Rebi Ra's character as this awesome antagonist. He killed our lead protagonist's father. You want him to get revenge and when we get to that third act, the fight, it just kind of ends in a whimper and it's really not enough compared to the fight sequences and the stuff we get before that movie or before that final fight. I thought it was just, yeah, it was not a very lackluster ending. Another thing as well, watching this film, I actually, more like personal taste and more thoughts on the film analyzing it. I think this would have done better actually as a short run anime. We would have had more time to add some more lore into the story, add some more darker elements and some more character development and probably could have committed a whole entire episode to the Kiowa, Rebi Ra fight. You know, him finding his father's sword and really like getting up the power to do it and having some more cool, awesome cinematography and more time to dedicate to that sequence because like I said, it very much ends in a whimper. So I think this film actually would have done better as a short run anime and I think it would have been awesome. But that's not to say this isn't a cool movie. I really do like this film and this was a fun journey. Demon City Shinjuku in my book, we got to talk about the rad rating, is going to get an 8 out of 10. That's a very solid rating. Like I said, it's mainly just that third act. That ending fight really knocks a point down. This could have been a 9 out of 10 film, but this is one I highly recommend checking out. It's currently streaming on Pluto TV and Sling TV. I believe that's where you can stream this film and if you like Highlander or you like action-oriented type animes with demon elements and a lot of sword fighting and stuff like that, this is going to be right up your alley. But thanks for sticking around me all for this rad movie review of Demon City Shinjuku and I'm hoping you guys are liking these videos and stay tuned to the channel and have that notification bell poked so you're notified anytime I drop videos because we're going to be continuing this anime horror train. Next, we're going to be talking about Vampire Hunter D, Biohunter and also Wicked City. So I got a lot of videos planned and a lot of cool movies to talk about and like I said, to bring to the light so more people could have eyes on these movies because these are some very special anime horror films and a lot of these were great surprises. A couple of them were actually first-time watches, so it's going to be cool to talk about them. But please like the video, that definitely helps out the channel and also sharing the video, that also helps out the channel. I appreciate all the support, but most importantly, you all know what's up. Have a safe and happy day. Peace out.