Tentacle-Free Anime: "Wicked City" (1987) Review

- by Kazekun, 3 February 2014

Anime sure has some weird crap floating around. Let’s be honest here. But some of the fun comes from finding that weird crap, and giving it a go. It could be the worst pile of steaming weird crap you’ve ever seen, or it could be a hidden treasure that you find yourself enjoying over and over again. Regardless, I love weird crap. And as such, I always tend to seek it out and sometimes I tend to find myself more stuck in the middle, of whether I want to dump the load or polish the minerals hidden within.

Wicked City (1987); 
Episodes: 1; 
Director: Yoshiaki Kawajiri;
Studio: Madhouse;
Rating: R

Summary: For centuries, a secret peace treaty has existed between Earth and The Black World, a parallel dimension populated by shape-changers possessing awesome supernatural powers. But now, that pact is up for renewal and a militant faction from the Black World plans to do everything in their power to stop the treaty from being signed. The fate of the world now rests in the ability of a pair of special agents, one a human, the other a shape-changer from the distaff dimension, to make sure things go according to plan. [AnimeNewsNetwork.com]

I must love Madhouse more than I thought; I keep reviewing material they have animated without realizing it. That being said, this is Wicked City, by the famous Kawajiri, where the animation is beautiful but the story is sorely lacking. It’s also entertaining, and pretty frickin’ strange. The story set up in Wicked City sets up our hero, Taki Renzaburo, an electronics salesman by day, but come the night time one of the top Black Guards Earth has at its disposal. What is a Black Guard? An organization of hunters and assassins who make sure that evil agents from the Black World do not infiltrate our world; there is a peace treaty among our two worlds but the Black Guard understands there are still those who do not feel they should abide by it.

Dvd cover.

With the peace treaty renewal coming up, Taki is assigned a partner in the beautiful Makie who is sent from the Black World, posing as a model to make sure their assignment, the protection of one Giuseppi Mayart, goes off without a hitch, and that this old, incredibly perverted man can make it to the renewal on time. This is where things tricky, as the story takes place over a single night and during that night Makie and Taki must fend off several members of the Black World, renegade monsters who think they must keep the treaty from being signed.

It’s also because of these freakish beings that I believe this movie goes against the “tentacle-free” name we so try to uphold here at Trash Mutant, but this is the kind of stuff you people are into. I just know it. There is a lot of gore and horror stricken devils in this movie, along with a fair bit of nudity as well. The movie opens with our main character, Taki, having sex with a black world spider monster.

It’s pretty funky. The biggest downside to this movie though is that it feels to make sure the story happens in one night, meaning it rushes the character growth to unbelievable standards and then in the end completely pushes our leads into a romance simply because they were destined to be together; whether they wanted to be or not.

Imagine waking up to this after a hard night of drinking.

It’s unrealistic no matter how much peril either of our leads are put into and I would much rather the story have taken place over a few days, at least. I did however enjoy watching Mayart try to get Makie to sleep with him when she was having none of it, he never did give up. The animation, as I mentioned earlier is, pretty good. It’s almost standard 80s but with a sheen given to it that makes it pretty good to look at. The character designs are also incredible, and this is something I have always loved about Japanese horror, whether I watch it or not, is their penchant to use creepily designed monsters instead of human foes more often or use the human bodies as hosts for said creatures.

Makie is not afraid to mess you up, lover boy.

Like the spider-woman I mentioned before, her vagina turns into a hole filled with razor sharp teeth (does this make anyone else think of the 2007 movie Teeth?), and there is a monster whose eyeballs too turn into mouths of razor sharp teeth at one point. It’s pretty stellar and at times funny to watch. I love creepy Japanese monster horror designs in anime; knowing someone put that much thought into how creepy they want their demon to be.

Taki seems to be in a bit of a bind.

Wicked City is a movie for entertainment, and perhaps a few scares, depending on how jumpy you are. It’s not pure horror, but should be viewed as a standard action movie with just a bit of buddy-cop thrown in. If you are looking for something deep and compelling, look somewhere else. Overall, I don’t feel as if I need to ever watch this movie again and that’s sad, but I can see where many others would enjoy it.

Final Score: 2 Dentata Demons out of 5


Have you seen "Wicked City"? How did you enjoy the movie and the review? 

Tagged: Tentacle-Free Anime.

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