Audience reviews
18 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
fh1478
Stick Is Mightier Than The Sword
Demon City Shinjuku is a OVA, where the main character has to prove his a bad enough dude, to save the president's daughter, and defeat the evil demon summoner.
The entire story feels like a video game premise, and it doesn't really become deeper than, but the presentation and music helps it becoming much more entertaining than the premise would say. the two main characters are good, and I really like that bit of warmness that the main girl gives to the movie, so it does not feel like the normal dark sexual demon anime, that that director is known for.
The music is so cheesy, but it works for this kind of story, and I would not have it any other way, with the cheesy symph music. the dub is so cheesy and has weird accents all over the place, but my god, i…
Read at the sourceAniNexus_Reviews
I'd like to take a brief moment of your time to request the following of you: Stop reading reviews for Demon City Shinjuku, and discard everything that you have read about it thus far. Then, go watch the anime. I don't care if you read any further, but I will justify my plea with the following statement: The appeal of an anime like DCS is driven by its gorgeous visuals, and co-piloted by its sound design. Because of this fact, and partially also because of a particular sense of aesthetic creativity which dominates the set, the experience of watching DCS almost feels more like watching a timeless music video (ie: Michael Jackson's "Thriller") than an anime. In other words, "The Rule of Cool" rules in Demon City Shinjuku. As a result, no single writer-- no matter how pretentious-- is ever go…
Read at the sourceHellspawn28
NOTE: This review was originally posted on 12/29/2020. I plan to post all of my Letterboxd anime reviews on MAL.
It's been a while since I have seen Demon City Shinjuku and I recently bought the Discotek Blu-Ray from Right Stuf's Holiday Sale. Seeing that the year is almost over, I wanted to revisit this film soon. I have a lot of nostalgia for this anime because I used to watch anime on the Sci-Fi channel when I was a little kid. I was watching anime from a younger age than most Millennials around my age group did (People born in the late 80s and early 90s). I remember watching anime such as Demon City Shinjuku, My Neighbor Totoro (The Fox Home Video release), Venus Wars, Dominion Tank Police, etc before I even saw any of the Dragon Ball shows or anyone I knew talked about anime. Anyways…
Read at the sourceNo-LifeKing_26
Demon City Shinjuku was in that era of anime where dubbed ruled, profanity was everywhere, and anime was making its appearance.
I loved drawing style of Yoshitaki Amano. He was the character designer for Vampire Hunter D (1985) and Hellsing (2001). Both series which favor this dark and gritty design with cyberpunk aesthetics which are also similar to Akira.
The dubbed version of this was horrible. If you watch to closely you'll notice that there were multiple scenes where Chibi will be speaking but there will not be a English dub to voice his words. The waitress that appears at around the 5 minute mark sounded like a country lady from Mississippi or Kentucky.
The plot itself was simple and easy to follow. The battle scenes and the settings of the Demon City were adequate. They didn't re…
Read at the sourcetarunnihariya
I didn't like Wicked City because it was nothing more than sleazy porn, a visual representation of someone's weird rape fetish, which had no point except to fulfill people's disgusting inner fantasies (hey, it's not harmful unless it hurts anyone). It had great visuals, creature designs, and decent action, but the over-the-top sexual exploitation of our main heroine did not gel well with me. Kawajiri would do it again in his more famous work Ninja Scroll, but that one at least seemed to be making a point out of it rather than simply trying to give people boners.
Demon City, fortunately, does not have that "special" hentai element that the weebs love, but, unfortunately, that's not the only thing it lacks. Kawajiri, intentionally or unintentionally, failed with the most basic element of f…
Read at the sourceMotokogummi
Well, to keep it very short. The story is bare minimum you don't get much of an exposition, nor high stakes ultra violence for which Kawaijiri is known for. But don't fret, the art style is what you are after. And this delivers plenty.
Characters are not much explored, however to not spoil much, Sayaka is a beautiful young girl with a heart just like her, Kyoya is of course the hero of the story, he has a bit of personality of being into women but unfortunately the show is too clinical so not much explored. Likes of Wicked City. Rest of the characters are mysterious as it gets, just like his other works like Ninja Scroll, I'd not advise to learn about everything and then watch, just go blind.
As for Sound tracks, the pure retro style hits perfectly during the moments when it shows up.…
Read at the sourceSELFAN
Bad movie, easily Kawajiri's worst. Stopped reading the subtitles after like 20 minutes and mostly just posted on discord for the rest of the film. Uh... the main girl is pretty hot. She has nice legs and feet and there were a few solid upskirt shots which bumped my rating up a point or two. The scene near the end during which her arms and legs were bound was pretty hot too. That's all I have to say. Thanks for reading my review. Huh... I guess I have to write a longer review than that to submit it... umm... Watch Haibane Renmei, it's really good unlike this.
Read at the sourceAwoo4U
I was trying to look for so bad its good anime to watch with a friend, so that we can rip on it. We came across this movie. Since the story is not too long, all the characters do not have much development. The characters were super generic and unmemorable, especially the main villan whose goal was FOR POWER or FOR THE EVILZ. I believe the worst sin a movie can commit is to be boring, this movie is a great example of that. At least with bad movies, you can laugh at it if you are not frustrated. I was not frustrated or did I laugh at this movie, I was indifferent for the most part. Overall, super middle of the road anime. I would rather watch Wicked City if you want a better, so bad its good anime. The most amusing thing about the whole movie was the main character's choice of weapon, I thou…
Read at the sourceunimportantuser
Demon City Shinjuku is an old school anime film animated by studio Madhouse & Directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri of Ninja Scroll & Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust fame. This is actually gonna be a 2 (potentially 3) part review series of Demon City, Wicked City, & if I’m up for it, Ninja Scroll. Aside from Kawajiri directing Wicked & Demon City, along with both of them being novel’s originally, they aren’t related to my knowledge. Lets go
Story: 4/10
The story in Demon City is kinda bad. The plot itself on paper isn’t too bad. It’s merely about this guy trying to save the world from being consumed by Rah, who’s power grows from human suffering. Not too bad, but the problems arrive from how bare bones the plot it. This plot is underdeveloped. Rah’s motivations are stated but not elaborated upon. Wha…
Read at the sourceggultra2764
Demon City Shinjuku is a horror-action anime that focuses on the district of Shinjuku falling prey to demons, with the villainous Levih Rah having made a contract with them for ultimate power and to open up a gateway from hell to allow the demons to take over Earth. A young ninpo master named Kyouya Izayoi, whose father was slain by Levih years earlier, is given the task of stopping Levih’s plans, under motivation from the pleas of the young daughter of the world’s president, Sayaka Rama.
As far as plot and characters go with Demon City Shinjuku, they’re as paper-thin and cliched as you can get for an anime. Whatever there is for plot exists to press the characters forward with going through more of Shinjuku as Kyouya slays more demons while going through the district to locate Levih’s wh…
Read at the sourceStarfleeting
What a shame coming from the director of Ninja Scroll. The animation had good moments and the idea itself isn't bad but the characters, writing, and English dub were just abysmal. I was so bored during this movie I actually started doing other things while watching it. It barely held my interest at all aside from a few well-animated fight scenes.
Even Wicked City with all its flaws (and believe me, there are many), was still entertaining and the two leads compelling enough for me to be invested in. Demon City is just straight-up not a good time. The male lead was just mediocre at best and I don't know if it was the dub's fault or not but it seems like he has to talk himself out of raping the lead female at one point (what the actual fuck). The lead female just feels so flat and devoid of…
Read at the sourcematthigh
Have you seen "Escape From New York?" Yeah? Well, then you pretty much have already seen Demon City Shinjuku in spirit. They're not exactly the same, but enough that you can almost feel like you're wandering through the prison city of New York. Plus demons.
Maybe a better comparison would be to compare Demon City Shinjuku to an old-style person-to-person fighter game. Where you have special powers and moves, and you face off against mid-level bossman #1, then mis-level-bossman #2, then mid-level bossman #3, then Big Bad Guy at the end.
Overall the artwork and the animation are not bad at all, you can tell where they really blew their wad on a particular scene. Some of the characters can be annoying, like the forever-naive ingenue-in-danger character, or Snarky Mr. Hot Wheels. Or some c…
Read at the sourcenullgolem
I watched an overdub version
Visually ok for it's age. Not consistent, some shots are better than others. Fighting scenes and certain action shots should have looked better. (there arent that many) colors are nice. To me it felt a bit lazy at times and made more apparent by its flaws (such as demons not really looking that cool or standing out when they show up) The overall look is probably the only highlight here and its merely 'okay'
Music/Sound is not notable, and rather low quality (could have been the rip but its very subdued compared to the voices/overdub which was okay so i'm guessing that's not the case)
this has the worst translation i've yet to see. Nothing in it makes any sense and it gives the whole thing a surely unintended comedic effect. (For the first 15 minutes I was la…
Read at the sourceFilidecht
Contrary to my overall score (which is brutally honest), I absolutely adore this.
I think the reason I enjoy this so much is down to Nostalgia, more than anything else - I used to watch it a lot with my Step-Dad before he died.
Still, I do enjoy it after all these years, though I can agree with some of the criticisms, like the anti-climactic ending, poor over-dub and generic story arc and characters that're typical of most Anime.
I love the music though - It's a combination of being really, really shit, and really, really endearing - One song in particular is just so, so lush, during a point which is also fairly melancholic, which still holds up to this day.
It's worth a watch, but considering it's over 20 years old and superior Anime has since been released using the same story element…
Read at the sourcegknight
Just an awful movie, non sensical character development, no rational story, characters come and go from scenes with no rational explanations, relationships are done badly, bad convey of world and atmosphere, weak character motivations, I was only suffering through this, sorry I watched it!
Read at the sourcebarcaman101
The evil Rebi Rah is about to open the portals to hell in exchange for immense power that was bestowed upon him by the demonic underworld.Kyoya Izayoi a young man and a practitioner of the art of Nempo one day encounters a spiritual medium called Master Rai .Master Rai tells Kyoya about Rebi Rah plans and how his father tried to stop him ten years ago but was killed.Master Rai implores Kyoya to go to the city of shinjuku, at the heart of Tokyo where Rebi Rah intends to open the portal and defeat him before he destroys the world.
Firstly if you like deep plots,dislike the horror genre or think once an anime doesn't stimulate you mentally it isn't good then you should avoid this title.This is certainly not an anime for Moe loving,Emo cutesy anime fans.It is a dark title filled with vulgarit…
Read at the sourcePrede
I have a sneaking suspicion that Yoshiaki Kawajiri really likes John Carpenter movies. Because Demon City Shinjuku could be summed up as an OVA that mixes both Escape from New York and Escape From L.A. (despite being made after this OVA) together, has a little bit of Halloween thrown in there, and some has supernatural elements added for good measure. Good thing I'm a Carpenter fan then, right? In Cyber City Kawajiri lifted the basic premise of criminals having to do complicated missions for the state, with the chance of being pardoned (and with the risk of being blown up if they failed), just like Escape from New York. Here Kawajiri instead takes the idea of having to rescue the President, deep within a city that has long been abandoned by decent people, and now overrun by crazy things, a…
Read at the sourceanimegorey
Worst of the shorter OVAs from the 90's. Titles like BioHunter, Wicked City, Twilight of the Dark Master and Baoh put this one to shame. Action is weak and re-hashed. Story was boring and there was no part of it that stands out. Characters are really bad. The main villain looks ok, but rather uninspiring. Uninspired actually sums up this one quite nicely. There are a ton of better OVAs to watch, but if you must, download it for free and watch it when your REALLY bored. You will be disappointed.
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