Wicked City (OVA) | Anime Review | Pinnedupink.com

WICKED CITY (OVA)

You can’t watch Wicked City without feeling a sense of awe at one point, even today. Some find this anime downright crazy, while others find it dumb and stupid, I myself; think this is one of the most entertaining, albeit outlandish anime out there. Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s Wicked City combines body horror and neo-noir filmmaking. It does so great with its themes of sex, violence, and dimensional horror. Those who are fans of Cronenberg’s work might love this film, that much I can guarantee.

To begin to talk about the story or to even try to explain it is extremely difficult. If and when you watch this film, make sure to carefully follow along, and you’ll be fine. Whether you like it or not is a different story. They don’t really give you much of an insight into the what and why of this world, so it might lead to confusion. I’ll try to summarize the gist of it, though, as briefly as I can without going into spoiler territory. Earth is the world we live in, then there is the Black World, which is a parallel dimension that almost nobody is aware of.

There has been a peace treaty between both our world and the Black World for centuries. This is to ensure that both worlds will be functioning in harmony without interrupting either side. However, a military faction’s introduction into this chaotic mess ends up with them trying to sabotage the peace treaty between the inter-dimensional worlds. The Black Guards, two agents of this inter-dimensional force that lives to serve the peace as assigned to ensure that the peace treaty is enforced without any interruptions.

Honestly, the story is pretty straightforward but is overly convoluted at the same time. We’re never given any exposition on where or how the peace talks between Humans and Demons are taking place or even just how the demons came to appear in the first place. The only thing the series tells you is that they exist and have been fighting humans for centuries without end. The plot does carry weight, though, despite it being convoluted.

The story usually side-tracks when the director wants to show sex, and boy oh boy, is there a lot of exposition on that front. Most seem to think that this film’s amount of sexual content was added for shock or edgy. While I do believe that the sexual material here does overstep some boundaries, especially in the eighties era of Japan when Nikkatsu’s work was practically impossible to find. It does have a definite role in the overarching narratives here. Certain erotic parts are honestly entirely unnecessary, though.

Taki, the main character, was honestly a super badass character. He’s shown as this total kickass guy who cares about nobody but the peace treaty and shagging or killing everything he sets his eyes upon. He’s basically Japanese James Bond; he shoots up the bad guys and gets with the girls.

At one point, I forgot how he distinguishes between what he’s supposed to lay down with versus what he’s supposed to kill because he genuinely has a moment with a demon spider. Other than that, though, he doesn’t have much of a personality? His motivations seem unclear; his character seems boring after a while into the film. Sure the film is entertaining without having to learn the backstory of motivations of its main character, but it certainly takes away from the overall experience, in my opinion.

It’s incredibly unusual, seeing an anime with so much thought put into each frame and each shot. In this scenario, Wicked City feels more like a neo-noir film than it does an anime. Yoshiaki Kawajiri created an anime that resembles the likes of films made by the great David Cronenberg. The framing, lighting, and the use of colors make Wicked City a film that is based entirely at night time; SHINE. The most exciting thing about its art style is the excellent use of shadows and reflections. Mind you that this film was made in 1987, this is way before films could actually be animated

entirely on a computer. So the fact that the artists went through all of that, creating each reflection, each sparkle of light, and each shadow on a character’s face in odd lighting, is remarkable. Beautiful cityscapes, gloomy night lights made the one scene where shadows projecting certain characters making love onto the street was a great use in visual storytelling.

The eye design in this film is so good, being before the trend in all anime where the eyes of every character are supposed to be huge in size or beady. Wicked City takes a much more human approach to its character designs, except when it doesn’t… this is about the demons.

Wicked City’s terrifying demons and ghouls are incredibly grotesque to look at, especially a female demon that shows up near the end of the film. Fans of the movie know exactly what I’m referring to; it had jaw-dropping animation. The intense synth-heavy blasting music just adds to the atmosphere of this film—terrifying, loud, uncomfortable, and somehow, extremely engaging.

If you are not looking for a deep anime full of meanings with a detailed psychological analysis of its characters this one is for you. The glaring issue with this film, aside from its characters lacking any depth, is that it contains way too much sexual content for a casual viewer.

So, beware when you’re going into it. Aside from this, I think this is an extremely entertaining film from start to finish. It has an extremely stylistic world and design, with some of the best animation from any 80s anime film or series you will find. The intense music, with some of the most fun to watch violence in a film of this type, makes this a must-watch for any fans of body-horror or purely R-Rated movies.