Demon City Shinjuku [Blu-ray]

This film went on to influence film ever since its debut. There's also a tabletop RPG which was written for it. Deep themes and interesting action in a very atmospheric setting, way before Buffy or Bleach!

Excellent quality. The english voice acting is still from the original english release and is painfully hilarious for certain characters but the video quality of this blu-ray version is excellent.

Swesome condition gr8 flick

The version I watched on the Sci-Fi channel decades ago was censored for language (but not violence of course, yay for North American priorities). Watching this version made a lot of my memories make sense. "Man, I thought that dialogue sounded chopped-off back then!" was a thought that passed through my mind time and time again as I watched this DVD. So basically, Japan's Shinjuku area gets all but obliterated by demonic forces at the hands of the antagonist who pledges that in ten years the gate to hell will be fully opened and the world will be plunged into darkness. The reluctant protagonist is a practitioner of Nenpo(sp?), a form of martial arts based on channeling the energies of the universe. He teams up with a brave woman to battle the demons of Shinjuku over the fate of the world. There's not a large amount of nudity or freaky anime-fetish stuff going on in this movie. Over-all, it's pretty clean aside from language and one partial nudity scene.

Anime can fall flat without meaningful characters that we come to love. When we first met protagonists like Makie (Wicked City) and D (Vampire Hunter D), they had instant appeal and offered backgrounds of intrigue or mystery. Our hero of Shinjuku is Kyoya, a swordsman charged with protecting the president's daughter and preventing Hell on Earth. I generally like him as "a good guy," but I'm not nearly as invested or interested in him as I was the aforementioned heroes. I'm not hating here--just identifying my single negative criticism of this movie. Everything else was great. Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Wicked City, Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust) sure knows how to make an awesome contemporary dark fantasy. First, an evil swordsman opens a gate to Hell after some sort of Highlander (1986) duel with Kyoya's father--who fights down to his last limbs like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). 10 years later, evil demon tentacles thrash from a bouquet of flowers and kidnap the president! That's what the world has come to…evil thrashing tentacles abound. The demons in this movie are pretty cool. Following in his father's footsteps practicing the way of the sword, Kyoya must defend the president's daughter from their attempts at her life. Much as Wicked City (1987) had its Black World dimension, many of the monsters of Shinjuku possess gifts of interdimensional travel through shadows, teleportation or dreams. A bit of a throwback to the lady spider demon from Wicked City (1987), one of them is a sort of spider-centaur with a giant hermit crab claw and a toothed maw on his stomach! As if this fiend wasn't powerful enough, it teleports through the shadows. Kyoya is also pulled into an underwater dimension to battle what I can only describe as a three-eyed demonic sloth hag. And perhaps influenced by Vampire Hunter D (1985), the mysterious Mephisto battles a constricting succubus composed of tentacles. Throw in all manner of lashing tentacles (at one point randomly and most amusingly dismembering a stray cat) and a villain reminiscent of Vampire Hunter D's (1985) Count Dracula complete with white hair and telekinesis, and we have a damn good time. It may not be terribly original, but it's highly entertaining.

The older anime just hits different.

Perfect

I would like to tell your Australian customers that this dvd has a different title here, which is "Monster City". It is about a city called Tokyo and a suburb of Shinjuku which has been taken over by a nut called Rebi Rah. Rah has turned Shinjuku into a city of demons, and in three days he intends to turn the whole world into a wasteland with the help of an army of demons from the pits of Hell. It is the job of Sayaka Rama (who is trying to find her father) and Kyoyo (who is trying to revenge the death of his father) to fight their way through the demons to get to Rah. On the way two other companions help in their way, but most of the story is centered on Sayaka and Kyoyo and his wooden sword. Kyoyo's father was a master swordsman and could not defeat Rah, so how is Kyoyo expected to do the impossible. He has a secret weapon that he does not even know he has, and it serves him well in the end. Sayaka is captured by Rah and is waiting to be used as a sacrifice to the devils of Hell, but Kyoyo finds his father's sword and the secret weapon moments before Rah could open the gates of Hell. I thought the fight between Rah and Kyoyo was a bit short, although there is no other out-come when the sword and the secret weapon are used as one. There is action a plenty, demons that manga fans are used to by now, and the over-the-top torture that the human body could possiblly endure, but we all LOVE it for what it is. This dvd gets five stars and I would recommend this dvd to anyone who is interested in the manga genre, because it has all the elements in it. If you come from another country be careful what you buy, as the American manga has different titles.