Shihaisha no Tasogare

As humans go through their daily lifes they are left unaware of the battle that is being waged between good and evil.It is a battle that has existed from the beginning of time,a battle between demons and the guardians of mankind.Tsunami Shijo a fire manipulator and the last of the guardians one day meet a woman seeking to find a demon who she wishes to kill,Tsunami later finds out that this demon once had a close relationship with the woman and investigates to find it.

Tsunami search leads him to a conspiracy in which drugs is being used on human test subjects and behind it all ... is an old enemy,the worst demon of them all.Tsunami must once again stop his old enemy before he destroys all mankind.Firstly may i just say that the animation is great,.It is absolutely gorgeous.Im a sucker for these 90's animation drawing,the colour looks real and vivid,everything is in great detail with a realism that far surpasses most of the computer generated animation that we get today.Whether it is the building,facial features,blood,spit or trees the animation is just awesome.The sounds effects is also top notch, with the pitch of every scream or explosion being of very high quality.

This is a fourty-five minute movie and will properly garner criticism for being so short but thats what i loved about this movie,the fact that so much was condensed in so little.An anime like this definately deserved some more air time but still was entertaining even if it was short.

Overview:
Twilight of the Dark Master is THAT anime of 1998 with an appealing title and description, that is pretty much it. There are a lot of shortcomings of this film that could have gone beyond the shallow antagonizing force, non-existent romantic elements between a human and a demon etc. Vintage anime films are often glorified because apparently every aged anime is a masterpiece, that may be true with series such as Initial D, Cowboy Bebop, Ghibli Films etc. but that's about it. No-name vintage anime films have a reason why they're no-name; it is either because studios have taken risks and invested in poorly ... written source material or the entire project is just terrible. I'd say this film was the latter, the main character doesn't feel like the main character, the villain doesn't feel like the villain. A human loves the villain but gets torn apart TWICE because of their own naivety. Steer clear from this film by all means, it's not even worth spending 5min watching let alone the 45min duration...

Ah, the good old days of renting anime OVA from your local video store, back when you just picked up something because the cover looked appealing, and you were young and didn't care how good or bad it was, as long as it was anime. That's pretty much how I ended up watching Twilight of the Dark Master. I was but a young lass, and for weeks I stared at the front cover of the VHS (the older one with the main characters profile gazing at the grimace of a very discontented looking woman), and just knew that my mom wasn't going to ... let me take this one home. So, I asked my grandma. Success!

So is Twilight of the Dark Master worth watching. Well, if you like older 90's anime and don't need an in-depth backstory to fill in the gaps, then yes. Although, I honestly think that anyone who watches anime could enjoy this. It isn't the best OVA, but it's entertaining. So let's break this down, shall we?

Starting off with the story. In a nutshell, the story is about a woman, Shizuka, who's fiance, Eiji, turns into a demon and she seeks the assistance of a Guardian, or demon hunter, named Tsunami, to find and kill it. It's not a very original story, and even as things are gradually explained throughout Tsunami's investigation, there were still some loose ends, or just very vague ideas. Like, why and how was Eiji turned into a demon in the first place? How much time had passed since he turned into a demon? Who exactly is this mysterious antagonist, Takamiya? Is that a clitoris?!?! Whoah.....did a head just pop out of that clitoris?? Seriously, this OVA is 45 minutes long and there is so much information packed into it, but it wasn't long enough to explain everything. I'm going on 30 and I'm still wondering about the clitoris.

And we have our characters. Throughout the OVA a lot of different names will be dropped frequently, and you might be trying to remember who these names belong to. Except for Huang and Chen Long, because even if we never learned their names, we would still remember the borderline incestuous relationship between these twins. But everyone else is just a face. There isn't much characterization or development, and everyone seems pretty bland.

The art, however, is pretty good. I'm very fond of this style of anime character design, it's very nostalgic for me and reminds me of why anime was so captivating for me as a kid. The animation is decent, a tad bit jerky or stiff at times, but nothing worth complaining about.

The soundtrack was interesting. It had so many different tones and vibes that I think this, alone, was the highlight of this OVA. I found myself focusing on the background music quite a bit, and each track fit nicely with it's corresponding scene.

Some may consider this gory and sexual. While there is nudity, fan service, and....a clitoris...?....I'd say the gore is sub-par, and would tone it down to just bloody and violent. Perhaps in 1998 this was considered gory?

But all in all, Shihaisha no Tasogare, or Twilight of the Master, is an enjoyable watch. So, I give it a 7/10.

This is a very atmospheric 1990s anime with monsters, superpowered people, cyberpunk-ish atmosphere. In a sense, it is somewhat similar - in atmosphere - to Wicked City. With less sexual content, however.

The main reason to watch it is 1990s atmosphere - with hand-drawn everything, specific old-style music, and atmosphere of the city which feels vaguely cyberpunk in nature.

Breakdown below:

Story: 6/10:
There's a shot timeframe for the movie, but it does decent job presenting the storyline, characters, and showing you how the event unfolds. The events are presented in sort of indifferent way, so you sorta get glimpses and hints of what the people there are, ... what events happened in the past, etc. Narration style is similar to, for example, "the humanoid". They just show you the story unfold from start to finish and that is it.

Art: 6/10:
I liked it, due to 1990s aeshtetic. However, good portion of the anime is horribly dark, and, say Magic M-66 had more fluid animation than this. You get a couple of old-style monsters that are drawin in a way t hat doesn't happen often anymore. Those are interesting to watch/see. The style of characters/faces is also older one - with triangular "tall" faces with "thin" eyes. Then there are hand-drawn explosions.

Sound: 6/10:
It is pleasant and matches the atmosphere, but that's it. It doesn't reall ystandout.

Character: 5/10:
The anime doesn't go out of its way with character portrayal. The characters are shown one after another, you have glimpses of their personality and they look believable. However, characters don't really like talking much, so their characters don't even matter too much, and aren't that memorable. They are pieces of the story and tha'ts about it.

Enjoyment: 7/10:
I liked it, mostly for the old-style 1990s aesthetic and atmosphere (demons, cyberpunk, night high-tech cities, etc). As I said it reminded me heavily of Wicked City and older movies in general.

Overall: 7/10:

This is a good anime, but it is mostly worth checking out if you're into 1990s style anime. It is similar to Wicked City, maybe Devilman Lady, has similar palette/art, and similar older style music. No annoying teenagers in school anywhere in it, just showing you the world in the movie. I found it to be enjoyable.

So, it is worth checking out.

The easiest way I can describe Twilight of the Dark Master for you is to imagine a 12 episode (at least) anime getting compressed into a 45 minute OVA. The art and animation are both really great and heavily influenced by Blade Runner - but everything else is a complete and utter mess. The story barely makes any sense and the characters are paper thin. It's not a surprise that this OVA has been long forgotten to the point that even YouTube had very little videos available on it. I can only imagine what went on at the studio behind the scenes that led ... to this being the end result.

If you are here that means you are already aware of the 80s Anime style, the brutal visceral and atmospheric take from the Japanese talent. Yes this one got it all.

The story is very thin, and as mentioned already here. I will just keep it short. Demons vs Angels as the Prologue itself defines, but this anime is purely for the art, the original hand drawn masterpiece is what makes this OVA shine. It's very similar to the art style of Mr. Kawajiri. And the mystery of the plot keeps it going. That's why you won't even remember the prologue once you are in the ... narration.

Extreme gore is missing for a Cyberpunk work like this, but it will still satisfy for the ones who are looking for something very dark, as the opening itself hits perfect. The screenplay is fantastic, since the story is nothing much to write about the intriguing screenplay is what keeps this alive and makes you lit. The background score which plays in some sequences matches pretty well for the scene, it's very subtle so you will definitely feel it's effect.

Wish they had a 3 part OVA for this work, it would have been excellent as the depth is lacking in the work, characters of the Long siblings should have been explored more and the beautiful women esp Chen, her dominatrix dress in the start gave away strong vibes of extreme sinister thoughts, and female body is shown in the work thoroughly but with a bit of hesitation they should have at-least extended the scenes and went more deeper like Yōjū Toshi. But probably wanted to have a distinct style which the staff definitely achieved, the Demon's capturing of prey is somewhat reminiscent of lovecraftian style, H.R Giger inspired, Vulva with thorns and tentacles, I mean you can clearly see what their intent was, they really held back in my eyes, still a great achievement.

Just watch it for the Art and the Atmosphere, the old anime works like this have always captured 10/10 in the impact, there's simply no way Japan would have such works, it's a lost art. And the best part is it's Timeless so you watch it anytime as you wish.

Thanks for your time.