Choujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji

In the year 2014, and presumbaly in those that will follow it, it is now accepted by the vast majority of people that cartoons are not always for children.

Undoubtedly there are some out there who most continue to defend their love of Chinese cartoons from parental scepticism and faced high-school mockery and social isolation, but for those of who have surpassed the need for the approval of others, but not old enough to have children to be disappointd in, it is accepted that drawn pictures are not childish by their very nature.
This was not always so, and the changing tide of popular opinion on this matter can be attributed to several productions, primarily American Cartoons. The most well-known of course is The Simpsons, in its early days criticised for its rude content and the troubling prospect of Bart Simpson being a "bad influence" on children. This was merely a foot in the door however; it was not until the release of South Park some ten years later that the floodgates opened and cartoons were no longer just for lil' tykes. Now we have Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleaveland Show and a handful of other shows not created by Seth McFarlane. Of course, this is only a sweeping populist narrative that neglects a range of facts. There were in fact a number of different shows which appeared in the years between The Simpsons and South Park which also played their part, such as: Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy, Daria, Cow and Chicken, Space Ghost Coast to Coast... and Urotsukidoji. What do you mean, you've never heard of Urotsukidoji?

Though it has since been resigned to history, Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend has had more publicity in the West than most anime outside of the Ghibli catalogue ever will. In fact, this now forgotten film from the early 90s managed to make it into the newspapers. You may not be surprised to learn that this was not to publicise this fascinating art-form from a distant land or an appraisal of its content. Instead, Urotsukidoji found its way into the newspapers because it was in defiance of a universal truth: that cartoons are, by their very nature, for children.

At this point it is worth taking a moment out from this no doubt fascinating History lesson to put into context precisely what I mean when I say that Urotsukidoji is not suitable for children. Does it contain characters that could be considered less than wholesome? Yes, there are a few. Does it contain vulgar language, left uncensored, that may graze an otherwise innocent ear? Yes, it does. Does it contain a scene where a monster rapes a human girl with massive tentacle-like appendages? Yes, most of them.
Make no mistake, the hard drive of even the most enthusiastic and perverse torture porn aficionado would make more suitable viewing for children. Even most adults would struggle to sit through the seriously disturbing content of this film without feeling upset. There were even times that I, despite being completely desensitised to any cartoon depiction of graphic violence at this point, considered switching the video off completely, because Urotsukidoji had simply become too disturbing. You may have guessed that this graphic content may have had something to do with its media coverage.

Indeed it is so. Through a mixture of parental presumption, ignorance or perhaps indifference, at some point in the mid-nineties some children in the United Kingdom managed to get their hands on a copy of Urotsukidoji and watched it. And with that, the almighty Overfiend of tabloid journalism appeared, and set about making sure that our innocent little children shall never gaze upon these filthy Chinese cartoons ever again. The unfortunate thing is, having actually sat through it, one can almost sympathise with those out to censure it. The entire film is a complete mess.

Urotsukidoji does have a storyline behind it, perhaps even one more ambitious than other hentai, but the pacing is dire and it's not even remotely coherent. Essentially we 'ignorant humans' believe we are the masters of the world, when in fact there are three worlds and one creature which will eventually rule them all, the titular Overfiend. This raises a lot of questions about how these worlds are related to each other, how to travel between them and many other questions. Unfortunately there is little we 'ignorant humans' can do about this, because the film never bothers to explain this clearly. At one point Amano, the half-beast assigned to the task of searching for the Chojin, brings several characters through some kind of dimensional warp to the dimension of the man-beasts, but it's never made clear how this works or whether other creatures can use it. Alas, we are merely "ignorant humans".

The question of who the Chojin's host will be is another mystery. There are two contenders, the wimpy pervert and the athletic (later reformed) sex addict. The criteria for what makes someone a Chojin is that they are able to "drive the ladies wild". Don't worry, you're not alone- I'm also worried I may be a Chojin too. The test to find out is simple; you need to have sex with a woman. Oops, watch out for that plot hole!

If you are outraged that you are not the demon creature that will be tasked with fucking the world to destruction, then do not worry, there is another option available to you: become the anti-Chojin. How do you do that? You just fuck some tube that some demons will bring you. Once you're done, simply find the Chojin and consume his blood and semen to complete the transformation. Yes.

One could spend a day picking apart the problems with the plot in Urotsukidoji, but perhaps the most telling thing about the quality of story is that I feel like I have described almost the entire story of the film, yet have not gone beyond the confines of the blurb. This indicates both how thin the story is, and just how abysmal the pacing is. Then again, a shorter film or better plot would have meant less time spent on watching demon rape. Some might say that isn't a huge loss, but as connoissuers of rapey demons will testify, Urotsukidoji has the best animated demon rape money can buy, or that internet can download!
Perhaps it is because this film stands so tenuously between the boundaries of 'bizarre artwork' and 'disturbing pornography' that so much effort was put into the animation of Urotsukidoji. Or maybe because the perverts who drew it were so desperate for it to be made into a reality they were willing to work for free. We "ignorant humans" will never know the truth, but you could be surprised by the quality of the artwork. The human character designs are quite ugly (especially the female characters, oddly enough) but the demon creatures who rape them look fantastic. The backgrounds are nicely detailed if awash in dark colours, and the animation is faultless.

Urotsukidoji is yet another step on the Central Park Media grand tour of badly dubbed anime, but unfortunately it is not a memorable one. While there a few ridiculous lines like "let me see that Chojin dick!" and a few others about intercourse and its many instruments, the acting is mainly just mediocre and the script is mainly just dull. Very dull indeed. In fact once you get beyond the shock-factor, it summarises the whole film rather nicely: dull.

As I said already, Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend is a film that has been resigned to history, and that is definitely not without good reason. Be content with your human ignorance.

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The most disturbed and sickening anime ever made till this day!"!What the hell was i thinkin´ watched this as an 11 year old kid , i din´t knew anime like this exsisted until a buddy of mine lended it to me....IT FUCKED my childhood so hard up to an extent that i became obsessive with this tape , AND HAD NIGHTMARE´S!!!!!!Storyline in the 1st 3 part stays very strong and freakin´intense throughout the horrorshow, with nice chara intro´s , wich are mostly memorable for the good guys ofc. Animation is ofc bit cheap and vague at times but WTH it was the 80´s, forgive them. Music here is one of the most wellknown things ok it was lowfi sound, but escpecially at fighting scene´s or other fucked up things that happen, it fits!
I can´t believe i survived this anime for over a decade, but , IT CAN´T BE RE-DONE ANYMORE LUCKELY more as legend of the overfiend its one of a kind, just like akira and ghost in the shell are!

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I'm usually not a huge fan of writing really short reviews, but it's so damn easy to summarize this series in just a few sentences:

There's too much plot for it to be a pure hentai, but too little plot for a proper supernatural action series.

To call the characters one dimensional would be an insult to straight lines.

Every single bit of time that could have been spent on plot or characters is instead wasted on rapey sex-scenes.
You can almost set yourself a timer for when a sex-scene will occur (tip: it's all the fucking time, usually for no reason).
I can almost hear the guys in the studio animating this going "Oh shit, no one fucked for like a minute and half, can't have that"

It's a shame too, this could have been a Devilman-styled demon-centric action/horror show. Instead it's just ... nothing really.


Overall:
If all you want is to watch a bunch of, admittedly reasonably well-drawn, girls get raped by demon tentacle-dicks and then get blown to gory bits afterwards, this is the show for you.
If not, steer clear of this mess.

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When I wonder about the animation budget breakdown for this show I guess that 60% or so of it was dedicated to animating explosions and things being exploded. The remaining 40% divided equally between things being decapitated and everything else which needed animation.
The budget on this series wasn't tight judging by the amount of detail animators went into. A part of me resents this gross misappropriation of funding. Instead of a series which pushed the boundaries of what we consider good hentai we get instead a very forgettable action series, interspersed with random sex scenes. If you're looking for a hentai animation which isn't 80% dicking around with plot this probably isn't the animation for you.
That's all I have to say about this really. Why the fuck did this have such a huge budget and why did they dedicate it to things I do not care about? It's like Akira but shit and with porn.

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