Makai Toshi Shinjuku

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.

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 filmmaking, the story. Demon City does not have one. It has template characters, the strong, brash, and grey yet overconfident main guy; his beautiful and caring love interest; the cool, mysterious, and overpowered side guy; the generic, evil, and one-note villain; and the McGuffin thing or person that the party has to save (the Jesus figure, father of our heroine, in this case). And if it were funny, witty, or smart it would've worked great as a satire, but again, it's none of those things except dreadfully boring.

They had edgy monster designs and concepts of fight scenes, but everything else around those, the characters and the plot, were rushed or made to act as mere carriers for those setpieces. It backfires, as not only does this lack of focus on those crucial aspects make the film dull, but it also deprives the viewers of superior engagement with those setpieces (more investment in characters = more stacks). This film feels like the skeleton for future Kawajiri works, it's nice to observe this stepping stone, but it's not fun to play with it.

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!

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 whereabouts, with the pacing for the film going by fairly quickly. The characters in the OVA aren’t much better off as they are completely defined by whatever two-dimensional character types they personify with Kyouya the unwilling chosen one, Sayaka the naive and kind damsel in distress, and Levih the power-hungry and merciless villain. In essence, nothing with this film’s story and characters strongly stick out enough for you to give a hoot over what’s going on.

The only highlight for Demon City Shinjuku is its animation. Sporting nicely drawn and well-designed character designs and scenery, human characters are drawn quite believably in proportions and the designs of demons look horrific in how they are drawn. The frequent action scenes seen throughout the OVA are nicely animated with fluid movement depicted throughout its length, with the highlight being the opening scene depicting the fight between Levih Rah and Kyouya’s father.

Visuals aside though, Demon City Shinjuku doesn’t have much else that gives it rewatchability with how forgettable its premise and characters are. You’d be better off trying to track down other horror titles of the era like Vampire Princess Miyu or Lily C.A.T. that offer more to explore with their premises.

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.

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 laughing so much it was hard to see, by the last 15 i was falling asleep)

Unfrotuately the story is really weak to begin with, the source material might have been better but from what is presented here I make no plans to ever investigate. Progression of the story is just plain goofy at times as well as other aspects of it.

With the exception of a sort of 'Guide' to Demon City, these characters are as bad as it gets. several static, unrealistic boring and unlikable characters, demon city should have made the demons of demon city a bit more interesting, unique, or had some kind of dramatic introduction to the ones encountered... or at the very least this crap could have made the demons not have such god awful voices/voice acting consisting of guttural groans and grunts, they shouldn't be funny/hokey. the artists definitely could have made them look better by spending more time on them too. Another thing that was really bad was when minor character s fulfill their role, they are grabbed by ethereal hands and pulled through the floor or wall into another dimension without warning.

Even with bad characters dialogue and slipshod story I would have liked this more if demon city was actually about a city full of demons that were interesting or had clever problem solving to overcome them. Instead this is a bit of a wonky story and premise, truly made horrible by it's overdub, I thought it bad enough to never read manga or even seek another version (hardsubbed or something)

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 character to where I didn't care what happened to her. And everyone else is just annoying or not on screen long enough for me to get invested.

Also what the fuck was up with the random-ass accents in the dub??? Again, this was just not a good watch at all.