It's been a while since I have seen Demon City Shinjuku and I recently bought the Discotek Blu-Ray from Right Stuf's Holiday Sale. Seeing that the year is almost over, I wanted to revisit this film soon. I have a lot of nostalgia for this anime because I used to watch anime on the Sci-Fi channel when I was a little kid. I was watching anime from a younger age than most Millennials around my age group did (People born in the late 80s and early 90s). I remember watching anime such as Demon City Shinjuku, My Neighbor Totoro (The Fox Home Video release), Venus Wars, Dominion Tank Police, etc before I even saw any of the Dragon Ball shows or anyone I knew talked about anime. Anyways, Demon City Shinjuku is not as good as the other anime from Yoshiaki Kawajiri in my opinion. However, it's still a fun movie nevertheless.
I owned many editions of Demon City Shinjuku and other anime from Yoshiaki Kawajiri over the years. The Blu-Ray is a great upgrade and it makes the movie look 100X better in my opinion. I always love Yoshiaki Kawajiri's art direction because he draws really cool characters and creates colorful backgrounds. The attention to detail in the surroundings and character designs is astounding. You get plenty of cool-looking monster designs that feel inspired by the demons from Go Nagai's work and Dungeons & Dragons. The film has a fantastic dark atmosphere and the spooky tone helps creates a feeling of death around the corner. You can sense that demons and other evil spirits are lurking in Shinjuku just waiting for the perfect time to strike.
The music in this film is super catchy and it always reminds me of music that you would find in a movie from Lucio Fulci or any other Italian grindhouse movie. The action sequences are a lot of fun and you get plenty of fight scenes that are very nicely animated. The weakest thing about Demon CIty Shinjuku is the writing. The story does have some plot holes that are very noticeable. The main characters could have better character development and the romance is pretty weak. However, I do like how Demon City Shinjuku does not take itself too seriously by keeping the plot nice and simple. Watching Demon City Shinjuku is almost like playing a video game on the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). The protagonist sets out on a journey to save a girl from an evil demon wizard. I could easily see this film getting a Legend of Zelda style clone on the NES back in the day. The English dubbing for this film is bad due to poor dialogue and translation issues. If you decide to see this film, I suggest seeing it in subtitled form.
Overall, Demon City Shinjuku is a flawed movie and I still recommend checking it out if you've got time to spare. Rating: 7.5/10
