Makaitoshi Shinjuku / Demon City Shinjuku (1988)

 

Demons, swordfighting, apocalyptic stuff, magic... You'd think there was a lot to like with this one. Maybe there is, but this isn't one of the more memorable anime out there. Heck, you'd be hard-pressed to remember what it was all about right after watching. 

Cool visuals at times, though. 

We start off on a pretty rockin' swordfight on the roof of a skyscraper in Shinjuku. Two men - one clearly evil, one clearly good - duke it out, but the good side is losing rapidly. This opens a rift between this world and that of the demons and the victor, Rebi Ra, vows to open up the whole world in ten years so that it may be consumed by evil.

Someone should really tell bad guys that setting a broad time limit on one's plans never turns out that well. But then again, the story would be over rather quickly. 

Ten years later, we meet up with Kyoya, who is of course the son of our unlucky loser at the beginning. He is also a swordmaster, but he's lazy, arrogant and rather unlikable. Even when a ghostly apparition begs him to go into Shinjuku, which is now a cursed place filled with demons, he balks at the idea and pretty much tells the old man to bugger off. 

Things change - sort of - when a beautiful young girl asks him to help her. He refuses at first, but when she makes it into Shinjuku and is immediately accosted by unruly thugs, Kyoya steps in. They also meet up with a young kid on superpowered rollerskates and head out to find Rebi Ra's main monsters and of course, the man himself. 

It is during these demonic encounters that the visuals are pretty striking, especially the part in the destroyed park, where the souls of the people bond together to form either a massive firespawn or a little girl looking for her mother. The encounter with an Earth monster (a malformed man/spider/whatever-the-fuck-it-is thing) and a water based one are over a lot quicker. Heck, the final encounter with Rebi Ra is actually hugely underwhelming. If it was thàt simple to stop all this, it is a miracle Rebi Ra remained master of Shinjuku for so long. 

You could argue that this isn't the point, but the transition for Kyoya from blackguard to hero is, but it's actually the girl who does far more heroic things, especially as she isn't gifted with special powers. 

Yes, Kyoya is 'the One'. Or a variant thereof. Because of course. 

In the end, this isn't a bad film, just a rather unremarkable one. There are better ones out there with basically the same plot. The cool visuals at times don't make this one stand out, they are just a nice addition to an otherwise rather bland story. If you're a hardcore anime fan, you might want to give this a watch, but don't expect anything mindblowing.