Wicked City

• Japanese: 妖獣都市, Hepburn: Yōjū Toshi, lit. Supernatural Beast City
• Directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Solo Directorial Debut)
• April 19, 1987
• Based on the 1985 novel Wicked City: Black Guard by Hideyuki Kikuchi

Voice Cast

• Taki-Greg Snegoff
• Mayart-Mike Reynolds
• Makie-Gaye Kruger
• Kanako-Edie Mirman
• Shadow-Jeff Winkless
• Hodgkins-David Povall
• Secretary-Alexandra Kenworthy
• Temptress-Eleni Kalakos
• President-Robert V. Barron
• Male Coworker-Steve Kramer
• Ken-Jason Klassi
• Female Coworker-Melora Harte
• PA-Frank Catalano

A human male and demon female must protect the signatory to a peace treaty between their two worlds from demonic terrorists seeking to break the peace.

This was certainly an experience. I have seen less weird nudity in live action than I have ever seen in Wicked City. In the opening Agent Taki, one of two central characters, picks up a girl at a bar and takes her back to his place. Turns out she’s a demon in disguise with teeth on her vagina seeking his…stuff. Not at all what I was expecting.

I’ll say it: I did find the sex and nudity gratuitous. I’m not against nudity or sex but it, like anything else in film or television, should help tell the story and I don’t necessarily think it helped to tell this story or any story. It was in there because they could. When they were actually trying to tell the story things got weird and strange looking in a good way. There are never any scares or any creepiness, but it did have a noticeable horror vibe.

The story revolves around the re-upping of a treaty between humans and demons. It is my understanding the Japanese have a very different concept of demons than the West so keep that in mind. Our hero is paired with a demon agent to protect a two hundred year old dude who is a massive pervert. Borders on sexual predator at times. Mayart, the old man they both must protect, was probably being a sexual predator at one point in his life. Why anybody would trust him with anything I don’t know. In fact, all the guys are all kind of perverted here. Then again these are some of the horniest characters outside of a porno that I have ever encountered.

Was Wicked City written by a hormone addled teenage boy with some serious issues. Vaginas galore! Vaginas with teeth. Vaginas in torsos. Vaginas that shoot webs. Who even thinks of that? And tons of boobs. It is very heavy on sex and nudity. Never wanted to see a two hundered year old man have sex with, well, ANYBODY but here I am.

It develops relationships about as well as one would expect for Japanese animation of any era. I enjoy this stuff, but romance is rarely done well. Taki and Makie are in love based on…not much. But once the romantic intentions are clear the characters do generate a nice banter and interact well. It’s love for the moment, and not for the long term.

The revelation at the end felt a little out of the blue. Specifically Taki and Makie’s importance to the whole situation beyond being horny bodyguards for an elderly creep. Weirdly Mayart talks to them like they should already know. Looking back I can’t see anything that even the audience should’ve realized since the audience and the characters share the same experiences. No clues were (even poorly) laid out. It was just dropped in.

The rules of this fictional world are as confusing as how plot developments fit in with what was presented before. The Black World Radicals, demons that are against the treaty, are from an alternate dimension and have difficulty existing in ours. Yet the ultimate goal of the treaty as well as abilities demonstrated would imply that would need to be NOT the case. Taki at one point gets fired by his boss. Was he angry with him or did he fire him as part of the ultimate overall needs to renew the treaty? You would think he should know in order to get the desired outcome.

At around 80 minutes they stretch this out probably a little too long. There’s not really much story here. They could’ve dealt in any number of things or even just worked on the emotional connection between the two main characters. Or dropping more elements in that when you look back, you could realize that the two main characters are the source of the treaty. The story/mythology needed more work.

The Japanese animation of this era had that strong sound that bordered on unnatural. And I see that as a plus for the film. I like realistic sound but that big sound is a style that I don’t think can be rightly replicated today. For me it is like auditory comfort food. But that alone does not elevate this or smooth over the issues.

Visually Wicked City is quite good, but the ending does not connect well. Plus it is too long for what they have. Entertaining but it could’ve been much better.