TL;DR: it’s decent.
Synopsis: a man is contracted to guard a negotiator who is tasked with brokering peace between humans and a secret group of demons.
This one came to me by the ever elusive word of mouth advertising — in this case a BAP retweet of a schizowave meme. Not exactly the advertising the producers envisioned, but I assume they would be happy with any positive reception, given the community’s reaction to their movie. Reviewers either had very positive or negative reactions to the movie, some praised it for a variety of reasons (e.g. visuals, directing) while others were critical of its portrayal of women. I assume this is due to its inclusion of 5 sex scenes (in a 80 minute movie!), some of which are rape. This does get a little ridiculous, but is somewhat excusable, given that fertility is an overarching theme of the movie.
II.
The story itself is straightforward on the surface. The details regarding who is allied with who and who is responsible for what are opaque and require some imagination to piece together, which puts the viewer in the shoes of the main character who also finds himself in a situation he doesn’t understand.
Despite this, the movie feels a need to include random monologues where the main character reveals random details about the world and himself to the audience, which are unnecessary and could easily be removed. For example, the main character introduces himself to the audience as an employee of an electronics corporation, but this is unintentionally revealed by the script about two minutes later… Admittedly a minor complaint; the movie was otherwise well written.
Typically, hardcore and edgy movies like these have the “badass” anti-hero protagonsists, but this movie went in a different direction. Taki is more agreeable and mature, closer to what you see in a battle shounen, though not as childish. I was fairly surprised by this, the first time I saw Taki, I assumed he would be another macho anti-hero. A welcome decision; it contrasts well with the dark and edgy world of Wicked City.
Besides this, the characters are fairly unappealing. In particular, the old man is annoying. I’ve seen enough Master Roshi clones. The movie could’ve definitely added ~10-15 more minutes of footage to flesh out the characters more, which makes this problem harder to ignore.
The movie was produced by Madhouse before they became famous for the work they did in the 90s (most notably, Yu Yu Hakusho and Perfect Blue). Nevertheless, it has all of the quality you would expect from it; the visuals, animation, and directing were all solid. Nothing to write home about, but were very good for its time. It sports an 80s aesthetic, which some reviewers found dated, but I found rather charming. Especially in comparison to the copy-pasted heartfaces which are endemic to the medium.
This is not something I would go out of my way to recommend, but it was a solid experience overall.
Scoring:
Design (10/15):
Distinguishment: (4/5)
Animation: (1/2)
Sound: (1/2)
OST: (1/2)
Character designs: (2/2)
Backgrounds: (1/2)
Script (37/50):
Character Investment: (6/10)
Character Realism: (2/2)
Character Complexity: (1/3)
Plot solidness: (4/5)
Plot complexity: (8/10)
Ending: (4/5) - fine, i guess
Pacing: (4/5) - didn’t feel too fast or too slow
Stakes: (8/10)
Value (8/15):
Thematic elements: (2/5) - sex and fertility seems to be the underlying theme of the movie, but it’s not explored in depth
Skill: (3/5)
Originality: (3/5)
Enjoyment (16/20):
Did I like it: (16/20)