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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tokyo under Siege, December 16, 2002
This is a four part series, originally created in 1992, that tells the story of an evil necromancer dead set on the destruction of Tokyo and the small group of people who desperately try to stop him. Kato Yasinori is the magician whose plan is to raise the spirit of Taira No Masikado a 10th Century samurai rebel. If woken, Masikado's anger will trigger the end of Tokyo. Caught up in the opening stanzas of Kato's plot are Yukari Tatsumi and her brother, Yukari's daughter Yukiko and Naritake a close friend. The mage intends to use Yukari as a vessel for the re-incarnated samurai. When this fails he turns to Yukiko, but she is unsuitable because she is the result of Yukari's rape by her brother. Although unsuccessful at awakening the spirit, Kato manages to disturb the dragon of the earth sufficiently to trigger the devastating earthquakes of 1923, where over 74,000 died and millions left homeless. In the last two episodes, Kato plans to renew his efforts at the destruction of Tokyo but taking advantage of the reconstruction effort. Secretly he works to draw down the moon, using a slingshot effect to ruin the city, and possible, the earth. This time, however, Tatsumi has married Keiko, a priestess of Masakado. With the help of a psychic, Kureda, she wages the battle with the necromancer, but it appears to be a hopeless struggle in the face of overwhelming magical powers. In its final form, it becomes a struggle between the Goddess of Mercy and the Spirit of the Dead. Director Rin Taro based this screenplay on an original story by Hiroshi Aramato, oulling no punches in the process. This is a violent film - not do to a lot of killing, but due to an undercurrent of sexual sadism that periodically breaks loose, leaving the viewer more than a little unnerved. While the plot does stay within certain limits, it is decidedly and adult story, more properly a horror film than a fantasy story. It combines just enough of real history and common legend to make the tale compelling, but occasionally prone to unexplained events. The basic art work is good, evoking the Japanese equivalent of gothic atmosphere. But the animation uses to many short cuts and lacks fluidity. Even so it has an atmospheric strength that is the perfect counterpoint to the rough edges of the story line. If your taste runs to noir horror make a point of seeking this out.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spooky fun, September 26, 2010
This anime is not for the younger generation as it has LOTS of sexual imagery, some of which is a little bizzare, but the anime is very good.
The story is very good, your basic good versus evil, and has lots of otherwordly stuff and magic too. I have bought it and think it is good to rewatch now and then so give it a go!
If u need help let me be your conscience; "BUY IT!"
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Certainly one-of-a-kind and one of the best in horror anime. 94%, June 19, 2010
This review is from: Doomed Megalopolis (Special Edition) (DVD)
Before I go off reviewing probably one of the most unfairly hated anime titles in existence, I'd like to share some personal history I've had with this anime.
It was Friday afternoon back in September of 2002, and my fascination with anime was still potent since I've only been a fan for two months. I wanted to rent more anime tapes, so me and my brother went to Popeye's Chicken after school for some good eatin', and we went to the now absent Hollywood Video in our region. I went through the anime aisle and these four tapes each entitled Doomed Megalopolis caught my eye (each tape contained a different installment in the OVA). I though the titles sounded awesome and the cover art was pleasing for my adolescent male brain (one of the tapes, I believe, had Yukari depicted with slugs crawling up one of her legs). I picked up one of the tapes and read the back description, and with the noticeable "Not for Kids" sticker on the front, my brain screamed with joy and I came home that evening with all four volumes of Doomed Megalopolis and waited for everyone to go to bed. Once everyone was asleep, I watched all the tapes in a row and despite the total three hour running-length, I wasn't bored once and I went to bed that night pretty freaked out by what I saw, and since then, Doomed Megalopolis has been a favorite of mine for nearly eight years.
STORY
The story for Doomed Megalopolis is that in early 20th century Japan, an evil spirit named Yasunori Kato (who dons a military outfit that makes him look kinda like M. Bison from the Street Fighter games) attempts to awake Masakado (the guardian spirit of Tokyo), which would cause death and annihilation at a grand scale. However, his initial efforts prove unsuccessful, but as some years pass, he sees an innocent young lady named Yukari Tatsumiya and decides she's a perfect tool for awakening Masakado. Shortly after kidnapping Yukari, he possibly impregnates her with a child and as the years go by, Kato plans to use Yukiko (Yukari's daughter) as an even stronger tool to awake Masakado.
SCARE TACTICS
Doomed Megalopolis, being a horror anime, has some of the creepiest and unnerving imagery and atmosphere in the horror anime niche, accounting for most of this anime's high score. One of the "horror" things that DM does well is fuse fantasy and reality. While not done quite as well as anything involving Satoshi Kon, it's done well enough for the desired effects, and are the effects intense!! Rintaro, being the wise fellow that he is, decided to avoid repetition by mixing it up with the "fantasy meets reality" visions by making some of them fake and some of them really effecting the character. For example, there's a scene in Part 1: The Haunting of Tokyo, where Kato possesses Yukari to have her see the annihilation of Tokyo and after collapsing, he tries to take her soul. Not too long after, there's a scene where Junichi Narutaki (Yukari's friend) sees living black ooze crawl out of a prayer stand and consume him, but it was just a terrifying vision, so you can't really tell what will be real or fake. Though the best "realistic nightmare" vision has to be when in Part 2: The Fall of Tokyo, where Yukiko is possessed by Kato and is engulfed by a giant, black oozing mouth with razor-sharp teeth. There's moments where Kato's possessions are fairly simplistic yet so brazen in their evilness. An example would be when Yukari sees a circle of kids playing and singing. They start off singing "Close your eyes and don't be scared, the evil will never find you" (not quoted verbatim), but Yukari gets encircled by those kids and the song turns to "Close your eyes and be scared, the evil has found you." Doomed Megalopolis also uses violent and sexual imagery very well to enhance the terrifying atmosphere it sets out to make. Fine examples of this would be a scene in the first part of DM where Koda Rohan finds Yukari's inanimate body by a river, and when she gains consciousness, a phallic demon slug crawls out of her mouth. The other is when in Part 3: The Gods of Tokyo, Yukiko is naked and consumed by the Underground Dragon's heart (though some may be really turned off by the fact that she's only 13). Then there's scenes that are just plain messed up for no particular reason, especially when in Part 2, when Yukari is cutting off fish heads in her kitchen, she says to Narutaki "I don't know why, but I've been feeling much better today." with a really creepy face while stabbing at the fish violently. There's plenty more, but I don't want to give you every little detail about the fantastic horror tactics in this anime.
CHARACTERS
Depending on who you are, your glass is either half-full or half-empty in this area. To me, my glass is half-full because the characters range from being interesting to so-so. Examples of the interesting characters are Kato and Yukari's older brother, Yoichiro Tatsumiya. Kato is interesting because not only is he one of the most intensely evil characters in anime (I had to reference him in my review for Morbid Angel's "Altars of Madness" because of how evil he is), he also has some intriguing reasons for his detestable actions (which is covered towards the beginning of Part 2, so pay attention when watching it). Tatsumiya is also interesting because of his slimy nature and his really mixed feelings about his sister, Yukari. In the past, he had a murky encounter with Yukari and has been haunted by this for a long time. After finding out about her supposed affair with Kato, he commits incest against Yukari in her sleep. I guarantee that you'll want to shank Tatsumiya repeatedly with a sharp, rusty improvised weapon after seeing that. Yukari and her daughter, Yukiko, sorta fall in the middle ground between interesting and dull because while they're certainly the lifeblood of this anime, you don't really get to see them in depth, other than to see their super passive personalities; even though the creators of DM were really pressed on time and money, it would have been nice if the relationship between Yukari and her daughter was fleshed out more. Though in defense of the way the two are fleshed out, it was probably because Japanese culture (especially prior to their defeat in World War 2) tends to bend their women into being passive and invisible when put up against the males. However, Keiko Tatsumiya (who'd be a crucial character in Parts 3 and 4: The Battle for Tokyo) is an interesting female character since when compared to Yukari and Yukiko, stands out due to her backbone and immense supernatural powers, but also has the will to confront her husband, Yoichiro, about his contempt for Yukari and Yukiko. However, some characters, like Narutaki and Koda just seem there to propel the story along. Which is a shame because they had some potential. All in all, the characters are decent, and certainly light-years superior to the walking cliches in Elfen Lied.
APPEARANCE
The animation, while overall decent, can be inconsistent at times. There's some scenes that are beautifully animated with great artwork, some other scenes look visually inferior and unfitting stylistically. However, these stylistic inconsistencies don't happen much, so they really don't effect the grade that much. The character designs have their good and bad sides. While the appearance of the characters themselves look quite pleasing (especially Yukari in Part 1, since I think she's one of the prettiest ladies in anime), they could have had some more stylistic diversity. The biggest problem is that once Part 3 begins, it can be difficult to distinguish Keiko from Yukari (especially at the very start of Part 3), but after a while, you can distinguish the two from each other. The background art is very painterly and finely detailed. Contrary to Charles Solomon's disdain for the color-scheme, I love the colors used for DM since they really make you feel unnerved and combined with the amazing soundtrack, also gives an ethereal feeling on some occasions. Also contrary to Solomon's critiques, I felt the characters were drawn pretty well; I don't recall much, if any "awkward" poses. The shape-shifters created by the occult parchments look like abominationss Don Hertzeld would see if he listened to a lot of early wave death metal (such as Morbid Angel and Nocturnus) while inebriated on large amounts of vodka and marijuana. In other words, they look quite creepy and bizarre. Because this was a low budget animation created in collaboration between Toei and Madhouse from 1991-1992, the grainy picture quality and minor imperfections (nothing terrible) in the artwork enhance the unnerving atmosphere this anime already generates, making it even better.
SOUNDTRACK
Doomed Megalopolis has one of the absolute best soundtracks I've ever heard in any anime. Infact, the soundtrack is so amazing, it's one of the extremely rare anime soundtracks I own in CD format. Kazz Toyama really pulled a doozie on us with this soundtrack since the only other anime soundtrack I know he did was for Cyber City Oedo, which was late 80's instrumental synth-pop cheese galore (though a guilty pleasure, nonetheless). However, for Doomed Megalopolis, Toyama uses keyboards, synthesizers, intense drums, and shredding guitars to create a truly chilling and heart-pounding sonic experience that really bolsters the fine qualities DM already has going for it. The keys and synths are used to employ organ-like sounds fused with more traditional horror-entry atmosphere with Steve Vai (not really him that did it) occasionally popping in to mangle his guitar to make it sound like hell in shred guitar format. However, it's not all doom and hellish excitement; there's some piano-driven pieces used for more peaceful and ambient effects in the few "brighter" areas of this anime. Toyama struck gold with this soundtrack...
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