Movie: “Demon City Shinjuku”
Studio: Madhouse
Year: 1988

Intro

There is so much anime coming out in today’s era which makes it hard to go back to maybe catch some you may have missed. In my case, I’ve tried to go through some of the ones from the 2000s and ’90s and have been able to complete some of them. I have not been able to go through some of the 80s in recent memory. Lucky me, there’s a new streaming service for classic anime titles which brought me to this particular anime movie called “Demon City Shinjuku”.

Plot

Two rivals battle each other to the death in a sword fight. One must save the world while one opts to use the power of evil to destroy it. In this case, evil wins and destroys Shinjuku. 10 years later, a teenager takes the mantle to defeat this person and must save humanity as well.

Good

Coming from a different era, I really liked the animation. It has that retro feel which passes the test of time.

Some of the action sequences feel cool too.

Bad

It felt like it was condensed too much. There were a lot of key plot points missing and would have benefitted from adding 10-20 minutes to address some of it. It also could have been its own short series.  It didn’t help that it was almost 80 minutes.

The final battle felt anticlimatic as we weren’t treated to a fight sequence we truly deserve for coming with the protagonists on this journey.

I didn’t really feel like this captured the spirit of Shinjuku as nothing was really highlighted. It might as well just been “Demon City Tokyo” or insert any city.

Overview

I think it’s worth checking out if you’re in between an anime series and need a change of pace. It’s also worth checking out if you need something different compared to all the current anime series that exist now.  1988 was a different time.

Overall rating: 3/5
Reviewed by: Timtastic