Doomed Megalopolis ADV 175 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 11/26/2002

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Reviews like this one make me wish that Skabs did more work. What I need right now is what I like to call my "Nostalgia Girl". Clad in a fedora and done in sepiatone, this girl would be used for shows just like this very one. Shows that defy a standard rating not because their content is questionable, but because their age and circumstances around them evoke such fond memories that means any rating I'd be wont to give would probably not be descriptive of the show as a whole, but more because of my fond feelings for it. So in regards to Doomed Megalopolis I'll just give it a four and leave it at that. It probably deserves a three, but my heart wants to give it a five so very badly that I wouldn't be able to bear the betrayal running through my veins if I let it slide by with that incredibly average rank. I mean, we're talking about Doomed Megalopolis here! I was never more grateful than when I found out that this was on DVD except for the night that Joel told me he OWNED it. This isn't your ordinary anime, this is old school crazy weird voodoo crap with some of the weirdest things you'll ever see outside a hentai. Why it is that I'm attracted to these shows from the days where the majority of my anime experience I wouldn't be able to tell you, but a good guess to be ventured is that it was pretty much all I had to watch so I might as well enjoy it, right?

Another very valid guess is that it includes Mike Reynolds from one of the very first roles I can remember him in. This was back when I didn't even know the man's name. Man? No, GOD. About seven years later the church of Mike Reynolds is going long and strong and I'm still prone to go into fits of shock whenever I hear the man's voice. Actually, I lied. There really isn't any church considering it's just me who likes him and Andrew, who I think is kind of a poser. But if there WERE one I guess that I'd be the Pope and he'd be like... a deacon or something. We haven't really worked out the specifics, but we ARE accepting donations. And coincidentally, Mike Reynolds plays a holy man of his own in this crazy drama about a Neo-Nazi-Wizard-Spirit who's decided to take over Japan. Even though our man Harai goes down like a punk at the end of the first episode, it's all good. I'd imagine that Carl Macek just knew there was too much of a good thing. If we got to watch more than thirty minutes of this awe inspiring man our heads would probably explode from the experience. Mine would, anyway.

(If you think demonic nurses making out with demon-impregnated patients is icky then you ain't seen nothin' yet. If you value your eyes, please don't look at this picture) Demon penis worms aren't all that the people of early 20th century Tokyo have to deal with, not by a long shot. As if that weren't enough (and trust me, it's MORE than enough) there's so tiny they're almost super deformed shadow ninjas and giant flying manta rays. That seems like an unfair load for that group of fair citizens. I don't know why Kato, the insane ghost-wizard, wants to destroy Tokyo so bad, or why he needs to impregnate a seemingly innocent woman to do it, but I doubt it really matters anyway. This show is all about throwing ridiculous crap at you and just letting you deal with it. And I'm pretty fine with that, I'll admit. But I have to raise the query of why, exactly, was this made as a period piece? There doesn't really seem to be any reason to it, as things in Japan look about the same as they do in any anime set in contemporary times. I guess that's the fault of the shows set in 2001 where everyone's running around in kimonos down dirt paths (yeah right, like there's any unpaved ground left in Japan) but it all looks the same to me. I would suppose that I just don't have the eyes for this kind of thing.

Digging robot Buddha statues and demon spiders who wear nurses like skin and burst out at the most inopportune times certainly ARE though, and Doomed Megalopolis has these things and more in spades. Those wiley Japanese have decided that that's not enough though, oh no. Not only are the demons wreaking havoc on the transient monk population, but they're also doing complex mathematical calculations that will cause the moon to CRASH INTO THE EARTH! I wish someone would hook me up with that action. Though if possible I'd prefer my calculations to strip off the clothes of the cute girl who works the reference desk at Penn's Biomed library. Also, if possible I'd prefer it be done on TI-83 as I'm no whiz at math that the spawn of Kato's demonic seed is. Doomed Megalopolis is about as strange as it comes and, as things usually are with stuff of it's time period the nudity is past the point of gratuitous. But I still love it, though I might not testify that I did were I asked at a court hearing. All the same, thanks Joel and thanks ADV; together you've made my childhood dream come true.