Doomed Megalopolis

1908AD.  As Tokyo begins to progress into a sprawling metropolis, one man seeks to bring it all crashing down.  His name is Kato Yasunori and he seeks to awaken a Guardian Deity who’s fury over a past grievance could bring about not just the downfall of Tokyo but all of Japan.  Standing in Kato’s way is a collection of Sorcerer’s, Exorcists, Scientists and Architects.  And at the heart of it all if the Tatsumiya family, who’s own dark history and latent abilities make them the perfect prey for Kato’s plan to bring about a Doomed Megalopolis.

I can still remember walking down the Anime isle of my local Blockbuster and seeing all of the mature Anime titles with that “Not for Kids” sticker plastered over them.  Sitting alongside the likes of Akira and the Devilman OVA was Doomed Megalopolis.  All I ever knew was a title and the cover featuring a man with a devilish smile giving what looked like a “thumbs up” looking over a burning city.  Well it’s only taken forever but I finally got a chance to sit down and watch this long lost Anime Horror classic and I have to say, my expectations were high…so about midway through the second of this four episode OVA, I realized either my expectations were too high or this Anime just wasn’t good.  I guess it’s a bit of both but overall, this was a pretty big let down I wont lie.
 
I’ll give Doomed Megalopolis this, it has the right atmosphere.  Especially in the first half there’s a sense of foreboding and dread and a lot of orange bordering on blood red sunsets providing perfect backdrop for the kind of super gory action I was expecting to see.  It does have all the set up and elements needed for a one of a kind horror experience.  The problem is what I mentioned above: My expectations were high and I’ve seen a lot of what this Anime has to offer done better elsewhere, particularly other extreme like Anime of the late 80’s and early 90’s.  I can still watch Akira and Ninja Scroll and be wowed by their intense terror and phenomenal action, even up against flashier Anime from today.  Doomed Megalopolis, on the other hand, only had me kind of scared once or twice in it’s over 2.5 hour combined runtime.  I was expecting a lot more hentai esque horror and gore and images that would keep me up at night.  Only one moment during Episode 3 gave me some of that it was only a brief couple of seconds.  That’s not to say this doesn’t live up to that “Not for Kids” sticker fame. This is still a very adult Anime, I’ve just seen crazier and more intense than this.
 
I can also give some credit to the overall plot only spanning about 20 years rather than skipping several decades a la Gundam AGE.  So we stick with the same cast throughout the entire OVA with a new face popping in every episode or so.  However, I never feel like we get to know any of these characters beyond their professions and how effective they are battling Kato.  I think the only person to have something of an arc is Narutaki, a long time friend of the Tatsumiya Family whose determined to protect the eternally broken Yukari, even if she can never return his feelings.  Speaking of the Tatsumiyas, wow. They are one of the most seriously messed up families in all of Anime and that’s even before Kato came along and made things worse. The OVA could have benefited from scaling back all the architectural chatter (of which there is a lot for a dark supernatural fantasy) and delving deeper into the deteriorating psyche of the Tatsumiya’s cause the most we have to go on is everyones observations and kind of lack of concern for Yukari and Yukiko being constantly targeted by Kato.  I think considering the nightmares they’ve endured, whatever is going on in their heads could have added to the horror factor Doomed Megalopolis never capitalized on for me.
 
And what of the OVA’s poster villain, Kato Yasunori?  For the longest time I thought of him as a guy who raided the wardrobe of Street Fighter’s M. Bison so he could wear one of his capes and hats as a cosplay.  That’s actually a much more interesting and fun explanation for Kato than anything we get in the story.  Despite his terrifying power and occasional scary appearance, Kato is nothing more than a guy who wants to wreck Tokyo because “shut up I’m evil and I can do whatever the heck I want.”  It doesn’t help that he’s constantly trying to awaken a sleeping Deity, Taira no Masakado, and the guy just wants to be left alone to sleep.  The fact that no matter how hard he tries, Kato cant take a hint, is just downright laughable.  He also experiences a law of diminishing returns, becoming less and less threatening and scary as the OVA goes on.  Fairing a bit better is Keiko, a Priestess who marries into the Tatsumiyas.  Not only is she the best looking girl in Doomed Megalopolis but she also dispelled my thought that the girls in this Anime are simply here to be victims of Kato’s manipulations or some very icky family drama that made me want to throw up.  Keiko is a go getter and a bad ass who takes the fight right to Kato so well it sucks she only appears in the back half of the entire Anime.  I get why Kato is on all of the covers of Doomed Megalopolis, it’s kind of an iconic image.  I’m just saying, Keiko deserves to stand somewhere on it as well.
 
Production wise, this was handled by Studio Madhouse and Directed by Rintaro.  Honestly, this only adds to the disappointment of Doomed Megalopolis’ overall presentation.  Madhouse is synonymous with pushing the limits of how much you can get away with in a mainstream Anime from too much blood to too much nudity (see Ninja Scroll for a good example).  Not only is there not a lot of either than you’d think, the OVA lacks polish and doesn’t look nearly as good as other Anime of the time period.  Speaking of which, I’m sure directing this project helped put Rintaro on the map to direct the film adaptation of X a few years after this and lemme tell you.  X has a lot of problems but presentation and style isnt one of them.  Point is, Rintaro can craft incredible nightmarish, haunting and alluring imagery in the same scene just fine.  And Madhouse can make the insane look awesome and incredible.  It never feels like the talents of either are ever allowed to be fully unleashed on Doomed Megalopolis…actually now that I’ve looked it up, both parties worked on X so there you go, they can and have done better.
 
Ooof, this hurts.  After years of anticipation, I felt not just let down by Doomed Megalopolis, I was kind of bored through a lot of it and that’s the last thing you wanna be when watching a long lost Anime Horror Classic.  But the visuals never left me truly terrified.  The characters are just there and not much else.  The main villain looks impressive at first but gets worse and worse the more he shows up.  And even though it’s still a very adult story, there isnt enough of that over the top extreme element, that marriage of Junji Itoh esque nightmare fuel with cutting edge action and hentai levels of naughtiness.  There is a lot of chatter about architecture and construction work though, I’m sure that’ll do something for someone.  The sad thing is, I see the potential here and I wanted to like Doomed Megalopolis.  Sadly, as I’ve said a few times, other Anime have come out that have not only done similar styles of story and approach to horror (both classic and psychological), they’ve done them both better.
 
3/10