WICKED CITY : Deep Blue, Neon Red Violence

While the 80s saw an explosion of science fiction epics in the sphere of anime film, the medium also saw a penchant for horror with such works as Vampire Hunter D and Lily C.A.T..

Yet, none were quite so visceral and abhorrently explicit as Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s dark anime fantasy, Wicked City.

Set in a world where demons run rampant, secretly co-existing alongside humans in an alternate dimension known as the “Black World”, the film follows salaryman, Renzaburo Taki, who, while maintaining a job at an electronics company, is covertly enlisted in a secret police force known as the “Black Guard”.

Charged with protecting a peace treaty between both worlds, Taki is ordered to partner up with a demon woman named, Makie, and set out to protect the comically perverted, Giuseppe Mayart - a 200 year-old mystic who is set to provide his signature at a certified renewal of the treaty between the Human World and the Black World in Tokyo.

Tensions escalate, relationships develop and the film descends into a gothic world of sexual violence and perversion. With waggling tentacles, promiscuousness and high-flying action to boot, Wicked City is an eerie and chiefly erotic example of the adult potential of anime film.