#doomed megalopolis

[babylon-crashing]

Some times you see a photo with so many bizarre things in it that you overlook the weirdest parts. What are we even looking at? A flood in China? Is this a movie set? Who is this woman sitting on the half-submerged car?

But then, suddenly, I realized what I wasn't seeing, which was this curious person, calmly standing in the middle of the giant heap of cars, perhaps dressed in what looks like a 19th century Lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army? What does that remind me of?

For me, it is Yasunori Katō, the villain in Hiroshi Aramata's Teito Monogatari (帝都物語) from which we get the Doomed Megalopolis franchise.

Of course, it isn't. The photo is of the 1966 flood in North Point, Hong Kong, which dumped over 15 inches of rain in 24 hours. The storm resulted in widespread flooding, landslides and, "turning streets into raging torrents that killed at least 50 people ... causing cars to be swept down roads like toys."

In the series, set in Tokyo, Yasunori Katō does indeed attempt to use his supernatural powers to set off a natural disaster in order to destroy the city (in this case it is The Great Kantō earthquake of 1923) and since cosplay wasn't a thing back then I probably will never get a satisfying answer as to why this person is so weirdly out of place.

[balrog-slayer66]

Illustration by Suehiro Maruo

for Teito Monogatari

[stampedethegod903]

No cap fire ass anime 🌞🌝⭐

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed - Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis

Above all else, Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis is a triumph of production design. From the intricately detailed miniature models and matte paintings to the elaborate costumes and soundstages to the charming Harryhausen-inspired stop-motion creature effects, every cent of the enormous budget is clearly evident. Hell, even the lighting—the radiant shimmer of sunlight reflecting off the surface of turbulent water, the eerie pale glow of the full moon peering through a blanket of dry ice clouds, the ominous neon glare of supernatural power—is absolutely immaculate.

The film’s spectacular imagery perfectly matches its themes, which revolve around the conflict between tradition and modernization. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Japan’s cultural leaders have become increasingly obsessed with urban redevelopment as a means of competing on the world stage. Rich industrialists, for example, propose the erection of towering skyscrapers that rival the gods in stature—ostentatious symbols of material wealth (as well as hubris, considering the country’s frequent earthquakes). Nationalistic, xenophobic militarists, on the other hand, argue for “practicality” over hollow aesthetics—borders, walls, and fortifications have far more strategic value than gaudy architecture. Scientists, meanwhile, prefer technological advancement to politics and commerce, embracing the logistical challenges of constructing a vast subterranean railway system. Those attuned to spiritual matters—monks, mediums, practitioners of geomancy—urge these various parties to exercise caution and moderation in their pursuit of the “future,” warning that such unrestrained expansion risks irrevocably tarnishing the sanctity of the land, thus provoking the wrath of ancestral ghosts and guardian deities. “Progress,” after all, can be a destructive force; occasionally, building something new requires burning down the old. These concerns, however, are dismissed as invalid and irrelevant—as obsolete as magic and mysticism in the era of automobiles, engineering, and electricity.

Despite this compelling premise, the plot is rather jumbled, disjointed, and unfocused. Among the sprawling (and bloated) ensemble cast, no single character ever really emerges as a true “protagonist”; vaguely sketched archetypes are introduced rapidly and vanish just as abruptly, only to reappear at seemingly random intervals. In terms of personality and motivation, they’re nearly indistinguishable; consequently, the audience has little opportunity to form a proper relationship with them. Basically, they’re merely props, existing for the sole purpose of communicating exposition and propelling the story from one set piece to the next—they’re functional, but not terribly memorable.

Fortunately, the central villain alleviates this flaw to a significant degree. With his dark, sunken eyes and sharp, almost skeletal facial features, Yasunori Kato is instantly iconic—the epitome of “screen presence.” He exudes menace, personifies malice; every deliciously diabolical line of dialogue that he delivers in his deep, gravelly growl is pure poetry, sending chills of terror down the viewer’s spine. Any scene that excludes him suffers for the omission—though even when he’s absent, his implicit threat still lingers, haunting the frame like a lurking specter, a whispered promise of calamity and impending doom.

Ultimately, director Akio Jissoji’s competent craftsmanship compensates for the movie’s minor formal and structural shortcomings; some mild narrative incoherence notwithstanding, Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis rarely fails to entertain. At the very least, it deserves credit for sheer ambition; precious few blockbusters nowadays dare to be this defiantly audacious and unconventional. Indeed, its superficial blemishes simply make its stylistic virtues more obvious and admirable. Warts and all, it is an essential genre masterpiece, worthy of being ranked alongside such horror classics as The Exorcist, Phantasm, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

[boycentriccplot]

tokyo: the last megalopolis

[highsummonermercar]

I still find it fascinating that a lot of people in the UK didn't grow up with 90s anime. You didn't even need Sky!! ITV's CITV and SMTV Live aired Digimon, Cardcaptor Sakura and Pokémon while Channel 5's Milkshake aired Beyblade.

And I've just done a search and Channel 4 apparently aired 3×3 Eyes, Doomed Megalopolis, The Legend of the Four Kings, Cyber City Oedo 808 and Devilman?? I'm really surprised people didn't grow up with anime as much as the cartoons they watched here but to each their own I guess.

[canmom]

Animation Night 134: Rintaro’s OVAs

Hi everyone! Welcome back to Animation Night.

Tonight we’re coming back to Rintaro, or りんたろう (or Shigeyuki Hayashi, but the pseudonym is near universal). This time I even found a picture of him!

Rintaro one of the oldest of the anime old school to still be alive. He joined the anime industry as an inbetweener on Toei’s landmark film The Legend of the White Snake in 1958 and Astro Boy - but in his own right, he’s also a co-founder of Madhouse alongside people like Osamu Dezaki (Animation Night 95), Yoshiaki Kawajiri (25, 67) and Masao Maruyama (later, founder of MAPPA). He directed such classics as Space Captain Harlock (1978) and Galaxy Express 999 (AN62), he helped create the network of connections that led to Akira, he did a chapter of Tezuka’s Phoenix (AN80) he was still going strong in the 2000s with Metropolis (53).

He is, in short, one of the most significant directors in anime. And yet, to actually find out much about him beyond the films he’s made and the places he’s worked is surprisingly hard. Even in interview, his answers are a little vague. But then, the anime and manga industry are full of reclusive, shy creators. So let’s look at the films...

...or rather, let’s look at the OVAs! Look at them with our mouth eyes.

Pop.

Rintaro spent the late 70s and early 80s working not at Madhouse but at Toei, which was a chance for him to spread his wings outside of the shadow of Dezaki. This was the Captain Harlock era, and the Galaxy Express 999 era, the latter’s remarkable film building the important connection with Yoshinori Kanada and his ‘liquid fire’ effects.

In 82, after adapting renowned satirical novel I Am A Cat for a TV special, Rintaro came back to Madhouse - around the time of Dezaki’s Space Adventure Cobra. There, he would direct Genma Taisen (Harmageddon), which can in many ways be called the prototype for Akira, setting up the power trio of Otomo, Koji Morimoto and Takashi Nakamura. I’ll be screening that for Animation Night before too long, so more on that then (or just read Watzky’s article!).

As Dezaki stepped back, Madhouse entered the era that made it famous, what we could call the ‘auteur era’. Riding the OVA boom, they animated dozens of sci-fi films, OVAs and TV shows by a variety of directors. Their style tended to emphasise static detail with bursts of complex animation; chiaroscuro night settings with bright lights driven by background animation. Rintaro was one of their stars.

So this evening we’re going to pick out two of his works from this period in the new OVA format...

Let’s start with Bride of Deimos (悪魔 (デイモス)の花嫁). (Unfortunately I can’t display ruby text on Tumblr, but imagine that デイモス is written above the first two kanji.)

Bride of Deimos was an interesting beast: a shōjo horror manga by writer Etsuko Ikeda and illustrator Yuuho Ashibe with a a very classic-shōjo, Year 24 Group-esque visual style. (Beyond ‘authors of this manga’, it seems almost impossible to find out anything about either.) If I’m reading the plot summary right, revolves around a high school girl called Minako, who is the reincarnation of a demon Venus, the twin sister of an incestuous demon named Deimos; she is reincarnating because was executed by the demons for her incest crimes but the original soul seems to be out there somewhere? Deimos wants to bring Minako back to the underworld so Venus can possess her body again; Minako would prefer not to, and she’s got a lot of jealous people and suitors to fend off in the meantime thanks.

The manga ran a solid 26 years, from 1974 all the way to 1990. Rintaro could obviously not adapt something of that scope, and his 1988 OVA excerpts just one chapter from the whole epic for a half-hour OVA. It revolves around a brother-sister pair, the brother raising orchids and taking care of a disabled sister, who are both very yandere over each other. Into this whole mess stumbles Minako.

So expect a lot of very gothic imagery; it’s worth noting that Madhouse had adapted Vampire Hunter D just a few years earlier, and I think you can see the influence in its character design. There’s at least one very elaborate sequence of background animation which you can see above; unfortunately sakugabooru do not seem to know who animated it.

And then, just a few years later, we have Teito Monogatari (帝都物語), known in English as Doomed Megalopolis.

The original Teito Monogatari (1983-7) was a sprawling historical epic serial novel crossing basically the entire 90s, following the occult works of an immortal warlord of the Taira clan who led a failed rebellion against the central government (the same Taira clan whose fall is chronicled in the Heike Monogatari, c.f. Animation Night 91) and has now become a ghost serving the same empire. In the present, he is succeeded by Yasunori Katō, a former soldier in the imperial Japanese army who is in fact a vengeful oni working for 90 years to bring about the downfall of the Japanese Empire, bringing him into conflict with a long list of historical figures...

His ruinous ambitions bring him into conflict with some of 20th century Japan's greatest minds including industrialist Eiichi Shibusawa, onmyoji Abe no Seimei's descendant Yasumasa Hirai, authors Koda Rohan and Izumi Kyoka; physicist Torahiko Terada, and author Yukio Mishima.  The resulting conflict, involving science, magic and politics; spans 90 years of Japan's history.

The story begins near the end of the Meiji period and ranges through the rest of the century. It reinvents major events such as the Great Kantō earthquake [in the story, the work of Katō and his allies], the founding of Japan's first subway, the February 26 Incident, the firebombing raids, the signing of the 1960 US Security Pact, and the ritual suicide of Yukio Mishima. The narrative finally reaches its climax in 1998, the 73rd year of a fictional Shōwa period.

The overall structure of the narrative seems to be that Katō comes up with various dastardly plans to destroy Tokyo, and is stopped by these historical figures (and original characters), deferring the destruction of Tokyo to later and later dates. In that regard it seems to fit the onryō mode, where the monster really is a victim of something terrible but nevertheless needs to be stopped. How that reflects on the subject of nationalism it raises so centrally, I’m not sure, and I’m curious to find out! e.g. it’s curious to me that it’s the villain Kato, despite fighting on behalf of indigenous people crushed by Japan, who dresses in the sinister, Nazi-like uniform of an Imperial Japanese Army officer.

This story proved wildly popular, and caused a resurgence of interest in mysticism, such as onmyōdō and feng shui, as well as the classic figure of the oni. It inspired numerous adaptations (one by Takashi Miike!) and subsequent works in the same vein in literature and manga.

By the time Rintaro got to it, there had already been one successful tokusatsu adaptation of the first four chapters in 1988 by Toho, which had received wide acclaim. There had also been a certain OVA called Urotsukidōji, discussed back on Animation Night 69, which proved that sex and violence were very in - and as a result, this OVA went a lot harder than earlier Rintaro works or indeed previous adaptations of Teito Monogatari. Hoping to distinguish his take from previous adaptations, Rintaro emphasised the supernatural aspects - the things it was possible to display with elaborate effects animation. And thus animators like Tatsuyuki Tanaka provided suitably gruesome imagery.

The series spans four episodes, each about forty minutes, all overseen by Rintaro but directed respecitively Kazuyoshi Katayama, Koichi Chigira, Kazunari Kume and Masashi Ikeda. Like Toho’s take, it focuses on the first four chapters, spanning the period 1912-1928, in which the Meiji government was rapidly industrialising Japan and transforming it into a colonial power to stand against the Europeans; not long before the story starts, Japan had annexed Korea in 1910. Beyond his earthquake shenanigans, Katō schemes to possess a girl called Yukari Tatsumiya and her daughter Yukiko. A full-on wizard war ensues.

And I think that’s enough time writing. So, if you will join me tonight, we’ll be watching Bride of Deimos followed by all four episodes of Teito Monogatari (Doomed Megalopolis)! Starting shortly on twitch.tv/canmom - hope to see you there!

[curiousrentals]

Doomed Megalopolis | 帝都物語, 1991-92

“Tokyo was burning. Many people will die.”

[gaelic-diary-holder-returns]

Just finished Doomed Megalopolis the anime adaptation of Teito Monogatari and wow just wow. That is probably the best anime I've seen in years not counting my rewatches of NGE and Mirai Nikki. The animation was wonderful, the plot was fascinating and Keiko was a totally badass protagonist so her ending was just wow. Anyway might say some others things when I've thought a little more about it.

[s-------i-------g]

[chibiranmaruchan]

To be honest, I don't know how many of these actually do make people look at you weirdly. I know Demande definitely does, Seishirou is very much a love-hate relationship and the Kisshu hate was stronger before the reboot. I feel like the others might be hated lol.

Quick, post your faves that make everyone else in the fandom look at you like

[cacaitos]

THIS WAS THE MOTHERFUCKER I WAS LOOKING FOR

[pandorias-box]

I have seen much discussion of people’s personal beliefs regarding the reverence of legendary Pokémon today, and what I can say is that in Ultra Megalopolis, reverence of the Blinding One is…a complicated subject.

There are those of the city who see it as the one who granted us our prosperity and the gift of inter-dimensional and planetary traversal while others see it as a harbinger of doom due to it being the one who cast us into darkness and nearly destroyed us. It was because of this divide that there was a war shortly after the Purge of Light ages ago between these two schools of thought, and we nearly destroyed ourselves then and there.

We not only sealed Necrozma so that it could not wreak havoc upon other worlds, but that its seemingly unending pain could cease. In both fronts, it seemed fruitless. The Blinding One was shattered and it loathed us for our ancestor’s grave sins. It escaped multiple times and sought to repeat the Starless Night on worlds that still had an abundance of light and aura. It brought our kin light, yet took it away. But that was a result of our kind’s folly. A result of our ambitions blinding us from the radiance that already shone across the City.

And yet, there are those of us, myself included, who still hope to see our light returned to us as the Blinding One recovers in its reclaimed sanctum in Megalo Tower. I do not know if it will take decades or millennia, but it is this hope drives me to hold on to these beliefs, even if some may see it as archaic.

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed - Tokyo: The Last War

Like many a follow-up to a bona fide cult classic, Tokyo: The Last War (sequel to Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis) is widely considered to be inferior to its predecessor; the reviews that I’d read online were almost universally negative, dismissing it as overly derivative of trashy, formulaic, uninspired American slasher flicks (the later entries in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise serving as a particularly reductive, unflattering point of comparison). This unenthusiastic reception failed to deter me from purchasing a copy of Media Blasters’ recent Blu-ray release (under the alternative title of Doomed Megalopolis 2) at this year’s Anime NYC convention, of course—and the official beginning of the Spooky Season seemed an appropriate occasion to finally give the disc a spin.

To the surprise of nobody familiar with my easily pleased cinematic palate, I disagree with the critical consensus. Despite its obviously lean budget—which necessitates a less sprawling cast and more modest special effects than the preceding film—The Last War still manages to feel ambitious within its relative limitations. Indeed, I’d even argue that the narrower narrative focus lends the plot a greater degree of urgency and momentum; it is, after all, significantly easier for the audience to become invested in a conflict that revolves around a small handful of genuinely sympathetic characters, as opposed to a bloated, unwieldy ensemble of vaguely sketched archetypes.

Additionally, it’s not as though the movie is lacking in visual flair; it is consistently as spectacular as it can afford to be. There’s an especially impressive sequence, for example, in which the nefarious Yasunori Kato (a role reprised by the inimitable Kyusaku Shimada, whose magnetic screen presence elevates every scene—including those in which he never physically appears) slaughters a group of soldiers in magnificently brutal fashion. One poor bastard is hoisted aloft by psychokinetic energy and slowly twisted in half at the waist; another is decapitated by flying debris, his headless corpse twitching and spasming for several seconds after the fact. The commanding officer, however, suffers the most gruesome demise: forced by supernatural means to clutch a live grenade, the man can do nothing but scream and flail in desperation until the explosive inevitably ignites, graphically (albeit not entirely convincingly) tearing him to shreds.

Ultimately, Tokyo: The Last War hardly deserves its less-than-stellar reputation; it’s perfectly enjoyable on its own merits. Sure, it veers closer to conventional horror than the series’ previous installment (which is best described as “epic urban fantasy”)—but as a fan of both genres, I find absolutely nothing wrong with that. Heck, in my opinion, this dramatic departure in tone and style only makes it more interesting. Not better, mind you—just compellingly different.

[boycentriccplot]

tokyo: the last megalopolis

[bygone-sanctuary]

Doomed Megalopolis / 帝都物語