Demon City Shinjuku

Wicked City may be more shocking and Ninja Scroll may be more sophisticated but Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s Demon City Shinjuku has its own charms. Working from a novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi, Kawajiri whips up a phantasmagorical city gothic. He manages to stay ahead of the spotty story by keeping the action fast and the characters cool. Kawajiri is one of anime’s most distinctive character designers and for Demon City Shinjuku his art is clean, sharply animated, and loaded with atmosphere. His style often reminds me of Suehiro Maruo’s clean lines and I can imagine a Kawajiri adaptation of Maruo’s Planet of the Jap (Nihonjin no Wakusei). What a fantastic provocation that would be!

directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri
1988

anime review by J.B. Fleming, 1-7-04

Macross Plus

I am constantly surprised by the amount of indifference that people have towards this film. Whenever I meet someone who loves Cowboy Bebop, I mention Macross Plus and get a blank look. Co-Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and energized by Yoko Kano’s soaring soundtrack, this may be Shoji Kawamori’s masterwork. Much more than a Top Gun in space, Macross Plus combines a deeply felt love triangle with a thoughtful speculation on the dangers of artificial intelligence. Macross Plus has angst, romance, sinister conspiracies, grit teeth, giant fighting robots, and a story that ultimately celebrates human friendship and love above all else. Available as an OAV or as a movie, I prefer the shorter movie version because it compresses the series’ emotions into one sharp katana stab to the heart.

directed by Shoji Kawamori and Shinichiro Watanabe
1994

anime review by J.B. Fleming, 1-7-04