This notorious and bizarre anime cult classic achived infamy and notriety at the time of it's relese, and has lost nothing in it's bizarre horrific impact in the number of years since.

Legend of the Overfiend tells the saga of an ancient prophecy that sights the return of a coming overfiend (The chojin) a powerful entity whoose return will merge the three dimensions of man, beasts, and man-beasts into a twisted lust fuelled whole. The story concerns a man-beast named Amano and his attempts to hault the prophecy that he intially unknowingley sets about aiming to fullfil. What follows is a bizarre misogynist fantasia of demonic invasion and hellish degragation played out against the backdrop of a high scool teen drama. Even at the best of times Over fiend is extremely hard to stomach, and comes over as a neusiating LSD induced cocktail of bizarre melevolence.

There is method is it's madness however, and the series' suptext centres around, the sexual frustrations of young Japanese men in Japan's current cultural climate. The demonic transformation into the chojin and the epic upheaval that follows is meant to be representative of the confusion and uphavel that sexual maturity brings for teenage guys in Japan.

Repressed hormones that run riot are cleverly represented through the demons that come to be unleashed. The three worlds of beast, men and man beast, represent the voices of reason and sense of duty and obligation in Japanese society( the world of men) and the sexual desires repressed beneth it's surface (the demon world), the Man-beast to an extent represent the balance to strive for, and this is why the story is told through Amano's eyes, as he stuggles to contain the demon world. The imagary in Overfiend is unrelenting and the suptext proves very hard to stay intouch with given the bizarre insanity errupting accross the screen.

The characher designs represent edge-ier darker takes on the look and style made famous in the west in final fantasy VII and other such titles. The action is unrelenting and the visuals are overpowering in their use of bright and vivid color. The character designs are great but the monster designs aren't on par with 3X3 Eyes monster maker Yuzo Takeda and as such look alot more like Evil-Pokemon drawn while on crack, rather than the kind of bio-mech organic creatures seen in finer anime titles.

But lets face it no body is here for the design value on this one are they? Overfiend is a misogynist adolecent males mastorbatory fantasy (as I've already said) and is for the most depraved of us to watch with dicks firmly in hand. Women ( and guys who respect them) will find alot to offence in Overfiend's graphic rape scenes and overall sensibity. And the main problem is that this partiqular outing was more than a little premature and did the whole manga and anime genre serious damage, which is only slowly being redressed with titles like Perfect Blue, and the success of long term lone horse Dragonball Z, Pokemon and Sailor moon. Overfiend was one of the first Anime to appear in the west and accompied the legendary AKIRA on it's journey out of Japan's shores.

The problem is that Overfiend is to this day, largely unsuitable and more to the point undesirable, not mention unfathomable, for the vast majority of anime/ horror/ movie sci-fi fans that make up the mainstream western market. It deals with issues and frustrations specific to the context of Japan's overbearing high school climate and it's effects on the emotional development of adolecent males, but overfiend will blow almost any casual western viewer away with it limitless excess.

Since seeing and being knocked out by overfiend's Pscedelic cocktail of misogyny I made a point of trying to appriciate it with a Japanese sensibity. As a comic book artist, anime and manga appeals to me on a technical level and I wanted to understand this bad trip of a movie, so that I could justify my interest in the genre as a whole, without feeling like a dangerous, subversive misogynistic a**hole. But the only conclusions I can draw are that Overfiend at the time of it's release was meant to be an extremly challenging movie. It's impact (though different in west) was never intended to be any less shocking in it's native Japan. Through Symbolism and metaphor Overfiend asks some serious questions about Japan's culture climate the irrisponsiblity comes in that it's self fueling and cultivates, rather than highlights the realites that it's bizarre imagary aims to convey.

It is bascially the Marylin Manson of anime, raising questions that need to be asked in such a way as to come accross totally opposed to factions against which it's raising those important points, and repell the very people who would benifit from hearing out the conclusions it draws. From a Japanese Perspective Overfiend's impact is huge, and the issues it's demonic rampage raises need addressing on the part of Japanese parents at the time of it's relese.

But the marketing and promtion of a titles like Overfiend in the western market, was a big mistake. And came at a time which stunted the growth of Anime and narrowed it's appeal in the west. Such Blatant boyhood Mastabatory fantasy will turn off any cause viewer, and the superfical aspects of this cocktail will only appeal to exceptionally over weight or expetionally underweight male virgins, and the rest of us will stuggle to take anything from this movie other than a head ache and some nasty images.

But that bizarrly doesn't make this any worse a film, it remains a well constructed brutally challenging and symbloic study of the shortflaws in the emotional development of young Japanese men as a result of the authoritarian elements in thier cultural backdrop. It's just a shame that for a western market it amounts to nothing more than crack off material for twisted f***s.

Only see Overfiend if you're serious about understanding it's subtextual message and want to understand it as the brilliant piece of drug fuelled no holds barred satire and social comment and as the utterly bizarre chunk Japanimation that it is.

Otherwise this will make you sick! (and if it turns you on, then you're already sick to begin with). It's aimed to reflect Japanese youth as 'sick', and sights the social climate (and a diffusion of social reasponsibity) as the things to blame, as such this movie provides an insightful (albeit horrific)look into the mind of the deeply sexually frustrated/ repressed and offers a number of metphoric explainations for why such a state of mind develops.

A very hard movie to review objectivly, and stay clear headed on. But the bottem line is most people won't 'enjoy' a single minute of this movie, and those that do are likely to form a sick minority, and that is no great recommendation for anything.

But at it's heart is deeply symbolic, metaphoic demon's eye look at the emotional lives of Japan's repressive young men, that because of cheap marketing and extreme content succeded only in distancing anime from the western mainstream in which it deserves (as an industry) to thrive.

I hope this epinion puts alot the bagage reguarding anime's badest bad boy to rest, and provides a more interesting take on this contravisial piece of film than the fan boy lop-sided recommendations that dog this site.

Let me know what you make of it in the comments section...

And see it at your own risk...

Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age