BlakedwardsUK's Full Review: Urotsukidoji #1: Legend of the Overfiend
One of the reasons why cultural and racial integration is a good thing is because it helps us to understand other nations attitudes. In the UK, Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend has been the victim of a ruthless conspiracy by the BBFC (British Board of Film Censorship) and the puritanical Obscene Publications Act.
In the US, you get to watch what you want and make up your own mind as to whether it's moral or not, but over here the government likes to make that decision for us. And it has decided, rightly or wrongly, though I say wrongly, that the people of the UK cannot see Urotsukidoji in it's complete, unexpurgated form as the director intended, but must be seen in a disjointed, barely comprehensible edited down version which is virtually impossible to follow and to make things worse uses the terrible 'Optical Reframing' technique in which scenes and shots are electronically reframed so any obscene images are cut out without the need to delete the scene altogether.
Naturally, there were people who said this was the right thing to do, and I do concede that some elements of Urotsukidoji should have been dropped altogether. The pointless scenes of rape for one thing. And that schmaltzy scene at the end with Nagumo and Akemi making love is quite an embarrasement. But for all it's extremities, this has the kind of mind-blowing action, plot and animation which could have put it up there with Akira had director Hideki Takayama and writer Toshio Maedea not been looking to make some violent porn.
Apparently, later episodes in the series aren't worth seeing, but I wouldn't know as the aforementioned BBFC have banned Urotsukidoji IV.
Like most anime, the plot draws heavily from ancient Eastern philosophy and Japanese mythology. An ancient legend states that there are three worlds in the universe. The human world, the fantastic world of Jyujinkai whose inhabitants are part human and part beast, and the nightmare hell of the Makai whose inhabitants are monsters and demons. Normally, the three worlds live totally apart, but 3,000 years after their creation, a superbeing, known as the Chojin, will emerge in the body of a human and will be born after he has mated with a human girl, and build a Utopia in which the three worlds will live together in peace and co-operation.
An agent from the Jyujinkai, Amano, and his sister Magumi along with his little friend Koroko, has made it his life task to track down the Chojin and thinks he may have found it in an Osaka university. It would seem that Otaki, the university stud, would be the ideal Chojin; he is sexually experienced, muscular and attractive to girls, but Magumi thinks that school wimp and pervert Nagumo is the Chojin. When Otaki is killed by the Makai, it turns out that Magumi's suspicions might be correct when Nagumo is run over but awakens into the hospital, turns into a beast, and runs amok after violently raping a nurse. Nagumo returns to his old human self, but now more confident than before and starts to date the school idol Akemi. The Chojin re-appears after a heavy sex session between Nagumo and Akemi, but when the Chojin begins a rampage of destruction, Amano fears that the Overfiend legend may be horribly wrong and the Chojin could be out to destroy the world rather than change it.
Amongst this plot there is more sex, violence and profanity than Sam Peckinpah, Quentin Tarantino or Russ Meyer could ever think possible in a 110 minute movie.
But the brilliantly paced fight sequences really blow you away, and Amano is one of the greatest Anime heroes of all time. I would hate to call this Anime 'hentai' because it is so much more than that. The ability to look beyond the sex and violence is often difficult, but there really is a great movie bursting to break free from it all here.
As it is, Urotsukidoji is an undeniably sexist film, in which the power balance is ultimately determined by the size and thickness of your manhood. Scenes such as the moment when the Chojin forces a nurse up against a wall and violently and graphically rapes her, or when Nikki cuts off his penis and replaces it with one given to him by the Makai (at least I think it's a penis, the Optical Reframing won't let me see what it is!) are typical of this movies gratuitous intent to shock and alarm, and are only partially necessary to the plot.
Nonetheless, I think people should have the right to see this movie as it was meant to be seen. I know censors are there for moral purposes and there is nothing wrong with that, but if we (UK) are the only country in the world to demand substantial cuts to a film there's gotta be something wrong with that.
The final 20 minutes of the movie, however, are by far the best thing in it. Spectacular is the only way I can describe it. When the Chojin starts destroying the world and the three worlds finally collide into each other, it is truly breathtaking and this sequence alone is worth sitting through the sex and violence for. You will have to watch it to know what I mean.
So, is Urotsukidoji worth seeing? Well, if you live in the UK avoid the awful Manga Video version described above and import it from the US, or wait for the DVD release which will apparently be uncut (thereby defeating the purpose of censoring it in the first place). Otherwise, get it only if you are well acquainted with Anime or you've got some friends you really want to shock. The animation looks a bit dated now, especially after recent Manga efforts like Ghost in the Shell or Perfect Blue, but it's still viscerally effective.
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