Wicked City - 1987

 Now here's something I did not know, this was apparently made into a live action film in 1992?

Wicked City was one of these early seminal Japanese anime films that we knew of in the west when I got into anime and manga in the late 90s.  I remember watching Akira, segments of Evangelion, this, Jin-Roh, and then more came out like Trigun and Hellsing as the world caught on that this shit was en vogue at the moment.

Wicked City also epitomizes what made it to the west early in, in all of the examples above.  Sci Fi, action oriented, kinda strange and offbeat but extremely stylized and cool content which was also sometimes darkly sexual.  I didn't watch it around this time but the other thing that had made it over and made a splash was Urotsukidoji:  Legend of the Overfiend, which is basically just hentai with a plot.

Wicked City is related to that, they're distant cousins, cause this is about as mainstream as tentacle rape ever got, and there is oral tentacle rape in this movie, which sent me on a bizarre spiral of remembering the early days of anime collecting and the allure and the taboo this stuff used to represent.  It also goes hand in hand with the odd pedestal but also sickening head-shakiness that Japan as a country used to iliicit when I was in my teens, seriously we basically all assumed that entire country was fucked up.

This movie presents a main character, Taki (love those chips man) who is a secret agent protecting us from the dark universe creepy monsters that are trying to invade us circa the year 2000.  He is teamed up with a woman from that universe after his girlfriend turns out to be a spider monster, and with this new partner he forms an instant attraction and partnership.  They must protect some pervy old man while they are doing whatever, but all is not what it seems....

 There is cool action violence, there is sex and nudity, and there is comedy in this.  Its definitely for adults, but it also has that timeliness to it where it was clearly made for guys age 10-25 or so, back when rated R meant, eh you can likely watch it anyways.  

I used to own a Wicked City t-shirt, and it also took me down an avenue of cool shirts I used to own.  I wonder what happened to like, all of them, I have no idea.  Guess I just got rid of them as time went on.  I'll give this 4 stars.  It's really fun, moves quickly, and it stood the test of time.