Wicked City

So tonight was movie night for me. After coming off Gundam Seed Destiny and Legends of the Dark King, I decided I needed to watch something a little shorter. I wasn't completely sure which anime I wanted to dive into and commit a great deal of my time to yet so I spun the wheel and ended up getting Wicked City off of my anime database.

The plot in this film can be seen as either really simple, or quite complicated depending on how much you choose to take away from the film. Personally I found that there were a great deal of thing happening through the story. The basic premise is that there are two worlds which have constantly been at conflict. The "Human World" and the "Black World". The Black World is made up of creatures that possess immense strength and abilities to recover their bodies. They are also able to take on the form oh human bodies to assimilate into regular society. An elite team known as the Black Guards have been assembled to protect the Human World from the Black World rebels who are looking to break a 500 year old peace treaty. Humans and members of the Black World are not able to cross-breed under normal circumstances, however, through the events leading into the new peace treaty between the two worlds, two Black Guard agents (one of which is from the Black World) are the new hope for building a bond between the Black World and the Human World.

I have to be honest, there are a great deal more elements within the story than what I have explained. This summary is just a taste of what is present in the film. The themes of acceptance, love, loyalty, trust, and deceit make themselves present throughout the course of the film in many different contexts. As I mentioned earlier. This film can be very cut and dry or complex depending on how involved you want to get with it. I wasn't planning to get too involved with it when I started watching, but I found that the writers had the ability to draw me in and make me want to understand more about the story.

One of the factors that initially drew me into wanting to watch this film is that it is from the same director is Ninja Scroll (which is a film that really got me into the anime scene). The animation style was also from the late 80s which has always been one of my more favorite styles of art with anime. The music and dialog was as cheesy as ever, which is also what I would expect from a "modern day" film animated in 1987. Needless to say, on a whole this film was entertaining. I would certainly recommend watching it for those who are fans of Ninja Scroll. Although the time periods depicted in the show are night and day, many of the elements present and the relationships that they play with each other is similar. The greatest attribute to this film is that it is able to speak to audiences who want a rich and thought provoking movie experience as well as those who just want to watch something without having to put much effort into it. Definitely watch this one to get a deeper understanding of the plot, you won't be disappointed.