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It's rare that I watch the trailers on a DVD lately, but I figure I might as well since soon my flow of Netflix discs dries up. These are all pretty interesting too. We've got Red Eye, which looks like an actually decent J-horror movie. Heroes Two, just... straight up swanky 60's kung-fu. Trailer is honestly enough people punching each other in a dungeon for me to feel like I watched the whole thing. Zebraman, which is, well, Zebraman. Then finally we have Sukeban Deka. This is the entire trailer here. We've got a Japanese schoolgirl walking through the fog, playing with a yo-yo. Suddenly, A- Super awesome/upbeat 80's action movie fight music kicks in. B- A dozen ninjas appear out of nowhere. C- The whole... foggy void suddenly has fire all over the place. And then, you know, she fights the ninjas off with her yo-yo. So... that's right at the top of the queue now.
What we're actually watching tonight however is the live action movie of Devilman! I have to justify the by-flavor archives having a whole section dedicated to Go Nagai somehow! Also, wow. Promising start. Promisingly bad dub too. We've got these two little kids sitting around flipping through a big color manga artbook full of monsters.... mostly Rule 63 variations. One kid has grey hair for some reason and says he's a monster. The other is the main character, whose grown up voice totally sounds like the narrator from The Wonder Years. I suppose it could actually be the same guy. So anyway, they're all ground up and college age now, or maybe they're just really not selling being in high school. Also, grey haired kid is now blond, and Wonder Years has been living with his family for the last 4 years. If this didn't lead you to the conclusion that our main character has a little-sister-but-not-really who's going to double as his love interest, you don't get how Japan works.
Also, Blondie is kind of a total psycho. As exemplified by some bully picking on Wonder Years, and Blondie retaliating as soon as he heard by heading right into a full classroom with a pair of pruning sheers and hacking his fingers off. He got better though. And moving on, Blondie's dad sends them a... virtual reality helmet. It contains a little video presentation on how he and his secret antarctic research friends kind of unearthed demons which have possessed them all and turned them into monsters. There really isn't particularly any imperative to the message, just kind of, figured you'd like to know. And... OK movie, slow down. I'm going to have to pause this. So, they go home, and Blondie shows Ryo a door in the basement his dad is behind. His dad is a room coated in entrails with a giant head in the middle. He then says he too is all demon infected and Wonder Years is going to have to put him down. He's not cool with this, but then suddenly Dad shoots out a single giant CGI sperm which could never be mistaken for anything else which uh... fertilizes Wonder Years I guess. So he instantly turns into Devilman, and some pink goopy guy I guess is full on monsterized Dad comes out to say hey. But Devilman's not evil so they don't get along, and pinky is killed. While this was going on, Blondie apparently turned into an angel. We up to speed now? Anyway, after killing it, Devilman shifts down to really stupid looking mostly human form, Angel Blondie explains the basic premise there, and then says "Happy birthday!" because, well, it's his birthday. I would have mentioned that earlier but there was a lot of stuff going on. Then Devilman wakes up and goes and gets is birthday motorcycle, and we see their crazy yellow body-condom wearing neighbor hiding in his garage taking pictures of Sis, before they go of to school. There, Wonder Years awesomely dodges some bullies with super powered dodgery.
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Uh... OK, the movie seems to have ADD. We're cutting between like 6 different scenes, at least 5 of which are apparently flashbacks to various points, and I have no clue which, if any, represents the present. Finger chop boy is sketching the beach, and talking about how Blondie told him "I am pure evil" when doing so. Pervy neighbor is spying on Sis again, it's night, here's some lady with bird legs for all her limbs and wings growing out of her head come to whisk Wonder Years off for some exposition. I get the distinct feeling that in the manga and anime series, we'd be seeing her boobs. Anyway, she's pretty much just reprising that earlier bit. Hey, how come you're not evil like you should be? Let's fight! So they do. While they do so, they fly around outside smashing through buildings, because hey why not? Also, both transform, although for her, it's just that her outfit gets skimpier. Then they finish fighting and... she just kinda leaves. It's stressed, more, that the demon that makes him all Devilman-y is named Amon... and by the way? I'm kinda creeped out by the sudden realization of how very very directly Yuri's various transformations are just pulled dirrectly out of Devilman.
After that, Wonder Years gets all angsty and makes out with Sis. Now here's a news report by some big tough black guy. Now here's a train conductor I guess being weird and freaking out little kids by being weird and eating turtles. Then here's Wonder Years, at night, driving his motorcycle down to the beach. He hears fingers screaming for help and dear gods this movie needs to learn how scene transitions work. We're just jumping around like crazy. OK, now we're making more sense. Turtle guy turned into a giant turtle monster from eating a turtle and then killed a bunch of people, including him, and their faces appear on his back. So Devilman Punch! Turtle says "Hey man, demons aren't supposed to kill demons!" "I'm Devilman!" "Well hey, I wasn't killing these guys just to be a jerk. I was just eating them because I was hungry. You want to go kill people for being jerks, go kill Satan. He wants to wipe out all humanity." Then the second billydemon gruff came to the bridge. Or he died. Whatever.
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"Save the files as index.html" says computer teacher. I don't know why that amuses me. Now here's some bully girls randomly accusing someone of being a demon and stripping her on the pretext of looking for proof. They're just being jerks, but... oh hey. She's actually got crazy demon flamethrowers all over her arm. Not actually expecting that, they freak out and run. Then the police and such show up. Meanwhile, here's news footage of a fat redneck cowboy in LA with a Predator mouth standing off with police. Now here's fire arm girl talking to some random kid whose mom has apparently been monstering out lately. Kid goes home. His dad has crazy spinning eyes with pupils on the front and back, mom's got a forked tongue. And man, that reporter. Is that that Bob Sapp guy Japan thinks is the coolest dude ever?
Anyway, here's random demons and fighting all over context be damned. Also, here's terrible CGI everywhere. We're definitely taking the approach of adapting a long series into a movie by just fast forwarding through everything trying to hit as much stuff as fans will recognize as possible without really caring about being, you know, well-paced or at all coherent. Devilman just totally punched some dude's head to pulp though. News reporter totally has this look on his face where he's given up on trying to convince the director that the words he's asking him to place all the emphasis on are totally wrong. Anyway, new law, @#$% human rights for demons. Now here's some McCarthyism. See, I can get the gist of the plot. If every like 3 minutes of this were a full half hour of a series or manga chapter, it'd be perfectly fine. As a movie though, it's like "wait, hasn't it only been 2 days since all this started?"
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So now Wonder Years and Sis are going to church. Apparently Sis is christian. She's praying that some day they can get married. Pretty sure the Judeo-Christian god isn't big on that whole almost-incest thing though, don't know if that'll work out for ya. Then Blondie shows up with a machine gun and he's all hey let's fight back against these government goon squads slaughtering anyone they think might be a demon. Like in this whole house. Some moth man sees Blondie and says "Please help us Satan!" Wonder Years hears this and he's all hey waaaaiiiit a minute. Now lots of people get shot. Then this one fat guy gets shot a lot. Hey movie, you want some focus? I think I have some left over in the fridge. It's totally fine if you want to take it. Really, it's fine. Take. So wait, who's this guy now? Main character's uncle I guess, but I thought he was Blondie's dad and he was dead? I'm confused.
So anyway, all social order has apparently broken down, and cops are just indiscriminately killing people in the streets. "Blondie! You're alive!" "That's Satan, Wonder Years." Now here's war being arbitrarily declared between America and Japan. Oh yeah. Go Nagai's like that. And uh... movie? There's only so many ways can say "here's a montage of cops gunning down suspected demons." You can go ahead and have other kinds of scenes any time you want. Oh hey stalker neighbor. I forgot you existed. Also, at what point here did demons go from scary monsters trying to kill everyone to poor victimized innocents exactly? Or for that matter from being the staff of this one research base to like, 10% of the world's population at least? I mean, you just kinda tossed in a news report saying something to that effect but... you kinda skipped over the why of that twist.
Demon girl from school goes for a sleepover with Sis and starts wasting all her makeup in the middle of the night trying to cover up her funky arm. Then we just kinda randomly have some lesbian overtones tossed in there. Also, pervy neighbor, seriously. What's with the hat? Anyway, he calls the cops to report how the family here is harboring a jew. I mean, harboring a demon. We're totally not making that sort of metaphor at all here. Nope. So then the S.S. officers rough everyone up after they sneak them out the back door. They're arbitrarily going to kill Sis who... OK Blondie fell out of the movie, and that's Devilman's uncle apparently, so Sis apparently is a pretty close blood relative after all. Lovely. Anyway, Devilman outs himself to save her and gets dragged off. Now, at this point I can't help but observe we're running pretty parallel to the plot of Devilman Woman. Is Devilman going to be raped by Blondie/Satan at some point here?
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So... Devilman gets dragged off and executed, but an unruly mob sieges the house to kill everyone else. Pervy neighbor tries in vain to stop them. So... mom and dad get beaten to death by an angry mob. Oh, just mom. Dad gets stabbed. Meanwhile Demon girl and that kid from awhile back are still on the run for whatever reason. Demon girl grows butterfly wings. She also pulls a katana out of... uh... her crotch apparently, and confronts the cops. And kills them all. You know, if you could do that to begin with, kind of a jerk move getting your friend's family all incriminated earlier. Also, the reporter now has 3 heads. Because why not? Oh finally, Devilman's done being dead and runs home. To find corpses. And Sis' severed head on a stick. He takes it with him. Silly Devilman. Only Mega Man gets 1-ups that way. So... now he's just sullenly wandering about through some ruins carrying the head of his sister/cousin/girlfriend. He brings it to church. He puts the head down right on the uh.... what do you call it, big table at the back full of stuff in the center of the room. Then Blondie comes in and he's all "So humanity sucks right? Right? Say it." "Hey, why did you never tell me you were Satan?" "Sorry? But anyway, wanna kill all humans? Well I mean, in principal. Humanity's actually kind of all extinct except for you at this point." Actual quote: "I'm not a demon Ryo! My name is Devilman!" Word for word. Look see, I even said Ryo in place of Blondie. That's how you can tell it's word for word. So fight scene time. Church explodes. "You must die, Satan!" "I don't think so, Devilman!" Again, word for word. And wow. The CGI is so so so so so terrible here. It's embarrassing.
We interrupt this fight scene for fire engulfing the entire world and pillars of naked screaming people bursting out. There, you can stand on those while you fight now. Carry on. Oh and did I mention that every fight scene has a manga panel it flashes up on screen at one point, because that's a thing. Usually a quick freeze frame of killing blows. Like here where he just punched out Satan's heart. Now here's a random flashback to those two as kids having made a truly epic sandcastle and kinda getting all ho yay on top of it. Then they come to on the beach post fight. Hey, who broke the moon? Anyway, they talk a bit, apparently Devilman is dying, says everything will be OK so long as his good buddy Satan lives. Then the camera pulls out and oh hey, it's only the top half of Wonder Years sitting here. Seriously though, who broke the moon? It's split in half and stuck back together at an off angle. Satan's all no way, if you're dying I'm dying too. Meanwhile, here's Demon Girl and Kid. I guess they're the only people left in the world... and so I guess they're going to repopulate it? You know, in a few years, because the kid's like, 10. Go Nagai everybody! Then as the credits start rolling, the camera pulls away from the giant rubble pile and you can see how all around there's more of those tortured soul pillars of naked people swaying in the breeze. I repeat, Go Nagai everybody!
