" the adventures of a boy with a stick and a Mexican on roller skates "

   Title: Demon City Shinjuku by US Manga

   Format: Anime Movie on VHS

   Reviewing Monkey: Chimpan-A

   The Hype: Only a few days until the hideous plans of a demon man destroy Tokyo and the world! Join the adventures of a boy with a stick and a Mexican on roller skates in Demon City Shinjuku! It's an action flick, whad-da ya want?

      What This Monkey Thought...

   Animation: The animation is a little fuzzy around the edges, but otherwise things seem to be okay. The backgrounds are nothing to write home about, but they get the job done. All around the animation seems to be fairly average. Some of the more graphically intense scenes are done well (a mutant dog which gets torn apart looks appropriately gruesome afterwards), as are some of the cooler looking critters. Otherwise, it's just plain. 3 out of 5

   Action: Well, it's definitely an action flick. There's a goodly amount of the sword swinging, explosion stuff going on. Unfortunately, like the animation, it's all just kind of boring. There are a couple of nice sequences, but generally the action is over in a couple of moments and you're on to the next few minutes of plot progression (read: walking down the street). Even the final battle is over far too quickly and leaves you feeling like there's another twenty minutes of battle sequence missing somewhere. 3 out of 5

   Story: Evil guy wants to let the demons in and rule the world. Guy with glowing stick wants to stop him. That's it. Even by action movie standards the story here is sparse. The villain is given almost no development, much the same as the rest of the crew. Although the back of the box may tell you some things, some of them are more than you ever find out in the movie. You'd think in a movie with so little plot or development they'd have time for better action scenes, but no. Basically you're given enough to understand what's going on, and that covers it. 2 out of 5

   Music: There isn't a whole lot of music in this movie. What there is runs about like the rest of the movie, average. It borders on cheesy but manages to remain palatable. At least it doesn't get in the way of the rest of the movie, although some of the action scenes could have really benefited from some nice music in the background. The rest of the sound quality is just fine, everything sounds good. Just ignore the occasional musical interlude and you'll do fine. 3 out of 5

   Translation: Wow, whoever's job it was to translate the swear words certainly made sure they all stayed in there. I'm also fairly sure they did the dubbing casting call in Texas, since a majority of the characters have southern accents. The swear words generally come off as oddly placed, or at least clumsy. It's notable enough to merit a mention here. Also there are a few scenes where someone's mouth moves but nobody talks. At least the dialogue still makes sense. 2 out of 5

   Rewatchability: Considering the tons of far better anime out there, this movie just doesn't rate. It doesn't even have any skin to make it worth a second watch. If you're really bored and just want some average anime to watch, pull this sucker out. 2 out of 5

   The Verdict:

       It's not really a bad movie, just average. There are better out there and there are worse. This one falls squarely in between. Easily forgettable, it might entertain you for a night before you move on.

   The Good: It can be entertaining; it's not really bad

   The Bad: There are a lot of things that drag it down; it's not really good.

   The Overall Ugly: It's pretty much just average.

   What it's Worth: average price