#262: Doomed Megalopolis (1991-2)

 

Studio: Madhouse

Director: Rintaro

Screenplay: Akinori Endō, Masayuki and Rintaro

Based on the novel Teito Monogatari by Hiroshi Aramata

Voice Cast: Masaaki Okabe as the Narrator, Kouichi Yamadera as Jun'ichi Narutaki, Kyuusaku Shimada as Yasunori Kato, Gorou Naya as Yasumasa Hirai, Kan Tokumaru as Dr. Makoto Nishimura, Kaneto Shiozawa as Youichirou Tatsumiya, Keiko Han as Yukari Tatsumiya, Ken Yamaguchi as Kamo, Kenichi Ogata as Shigemaru Kuroda, Kouichi Kitamura as Junkichi Amano, Naoki Tatsuta as Torahiko Terada, Osamu Saka as Viscount Eiichi Shibusawa, Takaya Hashi as Noritsugu Hayakawa, Youko Asagami as Keiko Tatsumiya, Yuusaku Yara as Shigeyuki "Rohan Kouda" Kouda

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Before this adaptation, there were two live action films adapting Hiroshi Aramata's book series, Teito Monogatari, a single narrative across Japan in the 20^th century broken up into volumes in its various publication forms. The first was the 1988 Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis, which with Doomed Megalopolis adapts the earlier parts of Hiroshi Aramata's story, whilst Tokyo: The Last War (1989) adapts the volumes dealing with the final days of the Pacific War. With Doomed Megalopolis, animation director Rintaro, who started in the beginning of the modern anime industry in the early sixties, came to this adaptation with great interest in the source material¹, and took interest in depicting the more fantastical nature of its premise¹, in which an alternative Japanese history of the 20th century involves immortal magician Yasunori Katō, a figure who wishes to destroy the city of Tokyo with his craft. Contextually it is important to realise its source author Hiroshi Aramata, a polymath and natural history researcher, whose career varied between translating classic Western fantasy literature to bringing Western natural historical texts to Japan, used this multi-volume work that cemented a legacy to focus on both Japanese history and real Asian occultism, the central theme of three of these episodes being Kato's desire to reawaken Taira no Masakado, until March 25, 940 when he was betrayed and decapitated. His head, with stories of it still being alert after assassination, was buried in Edo, the future Tokyo, where in real life, stories have suggested a curse that has lasted over decades to the point that, even in the modern day, his shrine in Tokyo is still held with great respect.

In Doomed Megalopolis, Kato wishes to awaken him even when Masakado himself wishes to be allowed to rest in his grave. He will even call forth a shrine maiden, Keiko, to represent him in episode three to get Kato to leave him alone, instead becoming almost a duality of Kato representing the real figure's rage of authority, wishing to level Tokyo fully, something which the film Tokyo: The Last War emphasised as him being thousands of years of slain and dead peoples' angers coming together to bring him back in 1945. Doomed Megalopolis' narrative begins in 1908, and in both the first live action film and this anime, all three adaptations include Kyuusaku Shimada, whose first film role was Kato, playing this figure at the end of the Meiji era going into the Taisho era of emperors beginning this quest to destroy Tokyo, connected to the real 1923 Kanto earthquake in both adaptations.

When I had heard of Doomed Megalopolis, it had a notoriety for being lurid, and in comparison to Akio Jissoji's adaptation of the 1988 live action film as a director, Rintaro's take here with studio Madhouse is a lot more explicit in both the horror content as much as gore and transgressive sexual content, though Tokyo: The Last War, bringing in legendary practical effects artist Screaming Mad George (Joji Tani for his birth name), had already brought in more overtly gory content itself to the adaptations. I also have to admit that, whilst I admire the 1988 feature film, and both adaptations have their virtues, Doomed Megalopolis has a huge advantage with its fantastical content as animation, a freedom to be vivid and vibrant with its phantasmagorical content fully. From the get-go, you have a work oozing in style, be it the idiosyncratic use of colour and framing scenes, to actually depicting the supernatural elements, such as the fact, when introduced, one of the initial leads by the name of Yukari, a maiden, is able to see the future, a target of Kato's goals whose visions and nightmares over the first two episodes would not be possible to depict in the live action film as vividly as this.

The Last Megalopolis to its credit used practical effects, including stop motion, but here you can have the horror grow and be fluidly animated, be it shadow demons formed of eyes and mouths in wrong places, like ink well creatures, to one of the more infamous moments I had heard about with this mini-series, the openly phallic stomach worm being vomited out of a victim's mouth which has an appropriately horrifying execution due to the animation quality. The work is more tonally appropriate for its medium - more action based - and not as entirely focused on the smaller details other adaptations did. The Last Megalopolis really made a deal of a key plot point, that this is a time when there is an attempt in the government to make Tokyo a capital city influential even outside the country, whilst here there is a lot more emphasis on the horror as well as more psycho dramatic plot turns for characters you never got in the live action film. There is significantly more rock guitar solos from Kazuhiko Toyama here in the score, but I will not complain about one of the anime's best aspects, that score, for this.

Moments are more explicit, but never feel tasteless for the sake of it. Probably the most extreme aspect is a subplot entirely jettisoned from their live action counterparts in Yukari and her brother, which becomes explicitly incestuous on his side in a bleak narrative stroke, one despite the luridness of the content becoming more the tragedy of how her character, bright and charismatic when introduced, is psychologically broken between Kato and her own brother, her daughter inheriting a greater weight of power and struggle as a result in this perverse psychodrama between brother and sister. Even this violent overtone never feels tasteless as, by episode two when we skip to 1923, this is allowed to breathe as a narrative in a way The Last Megalopolis was not able to, able to have greater emphasis on characterisation in ways that The Last Megalopolis could not even if that adaptation has touches of its own more fleshed out.

There are differences between both adaptations, which mean both have their virtues. By episode three, the character of Keiko here is a much more significant character than in the film, but in contrasted by how her introduction in the episode is a much abbreviated take on what becomes the finale of the film, including far less emphasis sadly on Gakutensoku, a real life robot, the first built in the East of the globe,  who is far more elaborated on in this fictional context in connection to the building of the first subway in Tokyo, shown here even with actual photos and designs from it but less focused on as a narrative concern in the anime adaptation.

This still however feels like its source, taking real spiritual and occultist beliefs, and melding them with history, even if details like a giant flying manta ray was not expected at all in context. You can argue that in terms of telling the history of Japan itself, Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis was doing more, especially as episode three here feels significantly more expanded in the live action film where it made the perfect conclusion for that story. There is however the fact this adaptation has additional content that continues after this for episode four, where never was mathematical sums and equations made more menacing as we enter alien territory, narrative beyond the film in which Lagrange’s equation of motion is brought in and you would have struggled with depicting its plot even with practical stop motion effects with where it goes. Here, Kato figures out that his solution is to move the Moon closer to the Earth and literally cause it to awaken a spiritual dragon, something even a big budget film from the Japanese movie industry would have had a hard time depicting but animation can. It definitely ends the animation at its most phantasmagoric and certainly with a left turn to conclude the mini-series, as unexpectedly love defeats the monster, something which with credit to a production adds a weight to it. For what is the most extreme in content from the three Teito Monogatari adaptations that came first, there is emphasis throughout on how, if you viewed these stories from afar, Yasunori Kato is a figure who will never succeed, in any other context a weak villain but in context to this adaptation by himself someone more symbolically complex in how he is inevitable, more a force that comes and will always fight with Tokyo itself as a symbol of the unrest that built the capital of Japan over a turbulent century.

Doomed Megalopolis was a surprise, a gravitas even among brethren in the more lurid horror anime coming out straight-to-video at this time, and won me over. Certainly next to the other live action films, this feels an entirely different take in terms of tone despite all that is clearly carried over from the original films, Kyuusaku Shimada notwithstanding, the pulpier take which however inherited the weight of the others’ taking on Japanese history and esotericism with an admirable attitude in depicting them. It is out of the three a striking work as pure horror anime too, with sights like a woman splitting open into a giant insect creature to a nightmare sequence involving a cat monster, something which when these titles have questionable content still retain incredible artistic flourishes and mood to the productions to admire in this genre.

=====

1) For the 2021 Blu-Ray release from Media Blasters, a small anime and live action distributor in the USA who have managed to continue over decades of changes in the US anime distribution industry, it includes fascinating short documentaries made for the Japanese audience, three of them about locations around Tokyo with spiritual and esoteric lore around them, whilst the forth contains promo interviews with actor Kyuusaku Shimada and briefly with Rintaro, though it is clear how the director came to this with admiration for the source novel and wishing to bring what was possible in animation against the two live action films already released by that point.