Demon City Shinjuku

『魔界都市 (新宿)』
Makai Toshi (Shinjuku)

Introduction by LeSean Thomas. Based on a novel by Vampire Hunter D creator Hideyuki Kikuchi and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Demon City Shinjuku is the story of a young man who must battle a city overtaken by demons to save the world. Demon City Shinjuku was one of the first anime watched by many in the U.S., with it being released by New York’s own Central Park Media in the early ‘90s. A pulpy film filled with gratuitous violence and grotesque monsters, it’s emblematic of the anime popular with American audiences 30 years ago, when LeSean Thomas himself was growing up. And while essentially a Japanese grindhouse flick, it was the work of tremendous talents.

Dir. Yoshiaki Kawajiri, 1988, 82 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Hideyuki Hori, Hiromi Tsuru, Kiyoshi Kobayashi.

LeSean Thomas on Demon City Shinjuku:
“Classic, Classic,” is how LeSean Thomas sums up Demon City Shinjuku. “I didn’t realize who I was watching at the time, but Demon City Shinjuku is the work of animators including Naoyuki Onda and Satoshi Iwataki. Onda and Iwataki have touched a lot of classic stuff.” Years later, LeSean would collaborate with both as part of Netflix’s Yasuke. “To be able to have both Onda and Iwataki working on Yasuke, it was too much.”