Wicked City (1987 film)

**Wicked City** (Japanese: 妖獣都市, Hepburn: *Yōjū Toshi*; literally "Supernatural Beast City") is a 1987 Japanese adult animated film that blends neo-noir, action, gothic horror, and erotic elements. It was produced by Video Art and Madhouse for Japan Home Video, and adapts *Wicked City*, the first novel in Hideyuki Kikuchi’s *Wicked City* series. The movie marks the solo directorial debut of Yoshiaki Kawajiri, who also handled character design, storyboarding, animation direction, and key animation. Set near the end of the 20th century, the story posits that the human world and a demon world secretly coexist, with a covert police force called the Black Guard policing the boundary between them.

**Plot**

Few humans know that a "Black World"—an alternate dimension inhabited by supernatural demons—exists. For centuries, a peace treaty between this Black World and the human world has kept things relatively stable. A secret agency called the Black Guard protects both sides, especially from a radical faction within the Black World that opposes the treaty.

In Tokyo, Renzaburō Taki works as an electronics company salaryman by day and a Black Guard agent when needed. He has been meeting a woman named Kanako at a local bar for three months, and after they have sex, she reveals herself to be a spider-like doppelgänger from the Black World Radicals. She steals a sample of Taki’s semen and tries to kill him, but he escapes. The next day, Taki is assigned to guard Giuseppe Mayart, a dwarfish, perverted mystic who is 200 years old and a signatory to the renewed peace treaty—making him a prime target for the Radicals. Taki learns he will work with a partner from the Black World: a beautiful fashion model named Makie.

At Narita Airport, Taki is attacked by two Radicals on the runway, but Makie saves him. They meet Mayart, and the three take shelter in a Hibiya hotel protected by spiritual barriers. While playing chess, the hotelier tells Taki that he will only understand the value of his Black Guard role once he knows what he is protecting. During an assault by a Radical named Jin (a character created by Kawajiri), Mayart sneaks away. Taki and Makie find him in a soapland, where a Radical has drained his health. They rush him to a spiritual hospital under Black Guard protection, but on the way, a tentacle demon captures Makie, and Taki must leave her behind.

At the clinic,