Detroit Metal City - The Metalhead anime






Okay, so today I decided to go a bit off the album review pattern, and decided to embrace a topic that goes along with one of the many things that I love: Anime.
But fear not, my fellow followers, this is not too much out topic. Today I will post about one of the most funny, and yet, genius anime I ever saw in recent years: Detroit Metal City. Mainly, the plot revolves around Soichi Negishi, who moved to Tokyo to chase his dream of becoming a musician playing stylish, Swedish-style pop. Instead, he finds himself leading the death metal band Detroit Metal City, or DMC, as the costumed and grotesquely made-up "demon emperor" Johannes Krauser II. Although he hates the role and the things he has to do as a member of the band, he has a definite talent for it. 
The Anime is made of 12 episodes, and each episode has a length of 12 minutes or so, but each ep is so full of content that you will not believe how can anything be so rich with such a low time spam. The animation isn't your typical cute character with big eyes kinda deal, but rather a more crude, ugly design that fits more into the original manga's style. They even use some scenes like you were reading the manga, but animated, and the animation, mostly static, is quite awesome for it's artistic take on it.

But one thing I must say, is the music. And this anime has stellar-level music in it. The band is labelled as a "Death Metal" band, but honestly, they are more of a groove metal band with strong black and death influences.  



The people behind this anime know what metal is all about, and just by the intro of the anime, you can see that the music is quite cool, and the musicians are very competent in what they're doing.

This is mainly a comedy series, and they make a lot of references to some metalhead stereotypes that are funny as hell, some of them that go along with the local Japanese scene that, funny enough, is rather accurate. I mean, the band DMC (Detroit Metal City) has a loyal fan base, too loyal I would say even, to the point they elevate the band members to god/demon tier. One fine example is the past of the character Krauser II, created exclusively by the fans, where he killed both his parents, raped countless men and women, and even killed himself just to go to hell and make a bargain with the Devil. I mean, this is sheer lunacy, but also a nod to the mythos that sometimes is around some bands. Remember Deicide and the "I am gonna kill myself at the age of 33" kinda deal?! Yeah. Something like that.

But this is a great anime. And the manga has more stuff to see than the anime, since the TV adaptation is a resumed version. If you aren't into anime at all, worry not, there is a live adaptation of the manga/anime, that basically tells the same story, but with real people in their roles.  


The movie is quite entertaining actually, considering that most of the times live adaptations of anime pale in comparison to the content they are based on, but in this case, it retains the main elements that makes the anime great: The comedy and the music.

 Honestly, I read the manga, saw the anime, and saw the movie, and all the platforms available are of the highest quality. The movie has rather low ratings, but that's because people either don't get the Japanese humor, or the metal scene. Some even get insulted by the way it portraits the metal scene in general, but of course, those are people who aren't Japanese to begin with, since Japan doesn't care for the current SJW role model that is so vivid here in the Western area of this sad blue marble of dirt and water.

 Related links: 

 Live adaptation IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1142972/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/detroit-metal-city-tv
Anime info: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=10172

Amazon's Complete Collection: https://www.amazon.com/Detroit-Metal-City-Complete-Collection/dp/B008KZX7IE

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