Release Date: 2009. Rating: Maid-Droid (メイドロイド) follows Mr. Ueno, a lonely retired man whose only company is a maid-droid, Maria, his parents brought from their factory decades ago. Maria became Ueno’s companion after his parents’ deaths, and now her battery is run down; there are no replacement parts. Meanwhile, Inspector Akagi and her police squad are looking for a serial rapist that may not be…
Release Date: 2018. Rating: Inuyashiki (いぬやしき) is a film based on the manga series of the same name. The film premiered on April 20, 2018 and is the first of the planned “Miracle Man” Trilogy. The film begins with Ichiro Inuyashiki, a work-a-day Japanese salaryman who is at the end of his rope. At work, at home, and even within his own body there are…
Release Date: 2000. Rating: Weird. Really, really weird. Before we proceed, let’s address the big throbbing elephant in the room–I.K.U. is is porn. Not the kind of cheap softcore thrills you find on late-night cable, but from within the mind of an art-film director with a deep love for Blade Runner. In fact, this is something of a Blade Runner parody of sorts. In the…
Release Date: 1982. Rating: Very good. In a dystopian future humanity has been forced underground. Settlements are stacked very deep, all of which are connected by transport elevators. One day a girl named Luchino hides in one of these elevators to escape the authorities when she is caught smoking. Unfortunately she does this at a time when a separate group of security forces are using…
Release Date: 1980. Rating: Classic. Visions of a bleak, post-apocalyptic urban wasteland strewn with twisted hunks of mechanical wreckage. A rasping electronic buzz on the soundtrack. These impressions kick-start into a jarring, rapid-fire sequence of chrome, neon and showers of sparks alongside the howl of roaring motors, as boys in black leather with Be-Bop High School quiffs ride menacingly out into the night in the…
Release Date: 1989. Rating: Mediocre, but beautifully. In a cyberpunk future, Kyron-5 supercomputer attempts to exterminate the human race, but GUNHED (ガンヘッド, Ganheddo) mechs stop it. In 2038, five thieves break into a condemned island facility to steal Kyron’s dead CPU. The place turns out to be a deathtrap. Brooklyn’s smuggling companions are slaughtered, sometimes violently, one by one as they wantonly defy the security…
Release Date: 1982. Rating: Classic. Burst City (Bakuretsu Toshi Bāsuto Shiti) is an explosive Molotov cocktail of youth gone wild amid a landscape dystopian urban decay. It’s a world of speed tribes, yakuza gangsters, brutal cops, and biker warfare set to a soundtrack of some of Japan’s most notorious punk bands. Featuring performances The Stalin, The Roosters, The Rockers, and INU, first-time director Sogo Ishii…
Release Date: 1996. Rating: Good, but slow. Often interpreted as a prequel to 964 Pinocchio, Rubber’s Lover details a clandestine group of scientists who conduct psychic experiments on human guinea pigs they take from the streets. Using brain-altering drugs, sensory deprivation and computer interfaces, they subject their patients to gruesome scientific tortures that often end in brutal death. After continued failure, they pursue one last…
Release Date: 1991. Rating: Good, but slow. 964 Pinocchio is a memory-wiped sex slave cyborg who is thrown out by his owners for failure to maintain an erection. It is unclear in what ways he has been modified beyond having no memory and being unable to communicate. He is discovered by Himiko, a homeless girl, while wandering aimlessly through the city. Himiko has also been…
Release Date: 2001. Rating: Classic. In the future world, young people are living for the thrill of fighting (and potentially dying) in fully-immersive VR battle simulation game called Avalon. Although highly illegal, the game is both addictive and profitable with skilled players being able to earn a living in the game. When Ash, a star player, hears of rumors that a more advanced level of…
Release Date: 2011. Rating: In Part Two of the Gantz film series, Kei has become a warrior for Gantz. Seeking to earn 100 points, Kei strives to bring Kato back to life, who had died in the world of Gantz. He is working at a fast food restaurant, while taking care of his friend’s orphaned little brother. In between missions, Kei lives his old life,…
Release Date: 2016. Rating: Excellent. After being brutally murdered in a subway station, a teen boy awakens to find himself in a strange room. Soon he learns he and others have been resurrected by a strange black orb named, Gantz. It’s purpose? Recruit the recently dead to serve as soldiers in bizarre secret war happening in plan sight. Gantz: O (styled as GANTZ:O) is a…
Release Date: 2009. Rating: Excellent. Two long decades after the archetype flesh/metal mutation in Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), and seventeen years after Taniguchi Tomoo’s equally majestic transformation in Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992), another fine specimen–the American-Japanese white collar worker, Anthony–embraces the catalytic power of pain and rage, when a mysterious driver runs over and kills his only son, Tom. Unable to come to…
Release Date: 1992. Rating: Classic. Three years after the Metal Fetishist’s nightmarish transformation in Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), the ordinary salaryman, Taniguchi Tomoo, sees his world crumble when fanatic metal-worshipping skinheads abduct his only son. Forced to unleash his dormant destructive power, Tomoo will finally embrace the cathartic effect of the ultimate metamorphosis, as his naked rage transforms the once-feeble flesh into a grisly…
Release Date: 1989. Rating: Classic. Mad with pain by the festering wound in his thigh, an extreme sado-sexual “Metal Fetishist” dashes out into the street, and is accidentally hit by the car of a white-collar worker and his girlfriend. But, strangely, instead of dying, the salaryman finds himself before a mysterious and agonizingly majestic transformation–one that twists and bends the pliable human flesh, inextricably intertwining…