It’s gratifying when an anime comes along that is completely different from everything else around it, but still becomes a big success. Detroit Metal City only ran for 12 episodes, each just 15 minutes long, and yet it swept through fandom and hit a note with English-speaking anime enthusiasts. Happily, though, the reason it was such a big success isn’t just because it had a good concept or subject, but because the humour in it is just sheer brilliance.Negishi is a timid, awkward country boy who longs to play his twee romantic pop to a fashionable audience. Yet somehow, he has ended up in Detroit Metal City, a death metal band who sing about rape and death, wear corpse-paint and perform extreme live shows involving a short, fat man in bondage gear getting abused. Negishi’s life becomes a struggle to balance his wild onstage persona with his real, timorous self – and yet when he’s needed, it only takes a quick change for him to become Krauser II, Emperor of Hell. So why do his problems only get worse?
Based on a seinen manga, everything can be more extreme than is found in the majority of anime comedy, more sexually explicit and more unpleasant. But it’s also clever, with Negishi getting into a lot of bizarre but brilliant situations and the surreal humour piling on top of itself to a great climax. It’s the contrast between reality and the onstage persona that makes this so much more enjoyable than, say, Metalocalypse.
I didn’t have much of a qualm with the music not actually being death metal. It was pretty heavy, growly and shrieky, really not that far off, say, some of In Flames’ songs. They wanted to shift soundtrack units too, of course.
I also watched the live-action adaptation, which doesn’t quite match up to the anime, mostly because the acting was that little bit too broad, the actors trying too hard to be funny so that they ended up just being a bit annoying. That said, it was one of the better Japanese live-action films I’ve seen, and Tetrapod Melon Tea were so perfect that it was hilarious. The way the singer runs is just spot-on. Despite overacting and not really looking quite right as Krauser, I eventually got behind the guy who was L in Death Note as Negishi and was impressed by his singing voices…he just went too far with things like his dancing and the run he did (pay more attention to the TMT guy!), so that it was too exaggerated to believe. The humour was toned down too, which I suppose wasn’t a surprise, but a bit of a shame. On the other hand, I liked how they expanded the mother’s role, the president was perfect, Aikawa was cute, and I much preferred the way Jack Ill Dark was presented here. Not only did they get someone of the stature of Gene Simmons to play the part (KISS being a big influence on the anime, as you may be able to tell from its title), but the competition between the two vocalists and its resolution was much more believable than in the anime, as well as making The Emperor of Metal actually seem formidable.
The mere fact that there was a real-life Metal Buffalo made me very happy too.
I’m a little sad there isn’t more of this anime. There’s more manga, and other than a poor first chapter in which Negishi tries to get laid by a groupie, which doesn’t fit with his character through the rest of the series, it seems just as good as the animation it inspired, so I shall keep reading. An extremely fun show.
(originally written 11.5.09)
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