This month’s AJnet Anime Club feature: Detroit Metal City!
I have two questions for you.
Do you like metal?
Do you like anime?
If you answered “Yes” to both of those questions (and you damn well better have), then I’ve got three words for you: Go to DMC!
I already talked about Detroit Metal City in AJ’s Anime and Manga List Vol 1, but just like The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, I feel like this series deserves its own article. It’s in my top five favorite anime ever, and to just give it a passing mention tacked on at the end of a listicle wouldn’t be giving it the respect and admiration that it deserves.
Detroit Metal City is kind of like a ride on Ozzy’s crazy train, if Ozzy’s crazy train were traveling at Mach 10 and mowing down pedestrians while the conductor is doing rails of coke off a hooker’s ass. Oh, and the conductor is GG Allin, and he’s raping the hooker.
That seemingly tasteless rape joke has a point, I promise you. Just keep reading.
Soichi Negishi is an aspiring musician with dreams of becoming a pop star. Day after day, Negishi takes to the streets of Tokyo, strumming his acoustic guitar and singing upbeat melodies to indifferent passersby.
Negishi is also the front man for Japan’s top death metal band, a group called Detroit Metal City. Donning a blonde wig, white face paint, and an outfit fitting for a demon lord (I think it’s supposed to be steel plated armor of some kind?), Negishi transforms into Johannes Krauser II, a “terrorist from hell” who “raped and murdered his parents”. As Krauser, Negishi is essentially a death metal guitar god, going balls to the wall during performances, interviews, and other public appearances. Seriously, this guy can play speed metal with his teeth.
Despite his best efforts, Negishi finds himself not only unable to break free of being Krauser, but also increasingly becoming the character, sometimes unintentionally. A lot of the humor comes from Negishi’s actions while dressed as Krauser in public, which usually get misinterpreted by Detroit Metal City’s insanely loyal fanbase to comical extents. In one instance when a female police officer attempts to arrest him for disturbing the peace, he trips and falls on top of the officer, leading his fans to assume he’s raping her as a reference to a song called “Cop Rape”. Another scene has Krauser “rape” Tokyo Tower until it begins raining, which the fans interpret as Krauser giving the tower an orgasm. Krauser also inadvertently starts a brawl during a Super Sentai stage play at a family amusement park, and is aided by a fan who happens to be working as a performer in the play.
During Detroit Metal City’s rise to the top a few other musicians attempt to challenge them, leading to all kinds of craziness.
An all-female L7-esque punk band calls out DMC, and Negishi attempts to politely talk to the lead singer to try and convince her that there’s no need to fight. He gets beat up and maced before he can talk to her, and ends up staggering out onto the stage looking disheveled. The singer mistakenly thinks he’s the ghost of Sid Vicious and takes this as a sign that they should leave DMC alone.
A rapper also tries to pick a fight with Krauser, leading the two fanbases to start what amounts to a gang war. As it turns out though, Negishi and the rapper are old classmates, unbeknownst to the rapper (Negishi’s identity as Krauser is kept secret). The feud culminates in Negishi crashing the rapper’s show as Krauser and challenging him to a rap battle where Krauser absolutely destroys the rapper with stuff from his past.
Towards the end, an American metal legend named Jack ill Dark goes on a retirement tour and decides to challenge Krauser and DMC for dominance of the metal scene. Negishi initially tries to be friendly towards Jack, but Jack insults him, and a furious Negishi goes all-out during their show, ending with Krauser bending Jack over onstage and pretending to sodomize him while Jack submits. Jack surrenders his guitar to Krauser and passes him the title of “Emperor”.
Detroit Metal City is a comedy, but the music is surprisingly good, and has been released on a few albums. As far as I know the albums were removed from Spotify, but you can still find them on YouTube. They’re definitely worth a listen. My personal favorites are “Satsugai” and “Death Penis”.
This series is short. Like, very short. Each episode comes in at under 15 minutes, and there’s only 12 of them total. You can finish the entire series in under three hours. That’s less time than the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League (not that anyone actually wants to watch a DCEU movie). There’s also a live-action movie, which I haven’t watched but I’ve heard is good, and even includes an appearance by Gene Simmons as Jack ill Dark. Which I guess makes a lot of sense when you consider that “Detroit Metal City” is a play on the KISS song “Detroit Rock City”.
Much like its main character, the humor in Detroit Metal City comes on aggressively strong, and if you don’t like crass humor and vulgarity then you’re probably not going to like it very much. Like I said, there’s a lot of rape jokes. But if you’re like me and have a twisted sense of humor then you’ll love this often overlooked series.
Personally, I’d rate Detroit Metal City a 10/10, but I understand that it’s not for everyone so I’ll be fair and give it an 8/10.