Detroit Metal City: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Detroit Metal City: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

This is DMC.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 22, 2014

It should probably come as no great surprise to find out that some rock stars are absolutely nothing like their onstage personas. Ozzy Osbourne is a potent case it point, for while The Osbournes revealed him to be a bit on the addlepated side, he came off as a much more lovable, at times surprisingly mundane, man than his bat decapitating alter ego may have led some to believe. At least a couple of decades before Ozzy, Sharon and their crew revealed a bit more of their real sides to a perhaps pleasantly shocked public, Alice Cooper gave a rather startling interview to Life Magazine where the typically heavily made up and snake infested performer discussed his love of Burt Bacharach albums (!) as well as his penchant for playing the decidedly non hard rock sport of golf. So with the understanding that someone like Gene Simmons from Kiss may not actually be that recognizable as he tools around the local mall in his civilian clothes (and sans makeup, of course), we arrive at Detroit Metal City, a patently odd (and some may feel intentionally off putting) anime that takes its title more or less from a Kiss tune. Made up of a bunch of short quasi-OVA, Detroit Metal City takes a manic, mostly comedic, peek behind the supposed glamor and glitz of a death metal outfit to find out that its band members are surprisingly sedate and tame.

Much like death metal heads are supposed to be, Detroit Metal City takes no prisoners when it comes to skewering the world of rock. It’s ripe territory, to be sure, but the anime takes things to hyperbolic levels from the get go, both with regard to its fairly nebulous storyline and (perhaps more so) with regard to its often lunatic presentation style, where a kind of floating aperture means that any given scene may play out in a variety of animation styles and aspect ratios.

The anime’s lead character is hapless sad sack Soichi Negishi, who dreams of a pop music career and seems obsessed with a J-Pop chanteuse who evidently is the Japanese equivalent of someone like Celine Dion, pumping out megaselling pabulum that the public (and Soichi himself) eats up brainlessly. Instead, Soichi finds himself sidelined as part of DMC (as the band is referred to more often than not), in the alter ego of more than slightly crazed lead guitarist Johannes Krauser II, an “artist” who is becoming increasingly famous for exploits like playing the guitar with his teeth. (Sad sack Soichi complains about his gums hurting after such events.)

There’s absolutely nothing even slightly politically (and/or musically) correct about Detroit Metal City, as evidenced by a running gag featuring the female President of the band’s label, Death Records. This “all about business” woman tends to barge into meetings or even concerts detailing the various degrees of “wetness” she’s experiencing, based on how effective the band’s playing is going. It’s juvenile, to be sure, but it’s also frequently hilarious, especially given the fact that Soichi seems to be as lost romantically as he is in his career path.

Fans would be well forewarned that Detroit Metal City is decidedly NSFW, if indeed anyone actually watches anime on the job. This is a relentlessly foul mouthed outing, and not just with regard to the comically overheated song lyrics that Soichi spits out as the violent, untamed Krauser. A lot of even the throwaway dialogue is rife with f-bombs and the like, and the entire anime has an unrepentant “bad boy” quality to it that is obviously both completely in tune with how the rockers are perceived in public as well as piquantly humorous with regard to how they are in their rather boring, middle class real lives.

There’s a certain Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-esque quality to Detroit Metal City, for at times it appears that Johannes Krauser isn’t just a stage persona for Soichi, but is indeed a wholly separate entity which kind of possesses the poor little pop star wannabe, making him do and say absolutely outrageous things that later bring him comical shame. This aspect nicely dovetails into similarly hyperbolic behavior on the part of DMC’s increasingly rabid fan base, as both the acolytes and Krauser feed off of each others’ antics.

A lot of people understandably tend to point to This Is Spinal Tap and the be-all, end-all of rock parodies, and if Detroit Metal City never quite has the same deadpan level of humor that the Rob Reiner film exploited, it’s still surprisingly sharp in its assessment of the state of the (more or less) modern recording industry, and (as one Joni Mitchell once framed it) the “star making machinery behind the popular song.” The series is rather relentlessly breathless in its presentation, something that helps smooth over narrative gaps that there’s not even a pretense of addressing. The rock lifestyle tends to promote “going with the flow,” advice that also helps ford the comically roiling waters that Detroit Metal City frequently offers.

Detroit Metal City: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Detroit Metal City is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (more or less) in 1.78:1. It's necessary to hedge that aspect ratio information, though, for as detailed above, the series exploits a panoply of framing devices where an overall 16:9 frame is variously divided. At some moments the entire 1.78:1 frame is utilized, while at others (shown in several screenshots accompanying this review) tend to exploit much narrower aspect ratios. Adding to the visual onslaught is the fact that a similarly disparate amount of actual animation styles is employed throughout the series. Some elements are more or less traditionally animated, and those offer sharp line detail and decently saturated colors. A lot of other elements, though, tend to indulge in a variety of other approaches, including quite a few sequences that tend to resemble drawings with colored pencils. These elements can tend to look slightly softer than the more traditionally animated moments. The overall appearance of the anime (if one can even generalize with something as widely variant as Detroit Metal City) is slightly soft, but often incredibly colorful. One thing is for sure—you've probably never seen anything quite like it before.

Detroit Metal City: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Detroit Metal City features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix that handles the dialogue (as well as narration and voiceover by Soichi) perfectly well. But metal heads if no one else may be wondering why a show that features so much head banging rock didn't include a surround mix, which no doubt would have upped the visceral intensity of DMC's relentlessly thump-laden music. The mix is nonetheless very well prioritized, and if the tunes don't quite have the punch they would have had in a 5.1 mix, they're still rather humorously forceful a lot of the time. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is extremely wide.

Detroit Metal City: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Clean Opening Animation (1080p; 1:32)

Detroit Metal City: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Detroit Metal City had somehow escaped my attention before this review copy arrived, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the show's completely over the top delivery, as well as its hilarious skewering of various rock stereotypes. This is definitely not a show for the faint of heart, for the language is generally pretty scabrous and the depiction of the rock lifestyle completely out of control, but the show is unexpectedly smart quite a bit of the time and is helped immeasurably by a really vivid and unusual visual presentation. Technical merits are generally very strong (even though a surround audio track could have upped the hilarity of the musical elements). Recommended.