Thursday, March 19, 2009

In short: Digital Devil Monogatari Megami Tensei (1987)

When Japanese high school girl Yumiko is transferred to a new school, she soon finds it to be a rather strange place. One of her classmates Akemi, has a rather weird influence on the other students and even some of the teachers. Even stranger for Yumiko is the feeling of knowing Akemi from somewhere, although they can't have met before.

When she stumbles into the computer room of the school at night, Yumiko learns the secret of the school. Akemi uses the school computer's processing power to summon a demon called Loki for the promise of enough power to never again be the battered nerd he was before he contacted the demon. Loki doesn't demand much for his help, really - just a nice female teacher brain for some innocent head sex from time to time, nothing that could hurt anyone, since the school's computers don't have enough processing power to help Loki into a true physical manifestation anyway. At least that's what the demon says.

Well, wouldn't you know? Demons lie. Things would look rather bad for mankind's future, if not for the fact that Yumiko is a reincarnation of the goddess Izanami and there's just a little underworld traveling necessary to put things right again.

Based on a Japanese novel that spawned the sprawling series of (Shin) Megami Tensei videogames and their spin-offs, this OVA is a small disappointment. The movie has some neat, outdated-in-a-fun-way, basic ideas, but not enough spine to carry them through. The juxtaposition of demons, modern (in 1987) technology and traditional myths should be extremely entertaining, yet a total lack of enthusiasm for its possibilities lets the film fall flat nearly completely. There's a palpable hesitation to commit to anything of interest that really bugs me here - the movie is nearly sleazy, yet doesn't dare to do the last step; nearly weird, yet just too disinterested in being weird to get going; a little gory, yet never so much anyone could think it committed to being gory; and so on and so on. It's quite a shame, as is the lack of creativity shown in the demon layouts. Loki looks like a He-Man figure Mattel decided not to produce for its inherent boringness, therefore about as unexciting as possible.

Well, at least it's short.

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