Film

Wicked City

Name: Wicked City
Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Horror
Released: 1987
Cast: Yusaku Yara, Toshiko Fujita, Ichiro Nagai, Takeshi Aono, Mari Yokoo

A 1987 anime thriller about an uneasy peace between Earth and a parallel demon dimension, collapsing. A human cop and demon cop must guard a diplomat while radical insurgents sabotage negotiations. Visually grotesque, sexually charged, and driven by paranoia—a fever dream that treats its outlandish premise with complete seriousness. For viewers who want animation that disturbs as much as it enthralls.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like your horror animation loud, lurid and strange, with a buddy-cop story stitched into grotesque body-horror set pieces and a 1980s appetite for excess.

Skip it if you want a tidy, slow-building plot; the story is thin, and its sexual and gory imagery is blunt and relentless.

What it asks of you: Eighty-two minutes, quick to cut, it lurches from sly banter to queasy horror, asking you to ride abrupt shifts in tone without much pause for breath.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Akira1988

Another landmark anime that sprawls across a collapsing city with dread and spectacle. Cyberpunk intrigue, body horror, and an ending that resets everything—you'll be talking about it for weeks.

But Harder to follow on first viewing than it appears. The pacing assumes you're paying absolute attention, and the finale divides people sharply.

Paprika2006

A detective thriller where dreams literally bleed into reality, creating gorgeously surreal set pieces. Satoshi Kon built something that feels like Wicked City's fever logic taken even further, with more wonder and less dread.

But It's deliberately disorienting in the second half—some find it exhilarating, others just lost. The plot moves faster than it explains itself.

Perfect Blue1998

Satoshi Kon's psychological horror about a J-pop idol losing her grip on reality. Paranoid, sexually charged, visually inventive—it shares Wicked City's commitment to making you uncomfortable in service of genuine tension.

But The sexual violence depicted is real and not titillating. It's meant to unsettle, and it will.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Wicked City

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Belladonna of Sadness1973

Both are Japanese animations that treat sexual horror and supernatural conspiracy with deadpan seriousness, as though the grotesque and the erotic are natural partners in storytelling.

A psychedelic, sexually explicit medieval horror anime—hand-drawn fluid animation and colour experiments that shouldn't work but devastate. It shows you what anime was willing to attempt in the 1970s before Wicked City even existed.

But The animation style is overwhelming and the sexual violence is central to the narrative in ways that feel deliberately difficult. It's about 80 minutes of visual assault and sorrow.

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust2001

A gothic action-horror anime with the same interspecies-cop-partners dynamic, but grander and more melancholy. Gorgeous animation, world-weary charm, and combat that actually matters.

But Slower burn than Wicked City. If you want constant momentum, you'll find stretches that feel like setup without payoff.

Devilman Crybaby2018

A modern Netflix anime about a human-demon hybrid at the end of the world. Graphic, anguished, and visually wild—it has Wicked City's willingness to be grotesque in service of actual emotion.

But Extremely violent and sexual. Not exploitative, but relentless. The ending is grim enough to stick with you unpleasantly.

Ninja Scroll1993

A kinetic adventure anime with supernatural enemies and a morally grey hero. It has Wicked City's mixture of action spectacle and body horror, but leans toward adventure and movement.

But The plotting is pretty straightforward—set piece after set piece. If you want narrative complexity, you're watching for the craft, not the story.

Ghost in the Shell1995

A philosophical action-thriller about identity, consciousness, and government conspiracy in a cyberpunk world. Visually stunning and genuinely strange, with more intellectualism than Wicked City but similar paranoia.

But The ending is deliberately ambiguous and existential. You might feel like you didn't quite reach solid ground, and that's by design.

The Wailing2016

Both build their entire power from the impossibility of trusting anyone—human or demon, cop or conspirator. In each, the closer you look, the more distant the truth becomes.

A Korean horror-mystery where a village is struck by a plague and nothing—not the police, not the priest, not faith itself—can explain or stop it. Paranoid, dense, and genuinely terrifying because the threat might be everywhere and nowhere.

But 163 minutes of mounting dread with no real answers. Some viewers find it brilliant, others feel like they've been chasing smoke. It doesn't close doors, it opens more.

Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer1984

Both feature interspecies partnerships navigating a conspiracy where the rules of the world keep bending, and both were made by artists more interested in the feeling of dread or confusion than in making sense.

A surreal anime comedy-horror where a alien-human romance tangles with a reality-bending conspiracy. It's anarchic where Wicked City is paranoid, but equally committed to making you unsure what's real and whether logic even applies.

But It's absurdist and loose—if you need plot to hold together or jokes to land cleanly, the constant tonal shifts will feel incoherent rather than inventive.