*This blog post was started on October 22, 2021.
An exciting weekend has lead into a stressful work week.
Of
course when the manager gets exposed to COVID 19, vaccinated or not,
everything goes wrong. A fraudulent check ring has emerged. There is a
new person to train. I actually had to figure out how to place holds on
check without ever being trained how to. We are frankly all impressed
that everything seems hunky dory.
It
is fair to complain about the lack of expertise and managerial
structure, but for us to come out on the other side in some degree of
working order, the team is solid. We may lose the neighbor next to my
station, but we know how I feel about them. There is optimism all
around, especially when the comic con they went to was in Indianapolis
and not Rosemont.
Optimism
is a good thing coming off of a fun weekend. I remember placing the
staff at OSF's Partial Hospitalization Psych ward on alert when I would
return from an AAW weekend. Fun was had when I was in Berwyn. Upon
returning to Morton, my mind was in the state that it shall not get
better than that.
And,
has it? Well, I can say things outside of Captain N cosplay have been
better. Today's difficulty will be getting nourishment. There is no
reason to complain because I have a podcast recording scheduled. With
Fite TV allowing me to watch AEW Rampage anytime I would like, this
should not be a problem. The trouble arises because I did not have to go
into work today until noon.
Do
you think I took an extra hour of preparation to have a meal before a shift without lunch? How much time will I have to eat
before the recording when I need to make an alcohol run? On top of all this, I
need to open the bank tomorrow. Will I survive the drive to Peoria for
the Rivermen's opening weekend?
I
guess there being so many questions leaves me with a bit of excitement?
Life is not mundane for the moment, and perhaps that is what keeps me
going. The moment I know things are going to get dull, I am fucked.
With that said, I am back at the retailer starting November 6.
Until
that day, I have the upbeat attitude for a bunch of double features.
The podcast I am recording this week with Kodiak Thompson will be about "Event Horizon".
To get myself more material, the "Hellraiser" franchise seemed to run
parallel to Paul W.S. Anderson's classic from 1997. Shudder allowed me
to watch the first two for free.
October 26's episode of "NinetyForChill.com - The #Podcast"
has the padding with those two features, but I was still in the mood
for "the sights" Pinhead suggested showing me. Signing up for a free
trial to AMC+ to see the other eight features in his franchise seemed
like a hassle, so I turned to Tubi for Barker-like material. This lead
me to revisiting "Wicked City", a feature I did not particularly care
for back when I saw it on Starz a decade prior.
I
guess giving this feature a second chance comes from my time buying
anime on VHS. Renting was rarely an option, so if you dropped $25-30
on a tape, you got to justify the purchase. In other words,
desensitizing one self allows for enjoyment of even the most blatant
softcore porn that distracts from the narrative. With Yoshiaki Kawajiri
film (TV movies in many cases), this is a common practice.
Wicked City (1987)
Taki
Renzaburo is a member of the "Black Guard". He serves the interest of
all humanity because there is a demon world that exists and needs to be
monitored. For millennia there have been peace treaties between the
world, but since demons have monstrous powers, a minority of them are
not so keen on the idea of live and let live. The Black Guard keeps
those radicals in check.
It
is time to negotiate another treaty, so both sides are on edge to make
sure no one sabotages the proceedings. The most important representative
for humanity is the 200+ year old Giuseppe Myart, so the radicals will
obviously target him with nearly all the assets at their disposal. With
this increased pressure, Taki has been assigned a partner for this guard
duty. She is Makie, a Black Guard who not only uses a modeling
profession to cover for her real job, but to cover that she is from the Black
World.
Myart
is obsessed with pointing out Makie's beauty and sexuality to Taki. It
may be a challenge for Taki to avoid getting his feeling and
passion involved with this mission. Can he keep a clear head to secure
the safety of the human race? When Myart is determined to run from his
security detail to indulge in the seedier side of Tokyo, there maybe too
many variable to succeed.
If
your first exposure to a film of Yoshiaki Kawajiri is not an edited for
basic cable version, it will be difficult to get past how sexually
explicit his features can be. Thanks Syfy for making "Demon City Shinjuku"
and "Vampire Hunter D" so accessible. I think they may have shown
"Wicked City" a few times on the Saturday morning anime time slot, but I
never caught it in that form. Which is probably a good thing because I would
imagine the screen would be blurrier than a Barbara Walters's interview.
Needless
to say, when I first saw this feature (and when I had rented "Ninja
Scroll" from Morton's Movies America) the explicit nature was a turn
off. If I wanted hentai, I know where to find that. This took me away from
the narrative and just left me being judgmental about the excuses to
warrant the director's decision. With this viewing, knowing what to
expect allowed me to look past most of this and find an easily
accessible narrative.
This
feature comes across as knock off fan fiction. "Wicked City" is just
pure pulp. Knowing this, Kawajiri plays it up very well. It has the feel
of a manga and the action sequences thrive with a minimalist approach.
Like Dario Argento's "Suspiria", the color choices make everything pop
out at you. Regardless of how you feel about making every moment of this
fairy tale revolve around sex, you cannot help but appreciate the art.
As
for the dependence on objectifying our heroine, it is far too great.
There are some clever scenes with other female beings where you can
appreciate the implication of something nonsexual being totally sexual,
but these antagonists are not spending 15 minutes being raped. This
makes the feature come off as a grindhouse era revenge feature, but only
a man can provide it to the victim. Perhaps, this is a cultural issue. I
would need to look up the Japanese box office for 1978's "I Spit on
Your Grave" to see if that is the case.
The
only other way to interpret the story is to think of it as some pervert
writing fan fiction where it is about the man showing his dominance
while displaying the woman's frailty. You can easily see this as what
the Proud Boys (and a lot of downstate men) would have wanted "Rise of
Skywalker" to be. It is all about the misunderstood Kylo rescuing an
abused Rey. If I was not looking for something with demons it it, I
would not have had a reason to give this another chance.
"Wicked
City" has moments of looking beautiful, but the immediate need for the
story to make that beauty its bitch makes it too insulting to recommend.
I will say the other Kawajiri works I have seen get away from being
insulting, but the sexualization of elements is something that still gets in the way of
appreciating his art. There is a way to tell its story without being so
sexualized, and you watch this wishing for that feature.
This
time around, "Wicked City's" narrative got old fast. Even if you love
the character design and direction, his repetitive nature of wanting to
let us know it is hot results in near immediate burn out. A feature
should not leave the male audience wondering if they need Blue Chew to
get into it.
The Behemoth Post Evangelion 3.0 Pixiv Prime: CrunchyRoll
safebooru.org