Detroit Metal City is an anime/manga series about the life of a Souichi Negishi, a young man who makes a living as a musician. He is very successful, but not in the genre of his dreams: while he loves to play relaxing music, his job demands that he play groove/thrash metal in the titular band as "Demon King Johannes Krauser II". Most of the story revolves around Negishi trying to balance being Krauser II, his love life, and his family responsibilities, with mostly hilarious results. The shows title is presumably a reference to the KISS song, "Detroit Rock City".Not to be confused with thatMetalCity.
Defictionalization: For The Movie, several CDs were released by Detroit Metal City as well as other bands in the film. This includes DMC's "SATSUGAI" & "Maoh" (coupled with Souichi Negishi's "Amai Koibito" and "Raspberry Kiss"), and Makai Yuugi, the Kintama Girls' "Detarame Mother-con Cherryboy", MC KIVA's "From NY City", and Tetra-pot Melon Tea's "Sally my Love". And this was in addition to the film's soundtrack and another album featuring songs by bands that Negishi wanted to emulate (one of which was in the film).
Because they were released in Real Life as under the fictional Death Records label, Detroit Metal City's "SATSUGAI" and Makai Yuugi were among the top Indies releases for 2008.
Did Not Do the Research: From fans of death metal, one minor gripe would be that DMC is not a death metal band at all. Their sound is comparable to post-thrash/groove metal bands like Pantera, Sepultura, Soulfly, Machine Head and Lamb Of God (although with a darker, more onimous feel reminiscent of some modern shock rockers.)
Expy: Krauser himself is an expy of Gene Simmons from KISS, though it's likely he is also a reference to heavily image-based metal artists such as Mortiis.
DMC owe quite a lot to metal band Seikima II right down to their mythos and get-up.
Extreme Doormat: The job of the Capitalist Pig (not that he doesn't like it). Negishi to some extent as well, specially at the expense of the manager.
Fan Dumb: An in-universe example: Krauser's ENTIRE FANBASE.
Fanservice: Negishi's job is basically to be Krauser II, to please the fans. Said fans are mostly really vulgar, to Negishi's dismay.
Gratuitous English: DMC's songs are splattered with words like "rape", "kill", or "pig" without care for proper grammar.
Kafka Komedy: And you can bet your hiney he'll never be able to stop with it.
Incurable Cough of Death: Negishi thinks that one of his fan is afflicted by this, but it's subverted by showing that the boy had a simple cold, and the surgery was just a circumcision.
Lolicon: Parodied in one episode when a toddler begins singing DMC songs, and picks up a large - and perverted - fandom; much to Negishi's dismay.
Loony Fan: The entire DMC fanbase from where Negishi is standing.
Lost in Translation: Chapter 21 in the manga has Krauser starring in an indie film. At the climax, he ends up spitting into the mouth of the male co-star and ad-libs the line "You are already... Unfashionable.", a bastardization of Kenshiro'swell-knownCatch Phrase. The film's director, following suit, makes the man's head explode in post-production. Sadly, the official translators completely failed at picking up the reference, mistranslated it as "chic doesn't suit you anymore" and ruined the effect.
Made of Iron: The manager, who stubs out cigarettes on her tongue.
Memetic Badass: In-universe. A major contributing factor to the success of Krauser and co. is the way the details of their various fan-pleasing exploits (e.g., the Tokyo Tower incident) are exaggerated to divine proportions (e.g., Krauser becoming the supposed father of the Roppongi Hills) by their more rabid followers.
Nakama: Played straight with the DMC fans, and hilariously (OK, maybe not) for laughs with scatolo-metal band Deathism/Deazm.
Power Born of Madness: The only reason Negishi gets away with half of what he does. He's just so crazy that nobody can quite figure out what to do with him. That, and the legions of insane fans who do his bidding.
Sentai: Krauser ends up crashing a Sentai show in an amusement part. Most people assume it's All Part of the Show, up until the point when he starts harassing the audience.
Sex, Drugs, & Rock and Roll: Parodied. Negishi is dumped into a world that thrives on this, but it's all Played for Laughs. Negishi himself is a timid loser, a virgin, and never partakes of anything heavier than sake.
Justified in that Negishi is the lyricist, though.
Tastes Like Diabetes: Negishi's lyrics. It's even acknowledged in-universe, so there's nothing subjective about it.
The Movie: Starring Kenichi Matsuyama (Live Action L) in the lead role and Gene Simmons of KISS as Jack ill Dark, the reigning Demon God of Rock and Roll.
Those Two Guys: Technically more than two - a bunch of rabid DMC fans who go to every one of their concerts.
Too Dumb to Live: Any fans of any of the bands featured in the manga, especially DMC and Helvete's. Not to mention many of the people throughout the DMC universe...
Up to Eleven: Episode 8, where Krauser attempts to beat his own record of yelling "Rape!" ten times a second.
Weirdness Censor: Usually inverted; DMC's fans seem to have a Normalcy Censor. In one case they ignore a radio report of an incoming storm, only to later attribute the storm to the original Krauser's demonic powers.
Refuge in Audacity and the Japanese public's version of the Weirdness Censor tending to be "ignore and shun as if it does not exist" as opposed to the American version of You Can Panic Now (and the Yakuza connections of some Visual Kei labels and management) meant Visual Kei artists could, for a while, get away with some activities that would have a "normal" Japanese arrested instantly. So this is arguably Truth in Television to some degree.
Leaving concerts you are playing in without being mauled by disappointed fans? Also Truth in Television. See Guns N' Roses or X Japan for quite a few examples of this. It depends on how much the audience understands the reason and how good the band is at getting out of there fast (or canceling at first)
Visual Kei: DMC is arguably a Visual Shock Visual Kei band, taking major inspiration primarily from SEIKIMA-II, from Kiss, and to a lesser degree from other early Visual Kei.
0 reviews 