YMMV / Wicked City

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Just what events of the film are part of Mayart's plan? Given how miraculously he later escaped from Shadow's clutches, was he just pretending to be trapped by the blob girl to move Taki and Makie to act? Also, given how Makie's energy didn't revive him, was he still just pretending to be drained? Did the parasite catch him off guard? The American and Spanish dub seem to lean towards that Mayart was more in control than we believe, given that he is profiled as a "prophet" at the beginning of the movie, implying he can see into the future and was planning things in accord (in the original, the word used is merely "psychic", without any prescient connotation), but it is still unclear.
• Angst? What Angst?: Makie gets gang raped after being horribly defeated by a demon no less. A moment after she is rescued, she is back to quipping with Taki and shows no signs of distress.
• Ass Pull: The revelation that Mayart is suddenly a competent, uber-powerful fighter that was only pretending to be The Load comes basically to zero lampshading, and can feel a bit out of synch with the rest of the film, especially as a Rewatch Bonus. For instance, he doesn't fight back the blob girl in all the time she takes to absorb him, when nothing implies he couldn't have simply blasted her away like he does to the much more powerful Mr. Shadow, and later the resultant drain and parasite seem to have genuinely left him half dead. While this isn't necessarily incompatible with his true nature, the twist still strikes as odd.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: The film showing a lot of titillation and sexual-themed horror (which can be also titillating for the right crowd) is probably its most known aspect - and it is an entirely deliberate one given Kikuchi's and Kawajiri's usual appeals.
• Complete Monster: Mr. Shadow is the leader of the Black World terrorists. Launching a series of terrorist attacks to prevent the peace treaty between Black World and human world from going into effect and killing the signatory Giuseppe Mayart, Mr. Shadow even bombs a huge plane, with all lives on board being lost. When the Black World heroine protecting Mayart, his ex-lover Makie, is captured, Mr. Shadow proceeds to have her gang-raped and broadcasts it to the humans as a cold reminder of what happens to "traitors", before he intends to execute her personally. Finally, he attempts to have Makie and her human partner Taki killed, solely to spark off a war where he can see humanity subjugated to their "rightful" place.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Part of the film's plot involves Taki and Makie getting together and having a half-human/half-demon child together, thus uniting the two worlds for good. Several years later, Studio Madhouse would produce another anime series based around another half-demon/half-human hybrid.
• Iron Woobie: Makie. Despite all the crap she goes through, which would very understandably break anyone else ... she keeps going on. It may be due in part to Blue-and-Orange Morality, given that the inhabitants of the Black World are all Eldritch Abominations, and pretty sexually aggressive ones at that.
• Never Live It Down: The movie has a reputation of being a mysoginist horror show related to its female lead and all the multiple, varied ways she is molested and brutalized before being rescued like a Damsel in Distress by the square-jawed male hero. Now, while her tortuous treatment is technically true, most of those reviews tend to overlook and/or ignore that Makie is also the most effective of the heroes: she enters the movie saving Taki, manages to restrain Jin by herself before the former's intervention, kills both the blob woman and the tentacle demon while giving her partners time to flee, and ultimately solves the last battle herself for Taki and Mayart. All in all, even although she has to be rescued once from Mr. Shadow's mooks, it is her who is constantly saving her male co-leads rather than vice versa. This was actually commented by director Kawajiri, who is fond of strong, female characters and considers them his favorite archetype.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • The demons can easily take human forms. You will NOT know who is who until the non-humans revert to their real forms.
  • Do you like boobs? Just remember, the next time you're touching any, they may be of a demon woman who will turn into putty to absorb you through her tits.
• Rewatch Bonus: Watching the film while knowing Mayart's plan offers a lot of hints about it, not only about Mayart, but also the rest of Black Guards, especially given how damn unsubtle they are.
• The Scrappy: Giuseppe. Even although it's all part of an act to run a Secret Test of Character, his entire "character" is so annoying that not all the viewers agree he gets Rescued from the Scrappy Heap when he proves to be a good guy and a badass in his own right at the end of the film.
• Squick: Too many things, but the snake-worm-parasite-demon-thing which rapes Makie orally with its tongue prevails over most of them.
• Stoic Woobie: Renzaburou evolves into this, specially at the end when he thinks about himself and Makie's situation, and decides to still live on for their shared sake.
• What the Hell, Costuming Department?: The fact that Giuseppe wears a janitor tracksuit for the entire film is never explained or addressed, but it is enough to wonder what in the heaven was the character design team thinking on.

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