Just how far can the imagination of Japanese manga artists go? After a notebook that kills whoever’s name appear in it (the Death Note series) and a ‘friend’ who uses terrorism to rule the world and relive his childhood memories (20th Century Boys), we now get a schizophrenic torn apart by his extreme music talents. Based on the eponymous manga by Kiminori Wakasugi, Detroit Metal City has sold more than two million copies and the film adaptation starring Kenichi Matsuyama (L in Death Note) is a love song to the Japanese obsession with Western music and the dream born out of it.

The clumsy, pure-hearted and naïve 23-year-old Souichi leaves his home in countryside Japan and heads to Tokyo with a dream: to become the next Cornelius and live a ‘fashionable’ life, sipping cappuccinos in art-deco cafés and watering his cactus every morning before he goes to work. He manages to find a group of friends at college that share his love for French and Swedish pop, but things go completely off track after college. As Johannes Krauser II and a cult underground figure, Souichi becomes the vocalist of death metal trio Detroit Metal City (DMC). From chanting poppy love songs with names like Raspberry Kiss as Souichi to growling lyrics like ‘rape your mother today and kill your father tomorrow’ as Krauser II, Souichi’s double life pushes him to the edge when he re-encounters his college sweetheart Yuri, who hates metal music. At the same time American metal legend Jack II Dark is embarking on a last world tour before his retirement and challenges DMC to determine who is the ‘emperor’ of death metal.

The idea of contrasting tweedy pop and death metal guarantees countless gags throughout the 104-minute film. Matsuyama’s twisted performance fluctuating between the ‘mushroom hairstyle’, innocent smile and clumsy (somewhat sissy) gestures as Souichi and the evil, foul-mouthed Krauser II makes the film almost a one-man show and had the audience constantly laughing and applauding throughout the screening I attended. But Detroit Metal City may be the cruellest film about life with its cutie-pop heartthrob trapped inside the armour of the god of death. Doesn’t it sound like most people’s lives? An accountant who’d rather draw comics, or a waitress whose real ambition is to be the next Madonna? “Why did all that happen?” Souichi asks under his heavy make up, a question that could be shared by most of the audience. The film is supposed to be about chasing one’s dream but ultimately it is more about compromising. Souichi gives up his dream after sadly finding that what he wants to do (be a pop singer) may not be what he is good at (a death metal vocalist) and decides to keep the show rolling by living the dream his fans and manager wish him to. This is certainly not the kind of ‘dream comes true’ he is looking for, but it is the best he can get. And the only dream that comes true in this film is marked by the cameo appearance of Gene Simmons, bassist of Kiss, playing Jack II Dark.

The author of the manga – who named the comic after the Kiss song – will be rejoicing in the success of his dream by now.

Rachel Mok