Review of Detroit Metal City

Detroit Metal City is a black comedy anime focused on Souichi Negishi, a young man who unwillingly serves as the lead guitarist and frontman of the popular titular death metal band under the guise of Johannes Krauser II, a supposed demonic terrorist from hell who raped and murdered his parents. Negishi despises his involvement with the band and desires to be a successful pop musician. But he finds his direction with this career going nowhere and he uses the anger and frustration from this and other low points of his personal life to vent as Krauser during the band’s musical performances. Detroit Metal City is largelya one-trick pony type of comedy that you will love or hate depending on how well you enjoy its crass comedy and misanthropic premise. The content won’t be for everyone as there is enough mention of rape, scenes of violence, unwanted sexual advances, and plenty of profanity uttered throughout this series. The series is set up into 12 two-segment episodes at a combined 14-minute length that largely follow the same gag where Negishi’s optimism in believing in the best of everyone blows up in his face and he uses his alter-ego as Krauser to vent his rage in some crass, over-the-top manner either in public or during any event involving the band.

I suppose as far as my perceptions go for Detroit Metal City, there is some surprising insight it dabbles into outside its crass humor. The series isn’t afraid to show how cynical life can be for people just graduating from college, with Negishi stuck in a successful profession he wants nothing to do with, struggling in his more ideal direction for being a musician, his efforts at optimism blowing up in his face, and using his alter-ego as Krauser to vent his frustrations while on the job and only making Detroit Metal City even more successful. It also has fun ripping into elements of musical subcultures as outside of shock rock, the series rips into pop, rap, and punk rock at points in the series; which is noticeable if you follow the posturing and how inane the lyrics of songs from musicians in these genres are throughout the series. At its best, Detroit Metal City has excellent comedic timing in showing off how cruel the world can be for Negishi and the crass ways he vents at his misfortunes while in the guise of Krauser.

Praises aside, Detroit Metal City isn’t without its imperfections. With Negishi’s misery and his crass ventings as Krauser largely being the main attraction to the series, the series does occasionally stumble in some of the segments it offers up. Some segments devolve into milking humor off bodily fluids or Negishi’s love interest, Yuri, falling victim to Negishi usually letting his act as Krauser get the better of him during outings with the pair, the latter crossing close into misogyny as Yuri, dumbfoundingly, still sticks with Negishi in spite of his blunders as Krauser. Plus outside of Negishi, there isn’t much else to get enjoyment out of with the series as all the other characters follow simple character types meant to reflect the cynical and inane world view that is depicted within Detroit Metal City.

Overall, Detroit Metal City’s crass humor has great timing in its high points and is surprisingly believable at depicting how cruel life can be for college graduates in the working world. However as mentioned, its humor is largely a one-trick pony relishing off Negishi’s misery and his crass antics as Krauser. If you can’t get any enjoyment out of this, you will more than likely not get as much enjoyment out of the humor offered with the series.