Megami Tensei

The first Megami Tensei anime is a 45 minute OVA based on the original novel. As it begins, a young boy named Akemi Nakajima is having dreams of Izanagi and Izanami, the gods from the Japanese creation myth, roughly the equivalent to Adam and Eve in Christian culture. He awakes and heads to school, where he meets Yuriko Shirasagi, who seems to be interested in him. What neither of them knows is that they are reincarnations of Izanagi and Izanami, which is important later.

Anyway, Nakajima is kind of an asshole, and he's using his mad computer genius skills to summon demons and watching their king, Loki, have virtual reality simulated sex with his school teacher (!!?). Nakajima thinks this is all pretty harmless, except when he ends up making a deal with Loki that brings him out of the digital realm and into the human world. The next ten minutes or so is filled with red blobs oozing out of every computer monitor across Japan, engulfing anything it finds and squishing it to death, with huge, geysers of blood that are almost more comical than gruesome.

Nakajima realizes he's screwed up, especially when Yuriko falls victim to the demons. He summons Cerebus to his side and meets his destiny as the reincarnateded god, and fights off Loki, who's grown to gigantic sizes. At the end, Yuriko is resurrected and apparently Nakajima is forgiven for all of the unnecessary carnage he's caused.

This was made in the 80s, and it shows, both in the character designs and the cheesy dissonant synth score. The whole thing is incredibly dark, to the point where it's hard to make out the details is many of the scenes. Since this is essentially a horror anime, there's a whole lot of unnecessary blood shed, and lots of shots of people screaming in terror. The concept, as cheesy as it is in that Stephen King kind of way, is amusing, but it's poorly paced and ultimately pretty boring, especially the only main character is such an unsympathetic jerk. It's cool to see where the Megami Tensei mythos started, especially if you don't feel like reading the books, but it's generally pretty bad. You can find it fansubbed in English thanks to Shinsen Subs.

The second Megami Tensei anime is a sixty minute OVA based off the four volume manga series of the same name. Although it's not related to any of the games, there are several similarities to the original Digital Devil Story plot, to the point where one could consider it a retooled, expanded remake. It was translated by Manga Entertainment and released in American under the name Tokyo Revelation.

The main bad guy here is Akito, a goth punk loser who likes to summon demons from his computer and uses it to cause terror. Akito is enrolling at a new school, where he meets a childhood friend named Kojiro, the veritable good guy. As it turns out, Akito has something of a man crush on Kojiro, but Kojiro doesn't exactly swing that way, as he prefers the attention of his girlfriend Saki. Akito, not taking this rejection well, decides to summon demons into the world to cause hell, which is accomplished by holding lesbian orgies in the middle of a room filled with computers. (Speaking of which, there's also a pink haired lolita who has a teddy bear and later gets naked for reasons that don't really make sense other than to justify selling this video.) Anyway, the demons get out of Akito's control and start causing general mayhem, as can be expected.

Anyway, a few of their classmates are also ninjas, and they've been sent to spy on Akito, thinking he's up to no good. Although they try to fend off his attacks, Saki is eventually kidnapped and sacrificed to raise the greatest of demon gods. In the meantime, Kojiro has been sucked into the computer world by the demons and needs to save his brother from a horrible fate. Once escaping, he joins up with Cerebus, goes Super Saiyan, and defeats the gigantic beast who's crushing Tokyo.

It's easy to point out the recurring elements, including the ones featured in the games (like the hero teaming up with Cerebus), and there are a few other tie-in elements, such as the mention of Magnetite being a vital life force (Saki is apparently filled with it, hence her sacrifice) and you can see the Shin Megami Tensei seal in one of the demon summoning ceremonies.

It's definitely better than the original Megami Tensei anime, if only because the hero isn't such a loser this time around, and the visuals are about par for most mid-90s productions. It's still not particularly recommended though.