is a Japanese erotic horror manga series written and illustrated by Toshio Maeda.
First serialized in Manga Erotopia from 1985 to 1986, Urotsukidōji marked a departure from Maeda's earlier works, with its focus on erotica, dark humor, and the supernatural. Starting in 1987, the manga was adapted into a series of original video animation (OVA) anime releases by director Hideki Takayama. The adaptations deviate significantly from the manga, adding elements of violence, sadomasochism, and rape not present in the source material.
Urotsukidōji has been credited with popularizing the trope of tentacle rape, and The Erotic Anime Movie Guide calls it a formative work in the hentai genre. In 2005, it was voted as one of the 100 greatest cartoons in a poll by Channel 4.
The animation team who worked on the series would later become best known for their work on Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Synopsis
Manga
Amano Jyaku, a mischievous, sociopathic demon/human hybrid, is banished to Earth and ordered by The Great Elder to find the Chōjin: the unbeatable god of the demon world who is hiding within the body of a man. He eventually turns on the Chojin in the fifth installment, after the Chojin reveals his true plans to exterminate the humans, demons and man-beasts.
A group of reptilian/amphibian/insectoid demons want to find the Chōjin and use his power on behalf of the Queen of Demons. Under the leadership of Suikakuju, the Elder's rival and lover of his estranged wife, the Queen of Demons, they hatch a series of plots to try to capture the Chōjin, most of which go horribly wrong.
Amano is sent to protect the Chōjin, but after his lecherous friend Koroko and then later his nymphomaniac sister Megumi come to find him, this proves to be more difficult.
Anime
Every 3,000 years the is united with the and the by the revival of the Overgod (超神, Chōjin, known as the Overfiend in the English version). The saga follows Jyaku Amano—a man-beast—and his quest to find the Chōjin and to ensure the safe future of all three worlds. However, he finds his beliefs put to the test when he encounters numerous demons, who plan to destroy the Chōjin and prevent the three worlds from joining.
Characters
As the Urotsukidōji saga spans over a number of years it incorporates a wide variety of characters. Below is a list of the main characters, which are split into their races:
Ningen ("Humans")
; : The human through which the Chōjin would be reborn. He is shy and lecherous. Fated to mutate into the Demon of Destruction who decimates the world to pave the way for the birth of his "messianic" offspring.
; :In the anime, she is presented as a young, innocent, naive girl, and the idol at Myōjin University. In the manga, she is sometimes shown as more sexually adventurous. She becomes Nagumo's girlfriend, and the mother of the Chōjin.
; : An anime-only character; Nagumo's cousin, whom Münchhausen II uses to resurrect the Kyō-Ō. He commits a series of rapes and murders under the control of the German diabolist, who contorts his mind against those he loves. He falls for Megumi Amano, only to be killed by her in the battle against Münchhausen II atop the Shinjuku skyscrapers.
; : A school nerd who loves Akemi and jealously hates Nagumo. He is later used by Suikakujū as a vessel to destroy the Chōjin, with the aid of a demonic phallus which he promptly substitutes for his own. He meets his end at the hands of Nagumo, who tears out his organs.
; :The jock all the girls fall for in Myōjin University. He is a major character in the manga, though is only seen in the first volume of the OVA series. Jyaku mistakes him for the Chōjin, which ultimately leads to his demise.
; : A character who only appears in the manga, he is Niki's bodyguard and childhood friend. Although he appears to be morbidly obese, he is very strong and attacks anyone who bullies Niki. He later befriends Nagumo and Akemi after Niki ditches him.
Jūjin ("Beast-men")
; :The male protagonist of the saga, he has been searching for the Chōjin for three hundred years. He holds to his belief in the Chōjin and his Land of Eternity, until events play out in a way totally contrary to what he hoped for.
; : Jyaku's nymphomaniac sister, she believes Tatsuo to be the Chōjin from the start. In the manga, her character is noticeably more malicious and antagonistic, where she tricks men into having sex with her only so she can either accuse them of rape and frame them for it, or eat them alive in her true monster form (which isn't in the anime) and develops a petty grudge towards Akemi all because Nagumo chose her over Megumi, even going as far as to summon the demon king of the sea to try and kill Akemi (albeit, unsuccessfully) while they are at the beach. Although sharing the same hair cut and love for sex, her personality in the anime has been changed where she is much more kind-hearted and empathetic, with none of her sociopathic traits from the manga being present and also given much more screentime compared to her role in the manga, where she only appears in two chapters. She also falls in love with Nagumo's cousin, Takeaki, in the anime.
; : An anime-only character. One of the wisest elders in the Man-Beast realm. In the anime, he helps Jyaku discover the truth behind the legend of the Chōjin. According to his own words in the second episode of the first OVA, The Great Elder has lived in the Man-Beast world for 993 years.
; : The Elder's granddaughter and lover of Jyaku Amano. Her orgasm has the power to project visions of the future.
Majin ("Demons")
; : Jyaku Amano's rival, and the Demon Queen's champion. His quest is to destroy the Chōjin in order to keep Makai (the "Demon World") intact.
; : A demon who was banished to Hell for having an affair with Megumi a century ago, he later becomes Münchhausen II's lackey. He is mortally wounded in battle with Amano and dies after rescuing Megumi. He is not featured in the manga.
; : In the manga, Ms. Togami is a nymphomaniac teacher who gets possessed by an iguana-like demon. The demon then tries to seduce Akemi, until Jyaku manages to drive the iguana-like demon out. He later tricks her into having sex, so that his magical sperm can protect her from the lizardlike demons. In the anime it is not explained whether or not she is possessed or a demon in disguise; a demon sent to Earth to hunt (and presumably destroy) the Chōjin. Despite her mission, she still finds time to rape Akemi, but Amano Jyaku intervenes and destroys her.
; Yoenki: An anime-only character. The sister of Suikakujū, she survives the merging of the three worlds, but is manipulated by Münchhausen II into believing that Amano Jyaku is responsible for her brother's death.
; Goki, Yoki, and Sekki: Three demons searching for the Chōjin, who are later killed by Tatsuo. They appear only in the manga.
Makemono ("Demon-Beasts") (anime only)
; Buju: A key character in the post-apocalyptic chapters of the saga. Starts off as a raping, pillaging marauder, only to find some semblance of purpose and redemption in becoming the Kyō-Ō's guardian on his long journey toward Osaka to confront the Chōjin.
; Gashim: A kindhearted, elderly who accompanies Buju, Himi, Jyaku et al. to Osaka, following his release from Caesar's captivity.
; Ruddle: Another spared from the devastating effects of Kyō-Ō's Light of Judgment at Caesar's palace. Joins Jyaku and the other in their journey toward Osaka.
; Idaten: A pure-hearted youth who takes the high road to Osaka with his fellows. He develops an unrequited crush on Himi. He is killed by Münchhausen II while attempting to defend Himi.
Other characters
; : A member of the Kuroko, a tribe of diminutive gray humanoids capable of flight. He holds deep respect for his boss, Amano Jyaku.
; : An anime-only character. He is a sorcerer following the footsteps of his father, a member of the Vril Society who died in the service of Adolf Hitler, hell-bent on resurrecting the Kyō-Ō and dominating the world. He carries an orb which grants him the ability to control demons and counter Amano Jyaku's attacks. He initially tries to bend Takeaki to his will, but is defeated after Amano Jyaku mutilates him, forcing him to replace his lost body parts with mechanical prosthetics. He later adopts the pseudonym Faust and becomes an ally of Caesar. After Caesar is defeated, Münchhausen II finds Yoenki and uses her power to restore his body. He is finally killed by Himi when she unleashes her power.
; Caesar: An anime-only character; a former businessman and leader of a hedonistic cult, he discovers the legend of the Chōjin and attempts to summon it prematurely, resulting in the death of his daughter Alector. He vows revenge and turns himself into a cyborg. After Nagumo destroys the three worlds, Caesar allies himself with Münchhausen II and becomes a dictator leading a mixed army of humans and Makai, using Makemono as slave labor. He attempts to summon the Kyō-Ō, but is sidetracked by Buju kidnapping his daughter, now resurrected as an android. He ultimately sees the error of his ways and leaves Earth with Alector on a space shuttle.
; : An anime-only character. A supernatural being created by the Chōjin as part of a new race to both replace and exterminate the humans, Man-Beasts and demons. It has the ability to change its own gender whenever it wants, and it can also create other living beings and control the minds of other living beings into doing what it pleases. It appears in Urotsukidōji: The Final Chapter.
; : The God of Demons. His legend reveals that every three thousand years he will be reborn into the human realm. In the anime it is to unite the different worlds into a world of peace.
; : A deity worshipped by the Kuroko tribe, it is foretold to be the only being capable of defeating the Chōjin. Münchhausen II and Caesar both want to resurrect the Kyō-Ō and use it to take over the three worlds. The Kyō-Ō is conceived from the congealed blood of Takeaki at the Gokumon shrine, and comes to life as the baby girl Himi twenty years later after Buju rapes Alector in the shrine's vicinity. She accompanies Buju and the other Makemono on their journey to Osaka, during which she kills Münchhausen II and eventually defeats the false Chōjin.
; : The demon that Suikakujū summons from the sea to kill the Chōjin. In the anime, Suikakujūs summoning of the Sea Demon King in 1923 results in the Great Kantō earthquake.
; Faburil: An anime-only character. An avian demon created by Caesar and Münchhausen II to merge with the Kyō-Ō and serve them.
Anime cast
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Character Role !! Original Japanese version !! English Dubbed version
|-
| Jyaku Amano
| Tomohiro Nishimura || Christopher Courage (I–II)<br>Daniel Flynn (Return of the Overfiend)<br>Mark Blackburn (Inferno Road)<br>Michael Sinterniklaas (New Saga)
|-
| Kuroko
| Tsutomu Kashiwakura || Sonny Weil<br>B.G. Good (New Saga)
|-
| Tatsuo Nagumo
| Hirotaka Suzuoki || Bill Timoney<br>Jake Eisbart (New Saga)
|-
| Norikazu Ozaki
| Kenyuu Horiuchi || Bick Balse<br>Dan Green (New Saga)
|-
| Takeaki Kiryū
| Yasunori Matsumoto || Jake La Can
|-
| Akemi Ito
| Youko Asagami || Rebel Joy<br>Rebecca Handler (New Saga)
|-
| Megumi Amano
| Maya Okamoto<br>Yumi Takada || Lucy Morales
|-
| Suikakujyu
| Norio Wakamoto || Jurgen Offen
|-
| Yuichi Niki
| Kouichi Yamadera || Bill Timoney
|-
| Münchhausen II/Faust
| Demon Kogure<br>Ken Yamaguchi || Bick Balse
|-
| Great Elder
| Daisuke Gori || Greg Puertolas
|-
| Alector
| Yumi Takada ||
|-
| Buju
| Yasunori Matsumoto ||
|-
| Gashim
| Yoshio Kawai ||
|-
| Idaten
| Tsutomu Kashiwakura ||
|-
| Caesar
| Ryuzaburo Otomo ||
|-
| D9
| Ken Yamaguchi ||
|-
|}
Media
Manga
Urotsukidōji was first serialized in four special editions of the erotic manga magazine Manga Erotopia from 25 July 1985 to 24 July 1986. It was later released into six tankōbon volumes from 1 December 1986 to 1 April 1987. It was later released into six volumes from 1 September 2002 to 15 October 2003.
On 12 December 2014 English-language hentai publisher Fakku announced plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign to publish a remastered edition of the manga, which would include color pages and chapters omitted from the previous English versions. The campaign was launched on 20 June 2016. The campaign met its goal, and the first of four volumes was released on 8 December 2016.
Anime
There are four main arcs in the original Urotsukidōji saga, along with an unfinished fifth arc that has so far only been released in Japan and Germany, as well as a complete remake of the first chapter.
Series overview
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:95%;"
|-
! rowspan="3| Role
!
!
!
!
!
!
|-
! Legend Overfiend
! Legend Demon Womb
! Return Overfiend
! Inferno Road
! The Final Chapter
! rowspan="2"|New Saga
|-
!
!
!
!
!
|-
! Director
| colspan="4"| Hideki Takayama
| Shigenori Kageyama
| Hidetoshi Omori
|-
! Producer
| colspan="4"| Yasuhito Yamaki
| Eiichi Yamamoto
| Yasuhito Yamaki
|-
! Series composition
| colspan="3"| Shō Aikawa
| colspan="2"| Nobuaki Kishima
| Kensei Date
|-
! Editor
| colspan="3"| Shigeru Nishiyama
| Masaaki Hanai
| Mari Kishi
| Shigeru Nishiyama
|-
! Character designer
| Eitaro Higashino
| Akihiko Yamashita
| Keiji Gotoh
| Keiichi Satō
| Aki Tsunaki
| Hidetoshi Omori
|-
! Chief animation director
| Hidetoshi Omori
| Shirō Kasami
| Rikizō Sekimae
| Aki Tsunaki
| Yasuhiro Saiki
| Miyako Mizuno
|-
! Art director
| Shigemi Ikeda
| Hitoshi Nagao
| Ken'ichi Harada<hr>Yūsuke Takeda
| Hiroshi Kato
| Kazushige Tōno
| Akira Itō
|-
! rowspan="2"| Production companies
| colspan="2"| Japan Audiovisual Network
| colspan="3"| West Cape Corporation
| Digital Works
|-
| colspan="4"| Mu Animation Studio
| Studio
| Phoenix Entertainment
|-
|}
Legend of the Overfiend (1987–1989)
- (21 January 1987) Penthouse: Volume 3
- (21 March 1988) Penthouse: Volume 44
- (10 April 1989) Penthouse: Volume 58
The first series was released as part of an anthology video series distributed by JAVN (Japan Audio Visual Network). The anthology series was part of the international Penthouse Magazine brand and featured international and domestic pornographic movies (such as The Devil in Miss Jones, Behind the Green Door and The Opening of Misty Beethoven to name a few).
The first three-volume series within the larger Penthouse series was named , known outside Japan as Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend. These three episodes were adapted from the original manga but skip over much of the comedic sub-stories and subplots and instead shift the focus to the apocalypse and the battle between Suikakuju and Jyaku.
The three OVAs were later edited into a theatrical film. The removal of certain explicit material resulted in the film being given a rating from Japan's Film Classification and Rating Organization. Shochiku-Fuji distributed the film to theaters while Shochiku Home Video distributed the film to VHS with the tagline .
Legend of the Over-Fiend was shown at the Toronto Festival of Festivals on 16 September 1989. A critic credited as "Suze." wrote in Variety the film was a "sci-fi-horror schlock extravaganza verging on porno. Films like this are why the word misogynist was invented."
The theatrical film was released in North America on VHS on 11 August 1993 by Central Park Media under the "Anime 18" label - it was their first title to be released with the label and it was rated NC-17. The film was also released in the UK and Australia, with additional cuts being made by the BBFC and OFLC.
; Plot
Planet Earth is not all it seems. It is revealed that humans are not alone and that there are unseen realms running parallel to our own: the realms of the Demons (Makai) and the Man-Beasts (Jujinkai). To further that, there is a 3000-year-old legend that foretells the coming of the Overfiend (Chōjin)—a being of unimaginable power that will unite all three realms into a land of eternity.
The story follows the exploits of the protagonists—man-beast Jyaku Amano, his nymphomaniac sister Megumi and their companion Kuroko—as their 300-year search for the Overfiend takes them to a high school in Osaka, Japan. Their discoveries led them to two students: shy, lecherous Tatsuo Nagumo and school idol Akemi Ito. But as the film plunges deeper into the dark and gruesome, Jyaku discovers that the Legend of the Overfiend is not what it seems and that the future of the three realms may be strikingly different from what he is led to believe.
; DVD releases
- Perfect Collection (Anime 18)—2:26:06
- Special DVD Edition (Manga Entertainment)—1:42:55
- Movie Edition (Kitty Media)—1:45:20
The Perfect Collection from Anime 18 is the only English-friendly uncut version of the first OVA available outside Japan. Other versions such as the one on the "Hell on Earth" boxed set and the Australian Madman release with both Legend of the Overfiend and Legend of the Demon Womb have been cut for 45 minutes in total, which included a total of 24 minutes of sexually oriented scenes. The U.S. DVD releases are now out-of-print. The Movie Edition, licensed by Kitty Media in 2010 and released in 2011, is the first time any of the anime has been released on Blu-ray, though it is reformatted for widescreen (the DVD version released alongside it retains the original aspect ratio). On January 20, 2025, it was announced that Discotek Media will be rereleasing it on Blu-ray in 2025. The anime received an extensive restoration.
Legend of the Demon Womb (1990–1991)
- "A Prayer for the Resurrection of the Lord of Chaos" (1 December 1990)
- "Battle at Shinjuku Skyscrapers" (10 April 1991)
<!-- Deleted image removed: thumb|Opening title -->
The second OVA series was named , known outside Japan as Urotsukidoji II: Legend of the Demon Womb. This series was not based on the manga, but elements from it were used, with Negumo's cousin Takeaki taking on a character similar to the character of Saburo in the manga and Münchhausen II taking after the character of Suikakuju.
The second part of the saga created an ongoing controversy among Urotsukidōji fans as to where it fits into the saga as a whole. One main theory is that the two chapters happen between "Birth of the Overfiend" and "Curse of the Overfiend" of the first OVA. Another main theory is that since the characters and tone are fairly unfaithful to the first three OVAs, it ought not to be considered part of the canon in the first place.
The two OVAs were again later recut into a theatrical version; however, whereas the original two OVA episodes in this case censored sexual acts with blurring throughout, the movie edit was fully uncensored and even featured additional scenes with new animation and effects added to improve existing scenes. No material was taken out in the process—the time difference arising due to redundant credits and recaps—so the movie is to be considered the most complete version.
; Plot
Unbeknownst to Jyaku and Megumi, in 1944, the Nazis attempted to summon the Overfiend's nemesis: the Lord of Chaos (Kyō-Ō). Top scientist Dr. Münchhausen and his son invented a perverse death-rape machine to summon the Lord of Chaos—but the machine overloaded; and helped to destroy half of Berlin—leaving Münchhausen II alive, but psychologically scarred.
During his adolescence, Münchhausen II discovers his father's journal and tries to uncover the secrets of the Jujinkai and the Makai. He finally succeeds and reawakens Kohoki—a demon banished to hell for eternity—into the human realm and the two form an infamous partnership.
Cut to the present day and Münchhausen II is trying to fulfill his father's work—to summon the Lord of Chaos—but to make sure it will work this time, he needs a human sacrifice. And it just so happens Tatsuo's cousin Takeaki Kiryu is on the next plane to Osaka...
; DVD releases
- Perfect Collection (Anime 18)—1:37:33
- Urotsukidoji II: Legend of the Demon Womb (Anime 18)—1:26:51
- Special DVD Edition (Manga Entertainment)—1:23:32
The Perfect Collection from Anime 18 is the only uncut version of the second Urotsukidōji OVA available outside Japan—however, even the Japanese version was censored, and this censoring was carried over. As mentioned above, this was rectified for the movie version which is uncensored and contains more original material than the OVAs. Anime 18's DVD release is uncut though others (such as Manga UK's) have again been censored with cuts made.