etg1701 If ever there were a case where the use of the admittedly repugnant term "degenerate art" is justified, this is probably it. Guaranteed to put anyone's faith in freedom of expression to the test, this movie has it all: demons, violence, rape, and of course tentacles. You know you're in for something truly terrifying when even the heavily censored version released in the US is rated NC-17 is banned outright in several nations. To be fair, underneath the endless sex scenes and gruesome violence, there is an interesting, though hardly sublime, plot, apparently a hentai/horror take on the Nietzschean übermensch.Those with weak stomachs will definitely want to give this one a pass. Those with strong stomachs will want to bring a vomit bowl before starting. Even de Sade would feel a little sick in places...

Andy (film-critic) This is the perfect example of an animated series that begins with 100% full force, but somehow forgets its footing, its actual roots, or plain disregards the foundation it was built and quickly destroys from within. I began watching "Legend of the Overfiend" with some hesitancy. I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, but I knew that it was going to be both violent and sexual. Boy, I wasn't wrong, but what made this first film stand above was the story itself. "Legend of the Overfiend" may have quite a bit of rape, violence, and nudity, but the science-fiction story behind these actions is incredible. It reminded me of the first time that I watched the film Ghost in the Shell, it broke some boundaries, but the story was incredible. Sadly, that is what hurt the other three films. While I was watching these series, I made a note, if I could take the sex, nudity, and rape, put it all to the side, and still enjoy the story, then the animators and storytellers were doing a great job. With "Legend of the Overfiend" I was successful. "Legend of the Demon Womb" was slim, and it failed with "Return of the Overfiend". By the last of this series, the animators had grown too big for their britches, the story was completely destroyed, and our familiar faces seemed like strangers by the end. Everything that you never wanted to see happen to a series happened with Chôjin densetsu Urotsukidôji.I must admit, this was a shocking series. It is impressive to see the leaps and bounds that Japanese animation is taking, and how they are bringing adults into a very child infested market. I have always thought that is what American animation needs to do, but alas, we just haven't caught on. Here we have amazing stories coming from overseas that are not afraid to push the sexual envelope and instead of embracing them, we shun them as pornographic and dismiss them as garbage. While I agree that half of the second film and all of the third could literally be labeled as garbage, you have to give some credit to the creative mind behind this series. This is not an easy storyline. It is deeply embedded in science-fiction themes, strong folklore characters, and imagination. It was like reading Dune and watching Akira simultaneously. It would be difficult, but once you got fully immersed in the stories, you would be lost in the sheer beauty of the world. That is exactly what happened here. It is a beautiful story of survival, of humanity, of heroism, but because of the graphic nature of the sexual scenes, it is not regarded as important outside of cult circles. We could argue all day behind the power of the sexual scenes, but again, if you look back to the story … if the story is what draws you back to the remaining films, then you know that you have found a winner.With those good remarks said, it is now time to shred the rest of this to pieces. "Legend of the Demon Womb" bordered on idiotic. The entire beginning references to Hitler and the door to Hell nearly made me laugh. It did not seem to follow the groundwork that "Legend of the Overfiend" seemed to have laid. While the segments concerning Nagumo's cousin's disaster were intense (as well as secret form), the story began to fault when the focus fell less on the imagination of the world, but instead on the scenes of rape. You could see a distinct difference between these two. Then, there is the third installment, which is just disastrous. I could not watch it all, but instead continued to fast forward through the ¾'s scenes of rape just to find any remnants of the story. Sadly, there wasn't any. Again, all of our characters seemed to be forgotten, the original story was completely shelved, and we were left with nothing creative, nothing original, and nothing enjoyable … just random sex with overly clichéd beasts. It just wasn't worth the time. With that said, this final installment ruined the whole series for me. If a team cannot follow the beginnings of their story throughout the course of their characters, then what is the point of continuing? By the end of "Return of the Overfiend" I felt tired, apathetic, and bored.Overall, I wasn't happy with this series. Again, the beginning installment, "Legend of the Overfiend" was my definite favorite (if I had to name one) which boasted a great story and original characters. After that, it just quickly fell downhill. The inability to continue a story that remained true to itself hugely disappointed me and irritated me. Urg. I started with curiosity and ended with aggravation. For those looking to start this series, watch "Legend of the Overfiend" and end, if you watch either "Legend of the Demon Womb" or "Return of the Overfiend" you will only find chaos, disappointment, and a complete lack of respect. BLAH! Grade: ** out of *****

prottier Watch the Japanese version. Avoid the English dubbed version. It has been censored. And the most important clues of the plot happen exactly at those moments that were deemed too graphic for American viewers. As a result, in the English version the story makes much less sense.Now, about the movie. This is a masterpiece of sick and twisted fantasy, filled with an obscene amount of sex and violence. And usually, the two are combined. It's an epic tale of the fight between good and evil, however, like most anime movies, it's never entirely clear who is good and who is evil. Aside to this, there are several smaller and more personal story lines as well, like the love between two teenagers, a kid and his alcoholic father and a few others.The quality of animation of anime movies has improved much over the years and this movie is clearly one of the older ones. But it's still unique in its kind. It's one of the great anime classics, together with such movies Akira and Fist of the North Star.

Ky-D One of the earliest 'hentais' to make it state side, this helped spark the uber obsession America's geeks have with anime. Featuring graphic violence, explicit sex and an adult-themed apocalypse story, this is one of anime's best offerings.The world, it seems, is divided in to 3 parts. The human world, the beast world and the demon world. Demons being evil, beast being good, and humans caught in the middle. An ancient prophecy speaks of a creature, called the Overfiend, which will be born of man and will bring either peace or destruction to the three realms. The race is on to find it's vessel on Earth and harness it's potential power.The story has more than it's fare share of fantasy and horror, it seeks to balance the two elements and does a nice job of it. But the main reason most people will watch this is the same reason I did: anime-sex. For inexplicable reasons that stuff is just plain hot, probably because they do things in the medium one would never see in a live action film.The sored acts include all manners of regular sexual activity all the way up to tentacle rape. Yes, I said tentacle rape. However, unlike most other products of it's kind the sex doesn't feel like cheap excess nor does it come off as the only viewing point. Graphic (often fully explicit) though it may be, it serves a purpose with in the larger story. Rather than a stopping point it furthers the action.Horror purists will be happy to know that mixed in with the sex and fantasy elements is a healthy dose of horror, J-pop style. Dr. Suess-inspired underworlds, great creature designs, and gobs of spilt hemoglobin. The ultimate conclusion is a little hard to get past at first (as with many J-horror films), but it still wraps up nicely.Anime fans, horror geeks, and the rain-coat crowd should definitely seeks this one out.9/10