Urotsukidoji: Sequels of the Overfiend (Blu-ray Review)

• Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
• Review Date: Oct 17, 2025
• Format: Blu-ray Disc
• 

Director

Hideki Takayama

Release Date(s)

1990-1996 (October 28, 2025)

Studio(s)

Phoenix Entertainment/Shochiku-Fuji (Discotek Media)

• Film/Program Grade: See Below
• Video Grade: C
• Audio Grade: B-
• Extras Grade: C
• Overall Grade: A-

Review

“Heed these words, foolish Humanity. There is more to the world than your mortal eyes see. Alongside the world known to mankind, there exists a world of Man-Beasts and a world of Demons. And many of these Demons live in the Human realm. There is a legend known among the Demon realm. Once every three thousand years, the Ultra God, the Chōjin, will be re-incarnated. When he is reborn, he will combine the three worlds, creating a single Eternal Kingdom. Heed these words, foolish Humanity. Listen to the voices of the Demon realm, and know that mankind is not the lord of all creation. You shall learn the truth when the Ultra God is reincarnated. The promised time is close at hand.”

That promised time was early 1987, when the first volume of the Original Video Animation Urotsukidoji was unleashed upon the public—a public that quickly learned the truth that there were more things in heaven and on Earth than were dreamt of in their philosophy. “We have such sights to show you,” Clive Barker’s Cenobites had promised in Hellraiser, but the demons in Urotsukidoji delivered on that promise to such extremes that even Pinhead would have doffed his crown of nails to them. While it was hardly the first adult animation in Japan, the levels of sex and violence in Urotsukidoji were so extreme that it became the godfather of a subgenre affectionately(?) known as “tentacle porn.” Yet it’s so much more than that; in some respects, Urotsukidoji is the ultimate in cosmic horror.

Still, despite the presence of a variety of destructive deities, any parallels between them and Lovecraft’s Elder Gods are purely incidental. Urotsukidoji was based on the manga by Toshio Maeda, who has long denied even having read Lovecraft. Yet Lovecraft’s influence extends far beyond those who have read his works, and there’s little doubt that Maeda absorbed some of the mythology on a subconscious level. He ended up combining that with a variety of other influences taken from Japanese folklore (and elsewhere). For example, Man-Beast Amano Jyaku, the “wandering kid” of the title who has been roaming the three realms in search of the Ultra God, is named after the Japanese trickster demon Amanojaku, even though his personality and mission are somewhat different. In terms of design work, Maeda drew inspiration from a wide variety of sources—there’s even a touch of Big Daddy Roth in some of his monstrous apparitions. Yet there’s another inspiration that towers above all the rest: John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing.

It’s impossible to overstate the profound influence that The Thing has had on generations of Japanese manga artists and animators—or rather, the profound influence that Rob Bottin and Stan Winston’s work for the film has had. That’s what arguably put the tentacles in tentacle porn, but it’s also in regards to the way that Bottin and Winston were able to plasticize human and/or animal bodies, tearing them apart and reassembling them in imaginative ways. Yet makeup artists back then were still constrained by what could be achieved with foam latex and animatronic effects, while there’s never been anything hindering what comic book artists and animators can do other than their own imaginations. As a result, animators in Japan let their fancies run wild, and based on the foundation laid by Maeda, director Hideki Takayama and his mostly pseudonymous crew did just that in Urotsukidoji.

In Urotsukidoji, the human body is stretched, mutilated, torn asunder, and reassembled in ways that make The Thing look positively tame. Takayama’s team was working on a tight budget, so the animation is limited and there are plenty of cost-cutting measures like panning and zooming the camera across static artwork. Yet there’s nothing cheap about the design work, and the low budget did nothing to constrain the imaginations of the animators—or even that of writer Shō Aikawa, either (although like most of the rest of the crew, he used a penname in the credits). The first three OVAs for Urotsukidoji form an arc known as Legend of the Overfiend (aka Chōjin Densetsu Urotsukidōji), and as the storyline builds toward an appropriately apocalyptic conclusion for the finale, Takayama, Aikawa, and the rest of the team didn’t hold back. After all, the opening scrawl promised the rebirth of the Ultra God and the intersection of the three realms, and the principle of Chekhov’s gun applies to apocalypses as much as it does to firearms—you can’t promise and not deliver. Fortunately, however limited that the animation may have been, the vision of these artists wasn’t.

Still, a few compromises did have to be made. The Japanese prohibition on showing pubic hair or genitalia meant that the most explicit imagery had to be optically censored, although rather than applying the usual mosaic effect or optical dots, the animators added a diffuse fog effect that obscured what was happening but didn’t completely block it out. So, even with that compromise, Urotsukidoji leaves little to the imagination (although it’s worth pointing out that it’s much, much less explicit than the manga was). The English-language versions (both dubbed and subtitled) also changed the Myojin Academy to a college instead of a high school, the better to avoid western prohibitions on underage sexuality.

Yet regardless of any minor (no pun intended) compromises like that, the Urotsukidoji OVAs were so successful that the promise of the Ultra God reuniting the three realms ended up paying off on a metaphorical level: all three OVAs were united into a single feature film for theatrical distribution: Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend. Together, they tell the tale of Amano Jyaku’s search for the Ultra God, accompanied by his sister Megumi and his sidekick Kuroko. They discover that lecherous high school student Tatsuo Nagumo may (or may not) be the human host through which the Ultra God will be reborn, with (or without) the involvement of Tatsuo’s girlfriend Akemi. Meanwhile, Amano Jyaku’s rival Suikakujū is hoping to destroy the Ultra God once and for all. Amono Jyaku may not have understood the true meaning of the prophecies, leading to an apocalyptic confrontation for everyone involved.

Legend of the Overfiend was successful enough to generate a sequel as well, which followed the same general pattern. The first three Urotsukidoji OVAs were released between 1987-1989, while the two-part OVA sequel Urotsukidoji 2: Legend of the Demon Womb (aka Shin Chōjin Densetsu Urotsukidōji: Mataiden) ran from 1990-1991, followed by a movie version that edited the two together. (More on that in a moment.) Hideki Takayama returned as director, as did writer Shō Aikawa, but since the Legend of the Overfiend arc had run through Toshio Maeda’s manga narrative (albeit with a change or two along the way), Legend of the Demon Womb largely struck its own path. It also extended the Chōjin mythology to incorporate elements from German history and folklore in order to create a new antagonist for the Ultra God:

“As there is God, so to there must be the Devil. When the Ultra God comes, the Mad King will arise.”

Legend of the Demon Womb opens in the waning days of World War II, where Adolph Hitler has employed the mad scientist Münchhausen in order to resurrect the Mad King (aka Kyō-Ō, or the Lord of Chaos). That doesn’t go particularly well, leaving the scientist’s son Münchhausen II to carry on his father’s work many decades later, with the reluctant assistance of the demon Kohoki, who happens to be one of Megumi’s former lovers. They force an airplane that’s carrying Tatsuo’s cousin Takeaki to crash, forcing Tatsuo to offer his blood for a transfusion that will save Takeaki’s life. The Ultra God’s blood is exactly what Münchhausen II was after all along, and it causes Takeaki to be transformed into the Mad King, leading to an apocalyptic fight atop the Shinjuku skyline.

As that description should make clear, Legend of the Demon Womb plays fast and loose with Legend of the Overfiend’s continuity. Excluding the prologue, it’s essentially a side story that takes place more or less between the first and second OVAs of Overfiend—although there’s some minor disagreement about the exact timing. Regardless, that means the apocalyptic conclusion of Legend of the Overfiend hasn’t occurred yet, which lowers the stakes of this story somewhat. To be fair, that seems to be intentional, as the stakes this time are of a far more personal sort. Still, Legend of the Demon Womb plants the seeds (literally and metaphorically) for the second sequel Urotsukidoji 3: The Future, with a coda that promises the return of Münchhausen II, albeit in slightly different form.

The two OVAs for Legend of the Demon Womb were also edited together into a movie version, although this time as another direct-to-video release titled Urotsukidoji 2: Legend of the Demon Womb – International Uncut Version. Unlike the theatrical movie for Legend of the Overfiend, it was indeed uncut—and in an ironic twist, while the Legend of the Demon Womb OVAs had utilized optical censoring, the movie version didn’t, which required redoing some of the animation in order to compensate. The movie also added a new sequence where a school-aged Münchhausen II summons Kohoki for the first time. As a result, Urotsukidoji 2: Legend of the Demon Womb – International Uncut Version is the most complete version of the saga, missing only the redundant credits and recap of OVA 1.

Legend of the Demon Womb was also a success, leading to the second OVA sequel Urotsukidoji 3: The Future (aka Chōjin Densetsu Urotsukidōji: Mirai-hen and Return of the Overfiend), which was released in four parts between 1992-1993 and as a direct-to-video movie version in 1994. Takayama returned to direct yet again (as he would throughout the rest of the original run of the series), but writer Shō Aikawa departed after the first installment. The narrative takes place decades after the end of Legend of the Overfiend, but still builds on the Mad King mythology that was introduced by Legend of the Demon Womb. Münchhausen II does indeed return, now (appropriately) renamed Faust, but the lore of Urotsukidoji expanded significantly with The Future, adding in other elements of German folklore like the shapeshifting Fáfnir. More importantly, the story introduces a third race competing for survival in the united Realms:

“Twenty odd years after the great destruction, a new order has begun to take hold of the broken world. In this new world, beings that are neither Human, nor Demon, nor Man-Beast have been born. These beings, treated with cruel contempt, came to be called the Daebestia.”

(And just in case anyone misses the implications of this new world order, the score makes a cheeky quotation from Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 to hammer the point home.)

Faust/ Münchhausen II is now working for Caesar, an overlord who has risen to power in the wake of the destruction of the various realms. They’re both seeking the Mad King in order to destroy the Ultra God, although Faust has reasons of his own for doing so. Caesar holds ruthless sway over the Daebestia (aka Makemono), a misshapen new race that’s been rejected by Human, Demon, and Man-Beast alike. Chief among them is Buju, who is also known as the Mad King due to his dominance over other Daebestia. But he’s no elder god, and together with Caesar’s wayward daughter Alector, he finds a young girl name Himi, who turns out to be the nascent version of the real Mad King. That awakens the true Ultra God, who summons Amano Jyaku to defend him against what he calls a new evil from the east—but as usual, things don’t work out the way that anyone planned.

That includes, for the first time in the Urotsukidoji saga, a relatively happy ending. The finale offers new hope that at least Humans and Daebestia may be able to live together in harmony and forge their own future together. Granted, that involves Buju taking Himi to Osaka in order to confront the Ultra God, so The Future is still setting up yet another dark future for all the races involved. It also revels in the darkness of the present—for a series that has never shied away from presenting sexual assault, The Future indulges in tastelessness to an even greater degree, with demonic (and beastly) rape scenes that just go on and on and on. So, the one step forward in terms of lore is accompanied by two steps backward in terms of content. Still, it’s an interesting addition to the world of Urotsukidoji.

The Future ended up being the longest installment in the saga, and the movie version took an even more aggressive hatchet to the OVAs than Legend of the Overfiend did. The four OVAs had a total running time of three and a half hours, which was reduced to two hours for the direct-to-video release Urotsukidoji 3: The Future – Director’s Edition. No new footage was added this time around, although the optical censoring from the OVAs was (mostly) eliminated. But existing scenes were also rearranged drastically, creating a very different experience. So, while the OVAs are the most complete version of The Future (regardless of optical censoring), the movie version still offers an interesting alternative.

The Future was quickly followed by another sequel, Urotsukidoji 4: Inferno Road (aka Chōjin Densetsu Urotsukidōji: Hōrō-hen), which was released in three parts between 1993-1995 and as a direct-to-video movie later in 1995. Takayama returned as director, but there seems to have been some behind-the-scenes shifts throughout the production. The first two OVAs were released a few months apart from each other, with a storyline that follows directly from the events of The Future, but one that doesn’t advance the overall narrative. The third OVA didn’t appear until a year later, telling a completely different story than the first two, and it was released by a different production company. OVAs 1 and 2 are essentially a detour on the Inferno Road, and they ended up being even more controversial than the rest of the saga had been, while OVA 3 finally unites the Mad King with the Ultra God—although it also takes something of a sidestep by introducing a character that ties back to Legend of the Overfiend.

Buju, Himi, Amano Jyaku, and all of their followers end up trapped within a fog-shrouded section of a collapsed city. Everything is under the control of psychic children, who have used their powers to prevent their own adolescence, and they consider adults as nothing but breeders to produce more children. Their leader Ellis wants to use Himi’s blood in order to resurrect his dead brother and bury the personal demons from his past. After solving that conflict in bittersweet fashion and continuing the journey to Osaka, Amano Jyaku is confronted by Yoenki, the sister of his late rival Suikakujū, who has been manipulated by Münchhausen II into seeking revenge for her brother’s death. Yet even that new conflict can’t prevent the Mad King from finally reaching Osaka and confronting the Ultra God, with suitably apocalyptic results.

For a series that courted controversy from its inception, Inferno Road stuck its feet into the fire by following in the shoes of Village of the Damned, Children of the Damned, and Miri (the eighth episode from the first season of Star Trek). But none of those stories placed preadolescent children into close proximity with sexualized violence, and worse, Inferno Road makes them into the ones responsible for it. (Only Miri teased at the idea of the young Miri’s sexual awakening, but that had nothing on Urotsukidoji!) That resulted in the first two OVAs being banned in some territories, and even the U.S. versions were cut by a few minutes. The third OVA had less issues, although it brought the saga to a somewhat baffling conclusion by having the union of the Mad King and the Ultra God result in the Realms being reset back to the beginning, presumably to start the cycle anew. (And all three OVAs continued the trend of padding things out with enough extended scenes of sexual assault that even Amano Jyaku has to admit that “even I’m starting to get disgusted.”)

All three OVAs were edited together into a movie version titled, appropriately enough, Urotsukidoji 4: Inferno Road – The Complete Obscenity. The running time was reduced considerably, and while the optical censoring from the first two OVAs were retained, the third OVA was uncensored in both its original form and the movie version. Most significantly, a new ending was added, and it’s to the OVAs what The End of Evangelion was to the final two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion: a complete reimagining of what happened. The true Ultra God, which was born from the false Ultra God Nagumo, turns out not to be the true Ultra God at all, but rather the king of the Demon realm in disguise. Instead of resetting everything to the beginning, the conflict returns to the moment of awaiting the true Ultra God’s birth once again.

The original Urotsukidoji saga finally came to a conclusion late in 1996 with Urotsukidoji 5: The Final Chapter (aka Chōjin Densetsu Urotsukidōji: Kanketsu-hen)—well, sort of, anyway. But prior to that point, the previous installments had one last gasp in the form of yet another compilation movie, the improbably titled The Mad King Theatre V2: The Legend of the Mad Killer Daebestid (aka Chōjin Densetsu Urotsukidōji: Kyoo-hen Gekijo V2 Kyoya Maju-den Chōjin). It’s a distillation of all four previous installments, condensed into just under two hours. Interestingly enough, it completely dispenses with OVA 1 and 2 of Inferno Road, so it dodged that bullet by pretending that it never happened in the first place, and it also uses the revised (and out of left field) Demon King ending that was added for Urotsukidoji 4: Inferno Road – The Complete Obscenity, albeit with a few minor tweaks. While it served as a useful recap for anyone who doesn’t have the time to revisit all of the previous OVAs and/or movies, it’s little more than a curiosity for dedicated fans of the franchise.

Yet as improbable as that title may be, the title for the finale Urotsukidoji 5: The Final Chapter offers a bill of goods that it never ended up delivering. It tries to tie up loose ends by returning to the original prophecy from Legend of the Overfiend and finally delivering the true birth of the true Ultra God—for real this time (no, really). But the Ultra God causes the lusts of the inhabitants of all three realms run rampant, in order to have them destroy each other utterly and clear the way for a new unified race that he’s created. As destruction runs rampant, Nagumo and Akemi are reunited, although it goes about as well as their last meeting did, so Amano Jyaku decides to confront the true Ultra God once and for all.

Except... that never happened. The Final Chapter was clearly intended to be the first OVA of the conclusion for the saga, but whatever behind-the-scenes production issues that may have occurred on Inferno Road, the production completely fell apart on The Final Chapter. The animation was left unfinished, and yet another recap was added to the beginning in order to compensate for the lack of new footage. The whole thing ends on a cliffhanger as Amano Jyaku challenges the Ultra God, but there was never another OVA to show what happened next. The series was eventually rebooted in 2002 as Urotukidoji: New Saga (aka Za Urotsuki), but that was essentially a remake of Legend of the Overfiend produced without Takayama’s involvement. Unsurprisingly, the unfinished Final Chapter never received an official release in North America—until now, anyway.

UROTSUKIDOJI 2: LEGEND OF THE DEMON WOMB (OVAS/MOVIE): B/B
UROTSUKIDOJI 3: THE FUTURE (OVAS/MOVIE): B-/C+
UROTSUKIDOJI 4: INFERNO ROAD (OVAS/MOVIE): C+/C-
THE MAD KING THEATRE V2: THE LEGEND OF THE MAD KILLER DAEBESTID: C
UROTSUKIDOJI 5: THE FINAL CHAPTER: C-

All of the original run of Urotsukidoji was animated via traditional cel animation, photographed on 16mm film, and completed on video at the full frame 1.33:1 aspect ratio for the OVA releases—with one exception. While OVA 3 of Inferno Road was also 1.33:1 for its original VHS release, later versions were offered letterboxed within the 1.33:1 frame. Unfortunately, all of the original film elements for Urotsukidoji are considered lost (or at least their provenance is unknown), so the best available elements for all of them are the same composite D2 video masters that have been used for all other digital versions to date. Since they’re composite sources, there’s dot crawl throughout, especially on titles, and there’s also plenty of aliasing and jaggies. The colors do vary a bit from installment to installment, but there aren’t any issues like the excessively washed-out look of the first OVA from Legend of the Overfiend. While there are plenty of inconsistencies throughout, with the movie version of Legend of the Demon Womb looking slightly better than the OVAs, none of the differences are significant enough to make it worth rating each installment individually. It’s low-resolution composite video, so it is what it is.

Audio is offered in Japanese 2.0 Dolby Digital with removable English subtitles on the Japanese versions, and English 2.0 Dolby Digital with no subtitles on the dubbed versions. There’s also not enough variance within the audio for each installment to make it worth rating them separately. They’re pretty typical mixes for low-budget anime from that era, with decent stereo spread across the front soundstage, although much of that is from the music while the sound effects sometimes collapse into mono. (There may or may not be encoded surrounds, but even if there are, it’s little more than light ambience.) The music relies heavily on synthesizers, and it sounds like it, too, so there’s not a lot of depth to it, but the sound effects do offer a bit of dynamics during the rampant scenes of destruction.

The Discotek Media SD Blu-ray release of Urotsukidoji: Sequels of the Overfiend includes a reversible slipcover with alternate artwork on each side, as well as a slipcover that duplicates the A side artwork. Everything is grouped by category, with submenus for the OVAs, the feature versions, the English dubs, and the extras. Here’s a full breakdown, followed by a description of the extras:

OVA VERSIONS

• Urotsukidoji 2: Legend of the Demon Womb
  1. A Prayer for the Resurrection of the Mad King (44:04)
  2. The Shinjuku Skyscraper Battle (40:40)
• Urotsukidoji 3: The Future
  1. Birth of the True Ultra God (56:35)
  2. The Mystery of Caesar’s Palace (58:11)
  3. Caesar’s Palace Crumbles (48:01)
  4. Departure into the Unknown (49:10)
• Urotsukidoji 4: Inferno Road
  1. The Secret Garden (44:11)
  2. The Long Road to God (45:09)
  3. Where the Journey Ends (47:48)
• Urotsukidoji 5: The Final Chapter (59:42)

FEATURE VERSIONS

• Urotsukidoji 2: Legend of the Demon Womb – International Uncut Version (88:01)
• Urotsukidoji 3: The Future – Director’s Edition (119:05)
• Urotsukidoji 4: Inferno Road – The Complete Obscenity (103:11)
• The Mad King Theatre V2: The Legend of the Mad Killer Daebestid (118:41)
• Urotsukidoji 5: The Final Chapter (59:42)

ENGLISH DUB

• Urotsukidoji 2: Legend of the Demon Womb (88:00)
• Urotsukidoji III: Return of the Overfiend
  1. Birth of the True Overfiend (49:02)
  2. The Mystery of Caesar’s Palace (52:52)
  3. The Collapse of Caesar’s Palace (39:46)
  4. Journey to an Unknown World (44:34)
• Urotsukidoji 4: Inferno Road
  1. The Secret Garden (41:21)
  2. The Long Road to God (43:35)
  3. The End of the Journey (43:50)

EXTRAS

• Urotsukidoji 4: Inferno Road Part 3 – 4x3 Version (47:47)
• Urotsukidoji 2 Promos (11:57, 3 in all)
• Urotsukidoji 3 Promos (13:02, 3 in all)
• Special Erotic Collection (Urotsukidoji 2) (15:50)
• Special Erotic Collection 2 (Urotsukidoji 3) (13:26)
• Urotsukidoji 2-3 US Video Credits (2:20)
• Liner Notes (HD, 16 pages in all)

The extras kick off with the original 1.33:1 version of OVA 3 from Urotsukidoji 3: Inferno Road, followed by all of the available promos and trailers for Urotsukidoji 2: Legend of the Demon Womb and Urotsukidoji 3: The Future. The Special Erotic Collections are bonus videos that were included with the movie versions of Urotsukidoji 2 and 3—although to keep things as confusing as ever, the Urotsukidoji 2 collection consists of the most explicit footage form Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend that was cut from the movie version, while the Urotsukidoji 3 collection features uncensored scenes from the Urotsukidoji 2 movie that were censored in the OVAs, as well as a compilation of explicit scenes from Urotsukidoji 3. Finally, in addition to the original US Video Credits, there are some monumentally useful Liner Notes written by Russ Smith. Some of the information in the rest of this review was derived from his notes, while others came from reference materials in my own collection, and still others were gleaned online. But any errors here are entirely my own—although it’s worth pointing out that there’s one accidental error in the liner notes on page 9, where the bottom line of text was inadvertently dropped. It should have read:

“The Japanese VHS release also included Urotsukidoji: Special Erotic Collection Part 2, though due to format constraints, the Laserdisc did not.”

But that’s just about the only thing to criticize here: three missing words. Oh, it would be easy to complain about the quality of the standard definition video, but there’s nothing that Discotek could do about that. These are the only available versions of Urotsukidoji 2-5 in existence—and they’re all collected here, in every possible iteration. That’s 25 hours of content here on one BD, and while only the most obsessive-compulsive of fans will ever watch every single minute of every single possible variation just to make sure that they don’t miss anything, it’s all here just in case. Together with Diskotek’s previous release of Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend, these are the most comprehensive collections of the original saga available. But we’ll let Russ Smith have the last word in that regard:

“With that spirit of creativity in mind, let it be said that the Discotek collection you’re reading this from includes every single revision of the original franchise we could find: Every OVA, every compilation movie, every English dub, with the intent to let the legacy of the Ultra God speak for itself.”

-Stephen Bjork

(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).