This film is so powerful that it was successfully banned in its native country. Unfortunately, horrible dubbing and sound mix, commercial fade-outs and other tampering have cheapened the film into only a hint of its original brilliance. The film sports a unique score by Isao Tomita, which, for me, defines the essence of decline in the penultimate year of the 20th century we are now in. Unfortunately, bad choices in American narration cause erratic volume changes which decrease the effect. Critics attacked it for the distinctly seventies fashions which are, as predicted, back in vogue. The film was actually not written by Yasumi, but updated from his script for _Sekai Daisenso_ (_The Last War_) and credited to him out of respect. Perhaps if the film, which is minimal on narrative and seems a forerunner to the work of Godfrey Reggio, were given a widescreen and subtitled reissue (and what better time than this year), respect for the film would increase. It pulls out all the stops with disasters, including the pestilence of giant slugs (which are simply giant slugs, like though that plague India, not flesh-eating or blood-eating as detractors of the film would like you to believe) and plants that tear through subways (and no, they do not eat people as some reviews claim). Nature takes things back from the city, young people find solace in random sex, wanton drug use, and suicide. Traffic jams wreak havoc as people get out of control, food rations are torn away as people believe there are shortages, while luxury beef diets continue, and Nishiyama believes they are all related to the prophecies of Nostradamus. Bizarre effects ensue, like snow on the pyramids, and people's highest morals are challenged. What we have is a work of cinematic brilliance torn apart by an American distributor until what results becomes fodder for MST3K. Know what neurofibromatosis looks like?
