Based on the manga by mangaka Kiminori Wakasugi, Detroit Metal City is an original video animation about a young man who is secretly a rock star from a metal band. Detroit Metal City was released on August 8, 2008, running with a total of 12 episodes and each one being 13 minutes long. The animation is directed by Hiroshi Nagahama and is produced by Studio 4°C. A trivia to its series name is that it is based on one single by KISS, an American rock band, entitled Detroit Rock City.

Aside from the Original Video Animation, Detroit Metal City has a manga with 10 volumes, and a live action film directed by Toshio Lee and produced by Genki Kawamura which was released on August 23, 2008, in Japanese cinemas with a total of 105 minutes of screen time.

Detroit Metal PLOT

The story of Detroit Metal City is set in Tokyo, focused on the young protagonist, Soichi Negishi, who aspires to become a pop star some day. Coming from the rural Ota Prefecture, Negishi moves to Tokyo to attend college. The reason why he decided on moving to Tokyo is because of his dream of creating a fashionable pop band there. While on his way to Tokyo, Negishi listens to his favorite pop music, specifically Kahimi Karie, and daydreams on how the music makes the country side his staring at look like a photograph from Paris. He tells himself how he wants to create music like Kahimi Karie’s.

But things do not always go as they were planned. After graduating from college, Negishi finds himself ending up in a band that was different from what he had wanted. Instead of getting into the bubbly pop band he always loved, Negishi becomes part of a heavy metal band which fashions itself with long leather boots, thick dark outfits, heavy makeup, and a masochistic mascot named the Capital Pig (Shihonshugi no Buta in Japanese).

His metal band is called Detroit Metal City which has quite a number of fans. Its members use stage names to hide their personal identities, Negishi hiding under the name of