Metropolis

So this film was based on a story by the legendary manga creator Osamu Tezuka. It also takes elements from the classic German silent film of the same title, an image from which inspired Tezuka's story in the first place. So it takes from both, but I'm not entirely clear what bits came from each because I haven't seen the movie or read the manga. But anyway, it's about a gigantic, futuristic city that purports to be an amazing place to live but of course is filled with tons of seedy elements eating away at its core. There's a lot of strife between the classes, robots are treated like inferior beings, and there's something going on with the powers that be. It's really not a very original set-up, but they execute on it well enough to get away with it for the most part.

I'll admit to having an issue with the art style for a lot of the film. It's simple and cartoony, and it just doesn't really fit the tone or subject matter of the film very well. It's well animated, sometimes gorgeously so, but I think the character designs could have stood to be a bit more natural. There's even a thing where people's legs thicken as they get closer to their ankles. What the hell is that? Who's ever looked like that? I was mostly used to it before the movie ended, but it's the rare case where an animation's look got in its own way. But I still enjoyed it. The main characters are an interesting group, the mysterious suddenly-appearing girl is well-handled, and the villain is a real son of a bitch. It also features a really great particular scene near the end, with an unexpected musical accompaniment. There's not a whole lot new here, but it's done well enough to keep it pretty watchable for a hundred minutes.

Steamboy

Katsuhiro Otomo directed Akira, based on his own manga, and it's easily one of the most famous anime in existence. Which is part of why it's surprising that it's one of only two animated films he's done. Yeah, he's done segments for three different anthology movies, and dabbled in live action recently, but it's still weird that Steamboy is just his second real film. It also makes it a bit more disappointing that it isn't better. Steamboy starts out quite strong, and the animation throughout is pretty incredible, but the whole second half of the movie felt like kind of a mess to me. I enjoyed it overall, but it seems like it could have easily been much greater.

Anyway, the movie is the definition of steampunk. Ray is a genius young inventor in England, the man of the house while his father and grandfather are searching for a pure water for a more powerful steam in America. Quickly a package from his grandfather arrives at the same time as a couple representatives from the organization he was working for. Inside is a strange ball, a device key to their plans, and Ray has to escape from the organization in what I thought was easily the film's most thrilling sequence. Eventually though he finds out there's more to what's going on than expected, and what follows is an absolute ton of disagreement and argument about the purpose of science and technological advancement.

The second hour of the movie is basically a smattering of action scenes as two sides fight each other with elaborately built equipment and try to win over Ray with their arguments for what's right. And it's really not as exciting as that sounds. Eventually he gets fed up with the both of him and just focuses on saving the various people he cares about after a behemoth of steam-powered technology goes haywire. All that stuff is really cool, I just they weren't by far the most interesting thing in the story. And I also wish it didn't take so damn long for him to become the titular Steamboy. It's like a superhero origin story that goes overboard with the origin part and forgets the superhero part. The end is fairly thrilling though, and suggests further adventuring that I kind of wish the movie itself had been about. A decent work, but it seems muddled in its own philosophical ideas and doesn't have nearly the impact of Akira.

Akira

Normally I only write about stuff I haven't experienced before, and I've seen Akira multiple times in the past, but I wrote this for a class anyway (which explains why it's a bit more analytical/spoiler-filled), so I figured I might as well post it and introduce the "flashback" category, which allows me to talk about anything I've done before, if I feel like it. Which I probably won't often.

Visually, Akira is one of the most impressive animated features I've seen. You'd think it'd have aged after twenty years, but it still looks very good. So much today is done with computers, but everything here is drawn by hand and looks amazing. Just looking at it, I have to imaging someone working on it must have gone insane from painstakingly animating so many billowing clouds of smoke. It's one of the only anime to have its dialogue recorded before animation, so everything is synced to the voices and avoids the pitfall almost every American seems to complain about. The artwork serves to enhance the story as the radical ideas are fully explored in sometimes gruesome detail.

Akira is fully in the apocalyptic mode, with the world still feeling the effects of nuclear devastation and the main characters living dangerous lives in the streets of a Tokyo I'd never want to visit. It explores corruption in government and redemption through destruction, as the only way to stop Tetsuo and save him comes to be destroying him.

Tetsuo and Kaneda are friends, but sometimes seem more like younger and older brothers, respectively, as Kaneda's always looking out for Tetsuo, who resents the protection. He begins to lash out more and more as his power grows, and ultimately his surpressed anger feeds off the energy and turns him into a monster. The disfigured children (although if they were test subjects with Akira would be in their forties or so now) are an interesting force, very powerful yet subject to the fears and desires of any little kid. Kaori represents what's left of Tetsuo's humanity, and when she is killed by his transformation, it's pretty much the end of any chance for his redemption and he ultimately perishes, nearly taking everything with him.

Neo Tokyo

I wrote this for a class, which explains why it's a bit more analytical/spoiler-filled.

Neo Tokyo contains three different stories, although to be honest I was only really entertained by the last one. The first vignette leads into the other ones, as a child chases her cat through a grandfather clock into a labyrinth where she sees some strange things, including the other stories. There is some humor, but not much to really read into. The animation is very fluid, like the world isn't completely defined and has some freedom to stretch.

The second was a boring story of a deadly race in which all of the participants die but one, who then continues to drive as he falls deeper into madness. The art style is pretty unattractive to me, and it didn't seem to have much to say either. Some of the designs on the machinery were nice, but I could barely stay awake through this.

The third piece was funny and more pleasing aesthetically, about a man sent to shut down a construction project run by robots. It warns against being overly reliant on technology, as the foreman is basically insane, going so far as to willingly destroy other robots to stay on schedule and killing humans who get in the way. The style isn't overly flashy but gives a lot of personality to the foreman, as its increasing mechanical failures parallel its madness. Neo Tokyo wraps up with a quick return to the first setting. I couldn't say I liked it that much as a whole, but it had moments.