Appleseed

In a future where much of the planet has been devastated in the Third World War the mega city of Olympus has been created. It is run by bioroids... part human, part robot cyborgs and Gaia, a powerful central computer controls all of the city's functions. It is meant to be the perfect place to live but not everybody is happy there; as the film opens we see police officer Calon Mautholos dreaming about his wife who killed herself as she felt trapped. Other humans are rising up against the system. When a group of these terrorists seize a building police, including protagonists, Deunan Knute, a human, and Briareos Hecatonchires, her cyborg partner, raid the building. Most of the terrorists flee but A. J. Sebastian, a cyborg, escapes. It will be their personal mission to tack him down; in the process they will come under suspicion, uncover traitors and ultimately face a threat that could destroy Gaia and the city.

It must be admitted that this OVA is showing its age a bit; the character designs are dated and the music is pretty terrible... however the central story is solid and provides plenty of action. I liked the futuristic setting and the slightly ambiguous feel... early on I was unsure whether the system running Olympus would ultimately be exposed as something oppressive, benevolent or morally neutral. Enough was shown of the villains to ensure they weren't too unsympathetic. As stated earlier the character designs are dated but that isn't much of a problem; it is just a different aesthetic to more recent anime. The animation itself is pretty good, nicely capturing the action. I can't say how it compares to the original manga as I've not read that. Overall a solid cyberpunk anime that fans of the genre should check out.

Just finished watching the new restoration of Appleseed, which is sourced from the original camera negative for the first time ever -all previous versions were sourced from inferior video tape elements- and I have to say I'm impressed.

The backgrounds are true pieces of anime art, and they pop like never before. The quirky character designs, the robots, and especially all the vehicles look gorgeous!

Aside from the anticlimactic ending, my second viewing experience, especially with the comparatively low key original Japanese dub, has elevated the original Appleseed for me as one of the best OVA to come out of 1980s Japan.

The animation quality here is decidedly below par IMO, regardless of the age of the OAV. The plot itself makes sense, but the characters don't.

This might sound picky, but considering that the city of Olympus is almost exclusively populated by living machines, would YOU feel comfortable there as a human? Would any machine ever emulate human arrogance, short-sightedness and greed quite so effectively? I doubt it. There are some pointers towards this in the movie, but only when the team can be bothered to put them in, by and large the 'bioroids' (or whatever they are) are interchangeable with human characters. Seems sloppy to me.

The main characters seem to have some kind of emotional entanglement, though no light is shed on this. Little light is shed on the backstory at all, a great pity. The short length of the film coupled with the focus on mecha and the crime means that we don't see any character depth. The groundwork's all down, yet we're left with no finished product. A cropped version of this OAV would have made a great TV episode, once some character sub-plots had been established.

The highlights of this short film are the mecha designs and the action/espionage.

The flaws really start to show through once you've had a chance to digest all the goings-on, so I couldn't recommend this for owning, but it's certainly worth a watch or two! Whilst this review is mostly negative, I really do think it's worth your time to watch this, but it's not something to rush out and buy.

In a nutshell: A watchable wasted opportunity.

Being an avid reader of manga and very interested in the fascinating genre that is animé, I have always enjoyed the work of the masterful Shirow Masamune. The original manga behind this movie is far more complex and a lot of the suspense has been left out during its transition to animation, but a lot of the character interaction and stylish action remains.

Very accessible for all viewers with really great backgrounds and scenery throughout the movie, not as spectacular as e.g. 'Ghost in the Shell', but definately pleasing to the eye.

A good anime and faithful (loyal, adequate) to the manga.

This animate movie, from the manga of Masamume Shirow "Appleseed", remains faithful. It includes the design, the characters and theirs characters, the tone and his comic, and one of the major story lines of the world of "Appleseed" are developed . Namely, through the city Olympus, the new world created for humans after the major global conflicts and their management by broods race created to manage and keep safe the humans. This "golden cage", as it's call in the animate movie, poses ethical problems through governance for the human world by non-human entities.

We can be a little unfortunate (disappointed) that the introduction out of the Olympus from the manga, is deliberately set aside to penetrate directly into the film's plot and probably to be consistent with the desired duration. But this shelving (lack) is recovered by a sequence in the film where the role (part) of Hitomi is explained about it.

The action, intrigue and pace (rhythm) of the film is very consistent. It's a very satisfactory achievement for this time and probably his budget.

The soundtrack is unobtrusive (discrete) but perfectly accompanies the action. A good and faithful manga.

The film is short (a little bit more than 1H) with a very good "rythm".