Appleseed

Based on the manga (comic) of well-known artist Masamune Shirow, this animated feature was a slight disappointment to me.

The story is good, but the animation is merely "OK" while it could/should have been mindblowing. The movie is IMO adequate, but seems somehow flat & uninspired, if you know what I mean. A wasted opportunity, if you consider that another work by Shirow, "Ghost In The Shell", is considered a classic in many respects. It set new standards for Japanese animation, and spawned, among other things, a brilliant series called "GiTS: Stand Alone Complex".

I consider this worth a rental, unless you're a fan of Shirow and want it all. Do check out the original manga, which comes highly recommended.

I don't really know about this one. Appleseed is watchable thanks to how appealing anime from this era looks and feels. There are some ideas here that are broadly interesting (not a lot's done with the premise or world; even less than you'd expect in something that's only about an hour long), and all the character designs are really cool. The music's definitely not bad either; the aesthetics are all there, and I think I would've dug this overall if the story had been a bit more interesting. I don't know if it's a good or faithful adaptation of the source material, but I do think that whatever storytelling was on offer here in this anime take on the story, it could've been done better.

Probably worth it for anime die-hards, but otherwise I don't really feel it's super worthwhile.

Appleseed is an anime based on Masamune Shirows manga of the same name before he became famous with Ghost in the Shell in the mid nineties. Being released just before Akira it got unfavorably compared with the latter and could never hope to reach the bar that was set so high by Katsuhiro Otomo's creation.

This is in fact the first installment of the Appleseed franchise although there is a gap of 16 years between this OVA and the 2004 movie.

Although this 1 hour OVA never covers the entire manga, in terms of plot and story it still does a good job albeit the story being kept rather simple. Nevertheless the philosophical and political tropes of Shirow are well dealt with albeit not so deep as in Ghost in the Shell or in the two later Appleseed-installments.

Animation-wise it is clearly a product of an era before Akira gave anime that huge boost.

If you like cyberpunk anime from the 1980s and early nineties and if you enjoyed Shirows earlier work from the same era, like Black Magic M-66 (1987) or Dominion Tank Police (1988), then you will surely like Appleseed the OVA.

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.