Appleseed

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.

Pretty decent for his early work and no Kokaku Kidotai without it, and gets an 2 points extra for the easter eggs. For Shirow definitely a rung in the ladder. I am biased as a Shirow fan but this was a big step from Dirty Pair which was what I knew of him. Violent fun with a porno soundtrack! You cannot help but notice that. I know people appreciate him for Ghost in the Shell..but all of the deep spiritual overtones were dealt with in Appleseed. ESWAT killing terrorists, the struggle for humans to stay viable as bioroids phase them out, and Deunan staying thin despite her intake of junk food. Definitely like the characters even the traitor..and I do not know why.

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.

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.

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.