Here's a rarity - a combo of two movies that are actually related to one another. The connection is Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame. Memories (1995) consists of three stories adapted from short manga pieces by Otomo, the last of which, Cannon Fodder, was directed by Otomo himself. Steamboy was released in 2004, Otomo's first full-length anime film since Akira. It looks great, but the plot doesn't build up much steam.
Memories is a most interesting and impressive production made up of three very different short films directed by some of the leading names in anime. Episode One is Magnetic Rose, directed by Koji Morimoto of Animatrix fame. This is a beautiful, haunting tale of a most unusual space rescue mission. The crew of a space garbage collection ship responds to a distress signal from a dead part of space. Two crew members board the debris-shrouded vessel and enter a completely different world, one fueled by the memories of a beautiful young opera singer who apparently retreated to the isolation of space following a tragedy in her life. Each man is soon drawn into the vivid, colorful world of Eva's memories, but only one recognizes the unreality behind the vivid scenes he encounters - in his case, though, memories of his own wife and child serve as fuel for the increasingly realistic episodes he experiences. Much of the story takes place to a soundtrack of beautiful opera music such as that of Puccini, and the combination of such grand music and the amazing visual miracles that define anime of the highest caliber make this a most powerful film indeed.
Episode Two, Stink Bomb from director Tensai Okamura, goes in a completely different direction. Existing in some nebulous space between dark comedy and grim political satire, Stink Bomb is certainly entertaining but much less powerful than the other two films. A young scientific researcher takes an experimental fever pill that turns out to be something else entirely. He awakes to find everyone in the building comatose or dead, and panicked company executives order him to find the pills and the secret documentation related to them so that he can bring everything to them in Tokyo immediately. He does just that, but he comes across death and destruction everywhere he goes, without understanding that he has become a biological weapon emanating deadly gas from within his own body. It's almost comical to see the military firepower brought to bear - quite fruitlessly - against him as the military seeks to stop the spread of the noxious gas. The ending is somewhat comical - but on a dark level.
The last and shortest of the films was directed by Katsuhiro Otomo himself. Cannon Fodder is an extremely dark film that vividly portrays a day in the life of a militaristic society along the lines of a post-modern day Prussia dedicated solely to the continued firing of gigantic cannons against some nebulous enemy. The obvious interpretation is one of the insanity of warfare, and the dark tones and grimly drawn characters bring the message home in a powerful fashion. Interestingly, the entire action seems to consist of one continuous shot that moves fluidly from one scene to another.
I have to say that I enjoyed Otomo's directorial contribution to the film Memories more than I did Steamboy. Both share the same kind of heavily industrial world of the past, cast in sepia-like tones reflecting an atmosphere of gloom. That was more than okay for Memories' "Cannon Fodder," but the world of Steamboy eventually grew tiresome to me. The animation of this film is excellent, but it consisted of far too many scenes of exploding machinery, to the detriment of character development and storyline. Frankly, I just didn't care about this plot all that much.
You've got a young, inventive boy who finds himself in the middle of a conflict over the nature of science. It's an argument that will erupt in loud, frightening chaos over the city of London. The boy's name is Ray Steam, and steam is definitely the key word in all of this. Ray receives a parcel from his grandfather containing an ultra-powerful "steamball," and almost at once he's forced to honor his grandfather's request to keep it out of the hands of "the Foundation." His father, however, or at least a somewhat mechanized version of him, happens to be in cahoots with the Foundation, and he begins to win his son over to his own version of science. He has used the vast power of steam to take his own father's vision of a Steam Castle and turn it into a well-armed weapon, complete with steam-powered flyers, subs, and mechanized fighters. The grandfather shows up to try and sabotage his evil son's efforts, and he confronts Ray with his own peaceful vision of science. Fortunately for the audience, there's a spoiled little rich girl (by the name of Scarlett O'Hara - I kid you not) to add some life to all this philosophizing and artificiality. The whole thing soon breaks down into a not-so-small war over London. If you like explosions and scenes of utter destruction in your anime, you'll definitely want to check out Steamboy. That's about all you'll find in the second half of the film.
To me, Steamboy is a case of style over substance. None of the characters are as fully developed as I would have liked, and the whole story never manages to take on very much depth. Motion pictures, even anime, cannot live on cinematography alone if they want to be truly successful. With its underdeveloped storyline, Steamboy just didn't prove satisfying to me.
Hayao Miyazaki gained widespread attention in Japan for his complex ecological manga series, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982), which he adapted for the screen two years later. One thousand years after a war devastated much of the Earth, humanity clings to existence at the fringes of a vast, polluted forest inhabited by monstrous insects. Only Nausicaä, the princess of the tiny realm of the Valley of the Wind, grasps the environmental significance of the forest. She sees beyond petty wars and national rivalries to the only viable future for the planet. In Nausicaä, Miyazaki began to explore elements he would develop more fully in his later films: daring, compassionate heroines; exciting flying sequences; colorful side characters; strong interpersonal... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Hayao Miyazaki DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The 2004 Appleseed feature is a reworking of the earlier video based on the manga by Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell). In 2131, most of humanity has withdrawn to the glittering city of Olympus after a devastating war. When the curvaceous Deunan Knute comes to Olympus, she encounters her former comrade Briareos, now a cyborg, and the lovely android Hitomi. The fate of Hitomi, Olympus, and humanity rest on the lost "Appleseed" technology that Deunan's mother helped to develop. A standard series of chases, mecha battles, and confrontations leads to a predictable ending. When the original Appleseedappeared in 1988, it felt like a summary of anime's past, while Akira pointed the way to the future. This new version feels like a mishmash of Ghost in the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ai Kobayashi - Jûrôta Kosugi - Yuki Matsuoka Director(s): Shinji Aramaki DVD Release Date: Released the 10 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Mamoru Oshii's landmark Ghost in the Shell (1995) largely defined the cyberpunk genre and influenced the Matrix films in the U.S. The long-awaited sequel continues the adventures of Batou, Major Kusanagi's former assistant, who was left behind when she disappeared into the cyber-realm of the Net. With his new human partner, Togusa, Batou investigates a series of bloody murders involving gynoids, robots with sexual functions. The case leads them to the headquarters of the Locus Solus company, where Batou uncovers the evil secret behind the creation of the gynoids. Innocence includes some staggeringly beautiful CG images, especially a parade depicting characters from Chinese mythology. Oshii contrasts this glittering beauty with a Blade... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Akio Ôtsuka - Atsuko Tanaka - Tamio Ôki Director(s): Mamoru Oshii DVD Release Date: Released the 28 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Porco Rosso (The Crimson Pig, 1992) ranks as Hayao Miyazaki's oddest film: a bittersweet period adventure about a dashing pilot who has somehow been turned into a pig. Miyazaki once said, "Initially, it was supposed to be a 45-minute film for tired businessmen to watch on long airplane flights... Why kids love it is a mystery to me." The early 1930s setting enabled Miyazaki to focus on the old airplanes he loves, and the film boasts complex and extremely effective aerial stunts and dogfights. In the new English dub from Disney, Michael Keaton as Porco delivers lines like "All middle-aged men are pigs" with appropriate cynicism, but his voice may be too familiar for some Miyazaki fans. Susan Egan makes a curiously distant Gina, the thrice-widowed hotel owner bound to Porco by... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Hayao Miyazaki DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The Cat Returns (2002) brings back Muta, the cranky fat cat, and Baron von Gikkingen, the elegant statue, from the feature Whisper of the Heart (1995). On her way home from school, Haru, a confused 17-year-old, prevents an elegant gray cat from being hit by a truck. She's inadvertently saved the life of Lune, Prince of the Cat Kingdom, and his royal father decides to thank her. He fills her locker with gift-wrapped mice and decides she should come to his kingdom and marry Lune. Haru seeks help from the Cat Bureau, and eventually returns to relatively normal life, with the assistance of Muta and the Baron.
The Cat Returns recalls Whisper of the Heart and Takashi Nakamura's Catnapped, but it offers neither the wistful charm of the former nor the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Chizuru Ikewaki - Yoshihiko Hakamada Director(s): Hiroyuki Morita DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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