Appleseed (1988)
Urban combat in the city of dreams.
Welcome back to this weeks episode as slightly younger than me anime, where we go back to the time just past the dinosaurs when we had colors and animation in the same spot. Eighties anime was a thing, and let me say that it won’t be for everyone after folks have gotten “the good stuff” from modern times. If you got lucky enough to experience a still picture with seizure inducing sharp-cut lines in the background over extend talk sections to cut the budget, you already know what I’m talking about - still, everything needs to start somewhere. Tonight’s entry started a lot more still with an artist over in Japan with a very recognizable style if you know, and between then and now has gotten multiple whacks at cinema in various forms of animation and has inspired a whole lot in the lines of one of my personal interests - mecha. Oh yeah, big old stompy bots are back baby, tonight we watch Appleseed.
Some lady throws herself out a window after comparing herself to a bird without being able to escape her cage, and then we get a nice little text scroll setting things up. War is bad, a lot of places got worse, and above it all rises the one great city filled with Biodroids - basically grown and cloned folks that are really built to be happy with where they are and what they are doing. The great utopia known as Olympus is pretty great, but not without some crime and terrorist activities - as one could expect from a place that’s run by something that isn’t human (or with how humans are honestly, even if it was run by humans). Two folks on the police force are out there busting some of these criminals, and when a bunch of their fellow cops get body bagged by an escaping terrorist, they make it their mission to track him down and bring him to justice. As would be the case with movies though, not everything is all as it seems, and the stakes might be a bit higher than anyone suspects.
Let me get this straight out of the way - you watch it english dubbed (like it has on Amazon) and you’ll know this thing was from the 80s. Part of how you know that is because they love to curse. Being someone who isn’t removed from having to watch their mouth in public, it’s not something I find offensive but it is funny how edgy and cool it was always presented as before we hit the modern times of it just being “normal.” The other thing I would point out is what some might have already noticed had they watched it - English spelling isn’t the greatest in this movie, be it subs or just the on-screen english. It’s a problem back when - not as many well versed translators, budgets, or desire to really put forth the effort I’d suppose. You will, for example, between subtitles and screen signs be presented with at least 3 different ways to spell Olympus. You know - home of the Greek gods like Zeuss and all that? How about instead we try Olumpus, Olunpos, and Olompus? That part stands out pretty boldly, but if you are familiar with the source stuff you’ll probably find the butchering of character names a bit more offensive - particularly our big rabbit-eared cyborg friend Briareos who ends up somehow being Bularios. It doesn’t matter in the run of the movie or anything of that, but it’s a rare occasion I can point something like that out.
Acting, as you might guess, is a mixed bag at best. There are time the voice actors do a great job, like at one point where after running a crap ton one of the characters actually sounds winded as they are delivering their line. There’s also other times where it’s not as great, but not necessarily the actors fault ( like when you get an “huh” or “hmm” out of nowhere). You also get some pretty cheese lines coming out at times, but at the same time there is only so much you can with your voice and at least the mains were doing a passable job. It’s not phoned in, although at times the quality might sound that way - I’d wager most of any problems that crop up in the english dub is going to be from the gymnastics of trying to force English “close enoughs” into Japanese lines and structures. The remaining little bit of bad would just be lines just not holding up because of the time.
Stop or my biodroid will shoot!
Characters are here, but you might be surprised to find out when it comes to character advancement you’ll find most of it isn’t really existent. Now, having said that the main bad guy does have a reason - much like Thanos, perhaps a bit half-cocked and confused, but a reason none the less. It’s even a halfway decent reason in a way - in that same sense the because my toe was stubbed by a chair the chair deserves to go down a flight of stairs - but at least it’s better than just evil for evil sake which is what the other bad guy kind of feels like. Our other characters don’t really progress in much way, and most of their drive is given off as a “justice” kind of scenario. Baking into the old feeling though, it is funny to watch our main character feel really stupid when a character says the most obvious and suspicious stuff you can do without outright saying “I’m a bad guy” and not so much as getting a whiff that he might be up to something.
Animation is pretty good, but take it with a grain of salt if you want to compare it to modern things. It’s very much an 80’s sort of thing - hairdos, not too overly detailed but with enough lines on clothes to make it look like it’s not just a blob of color in an outline. Colors are pretty good and vivid for the most part, and I’d say that the actual animation itself is pretty good in motion as well. It also contains some details you wouldn’t even really think about, like the tilt of a car invoking just how much all those cyber-replacement parts in the male lead weigh. The mechs (called Landmates) and the big spider-tank are also all pretty swell looking, with a very noticeable “little pilot arms” on the normal mechs that are a bit of a calling card of Shirow’s designs - and why it ends up feeling a bit obvious when people are influenced by his stuff.
Audio isn’t always meshing the mood on screen, but it’s got a bunch of energy to it at least. I also don’t not like the music, it’s just sometimes the happy, upbeat synthy shopping music doesn’t quite fit with “we are helicoptering in after a giant tank that’s trying to blow us up” that happens. Line deliveries are good enough, but do suffer some from the olden-days translation jobs and scripting - how much is to which part I couldn’t tell you, but I’m not really faulting any one thing for it. I figure there are some things in here, put somewhat bluntly by our main villain, for the thinking part. You could also spin the whole synthetic person thing as an AI thing to kind or rephrase the entire thinking load of the movie. Some quick bullet points; humans being naturally violent, not liking being told what to do or having every thing done for them, rising up against the non-humans because they aren’t humans and therefore shouldn’t be in charge of us, and of course the classic “group in power” situations such as overstepping or having too much control.
Police might have a higher body count then terrorists here.
It was a nice enough start for the franchise, although I’d say I do enjoy some of the later attempts more. I enjoy the landmate designs, although some of the cop ones in here feel a tad simplified to me for some strange reason even though they really aren’t. I think it might be because the heads are kind of plain, especially compared to the construction-looking ones used by terrorists. The hero’s outfits end up being far more plain everyday cop looking attire in this go round as well - and despite there being a bunch of violence, nothing gets real graphic so the most offensive stuff you get is the cussing. It’s a cool starting point, but the more detailed and sometimes far more spicey designs of Shirow (I mean, just look at the movie’s box art compared to how the actual screen caps look) does make the anime seem a little less cool. The flick itself is a decent quick little romp though, so if you dig some cop stuff and some old school anime vibes, perhaps check it out.