Meikyû monogatari

I was lucky enough to obtain this film off an online auctions. And this is my review the film displays three short stories all extremely trippy.

The first one involves a girl, a circus, a cat and a mirror and a parade of very odd animals. This one makes you feel like your on acid at one point.

The second on is called the running man about a psionic race car driver who pushes his limits. Very Cool.

The third one contains probaly the most talking out of all three. itis a grim sardonic comedy about a man who can't stop a robot crew from working. it has a very ironic ending.

"Labyrinth Tales" is a very peculiar art-house "mini-collection" of three short stories, one of which, perhaps, has become a classic. I won't say that this is the most pleasant and fascinating spectacle, but definitely quite original, not constrained by the clichés of the anime industry. The plot opens with a story in the atmosphere of "Something wicked this way comes" by Ray Bradbury about a girl and her cat who do not listen her mother and fall into an ominous carnival through the mirror. There they are shown two more stories, the first of which, "The Running Man", has taken on a life of its own.

This story, at one time, was rated as the weakest, but it is still looks the most impressive. First of all, due to its naturalistic cruelty, combined with static and meditativeness. But I would note psychology. The story is sustained in a gloomy cyberpunk style. The unbeaten champion of racing, having lost his former grip, is no longer able to withstand competitors. He is exhausted by the constant tension of the competition. But ambitions doe not let him go - these are all that is left of him. Therefore, he decides to win the losing race at any cost - by simply blowing up the cars of rivals with telekinesis. However, even left alone on the track, he cannot escape from the slavery of his ambitions. He is locked in a labyrinth of his own passions. It begins to seem to him that he is still being overtaken - by the younger ghost of himself. Monitor shows that his heart has stopped and the driver of the car is dead, but the dead man is the first (and only) to cross the finish line, continuing the race with his own ghost to complete self-destruction. The dead racer is driven only by his ambitions, which first made him to "remove the obstacles" to the goal - to murder other pilots - and then murdered him too.

The second story (Construction Cancellation Order) is more like an ironically absurd story by Robert Sheckley. A Japanese company employee arrives at a flood-damaged, jungle besieged automated construction site in a third world country to investigate what happened to the former site manager and decide to cancell construction or not. However, AI-controlled construction develops according to its own laws. It seems that the machines must withstand the chaos of the jungle advancing from all sides, but they only multiply the chaos themselves, going crazy in an attempt to realize a meaningless task. Ultimately, the new manager has to fight not so much with the life-affirming chaos of nature, but with the meaningless, self-destructive chaos of pseudo-intelligent machines, looking for the central computer in the labyrinth of mechanisms.

As for the girl and her cat, they themselves become part of the carnival chaos, seemingly never getting out of their labyrinth.

I really enjoyed this. It had everything that Robot Carnival did not – vibrancy, humour, charm, originality, and something interesting to offer. It also does not make the mistake of being too long. Though I wouldn't really call the majority of this OAV "experimental", this style of films, with quirky, avant-garde direction tend to get boring and repetitive over time. The three shorts that make up this collection keep it snappy, and sacrifice none of their brilliance for doing so.

The opening feature, directed by the infamous Rintaro, sets the scene for a child's fantasy, only to twist in a morbid direction near the end to present the following two, darker tales.

What is it about cats and anime/manga? They must surely be the most common animal/sidekick. The fat black example in this piece reminds me of the bad-ass star of the Legend of the Galactic Pirates, not to mention the brilliant What's Michael manga by Makoto Kobayashi. The piece presents a dreamy neko-fantasy world of childhood imagination and modern art. I was reminded of more of Rintaro and Madhouse's work, for example Doomed Megalopolis or CLAMP's Tokyo Babylon. I liked it a lot, though it did almost seem out of place in light of the second two episodes.

The middle piece is easily the weakest, though not without it's charm. A well-used scenario in manga and anime forms the basis of Yoshiaki Kawajiri's (The Cockpit, Barefoot Gen) effort – high-speed, deadly races. Think Battle Angel Alita/Ashen Victor, Venus Wars, etc. It is good, however. In fact it is almost terrifying in places. The plot revolves around a seasoned pilot of superstar status. He has stayed alive longer than most, and suffers terrible stress as a result. He also just happens to have extraordinary mental abilities. The idea is stupid and the plot is tired, but bear in mind that this is more than 20 years old now, and the scenery designs are poetic Japanese visions of the future at their best. Characters resemble the best aspects of The Legend of the Four Kings or Golgo 13, and the music is fitting, and good.

Katsuhiro Ōtomo's short finishes the OAV. A lot of people go mental about this film from what I've read. It is indeed good, but comments like "a shorter Akira!!!" are wrong. The only real similarities are in the designs, and that's what happens when an anime director makes two films, dumbass.

The Order to Stop Construction, as it is called, concerns another well used concept in Japanese media – the tool becoming independent. Robots are employed to construct an immense complex in inhospitable climes, but someone gets their wires crossed (get it?) and the robotic interpretation of commands is not up for negotiation. Again, the scenery designs are fantastic – intricate and gritty in typical Ōtomo style, and the characters and robots also carry his trademark blocky look. Scenes of rainforest are not often featured in Ōtomo's work, preferring as he does visions of the concrete jungle, but here they are beautiful, and sit comfortably with the huge structures of the project as the endless process of growth and regrowth characterized by the dumb robots as well. So beautiful, in fact, that I'm reminded of Kunihiko Yuyama's awesome Windaria. No small praise indeed.

I was reminded of the existence of Neo Tokyo whilst researching Robot Carnival. Both are supposed to be "experimental anime" of a similar variety. That is wrong. The only thing the two anthologies have in common is the involvement of Katsuhiro Ōtomo. Robot Carnival sucks.

Something else which Neo Tokyo achieves which Robot Carnival cannot, is that it hasn't aged. Whilst Robot Carnival had a soundtrack of 80s disco and designs of frumpy 80s Japan, Neo Tokyo has managed to avoid such rubbish, despite being made before the former. One thing it didn't get right, or rather we in the West didn't, was the dubbing. It's bloody awful, and I was thankful for the dual-language file. The acting is bad, and the actors are miscast. Douchebags.

Is there a connection between these shorts? Do they take place in the same universe? No. Do they share a theme? No. Are they all sci-fi? Well, two are, but the first one isn't. The first two take place at night, but the last mostly during the day. Nothing on the surface is shared, although they each have a similar style and sense of imagination.

There's not much to say about this short movie. The stories are quite simple, although one is silent and vague. They're just quick glimpses into other worlds. But I liked each one of them. They're interesting, mysterious, and well-animated. There are better anthology films, but this is perfectly fine for a watch. If it interests you, give it a shot. There aren't too many movies like it.

Before X, before Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, before Akira, there was Neo Tokyo, a fine blend of high-end animation and artistic expression, as well as experimentation. This is far from the typical "big eyes, small mouth" anime with big guns, big robots, and girls with big, um, "talents". In other words, this is not your younger siblings' anime.

The first selection, "Labyrinth" by Rin Taro, is a child's imagination run wild. If Cirque de Soleil was animated, it would be this. A little girl and her faithful cat cross over into a bizarre world via a mirror and are entertained by a mime-like clown, a traveling circus, and a surreal world of high walls and mindboggling imagery. Much like the imagination of a child, this is not a short to be analyzed, picked over, and dissected. "Labyrinth" is meant to be simply enjoyed. Other than the basic storyline, the short bounces around at a moment's notice from one scene to another and doesn't seem to fit together at all, but in the end it does. This piece is what I like to call "moving artwork". Several of the scenes could be plucked from the screen and hung on a wall.

The second short was a favourite of MTV's "Liquid Television" in the early 90's. Yoshiaki Kawajiri's "The Running Man" tells the story of a driver who has been surviving death-defying form of racing for ten years. It's a brilliant accomplishment and unfortunately, one that's been wearing on him, since other drivers are dead in a year. A reporter begins covering the driver's unstoppable career and accidently discovers why this man always wins. Finally, the stress of tempting death night after night breaks him and in an instant, all hell breaks loose. The design of the characters is very realistic, atypical for early to mid-80's anime. The speed and look of the racing vehicles is fluid and the piece is never boring, even sticking around with you after the very end. Despite the morbid nature of this short, I honestly believe that "The Running Man" should be part of Speedvision's Lost Drive-In collection.

The finale could easily be subtitled "The Akira Experiment Project". Three years before he would reshape the world of anime forever, Katsuhiro Otomo wrote and directed "The Order To Stop Construction", the tale of a hapless Japanese executive sent to shut down an overblown project in a tropical rainforest powered by robots and void of humans. Unfortunately, what stands between him and his orders is a foreman robot on a strict work schedule that it is hellbent on keeping, so much that the last human sent to supervise the place has disappeared without a trace. Despite the fact that the worker robots and the machines they operate keep exploding day in and day out, the foreman is convinced that if the others work just a little bit harder, it can meet the ever important deadline and nothing is going to stop that, including the human sent out to do so. Every element of "Akira" can be seen here, from character and vehicle designs to pipe movements and mud bubbles. It's like watching a mini-version of "Akira" without any psychic goings-on. Also like "Akira", "The Order To Stop Construction" is also a bit of social satire, making fun of the important and somewhat overbearing work ethic of the Japanese. My only complaint is the dubbing. The original Japanese language with subtitles would have added a bit more to this instead of the weak English voice-acting. This short would have been a fun addition to the "Akira" special addition recently released, as well as an important one.

This fine, yet brief, collection of mid-80's animation from Japan is definitely worthy of DVD consideration and it's a shame that it hasn't received one as of yet.