Appleseed

This anime is unique on the grounds that it explores more 'science-fact' rather than 'science fiction,' and makes the viewer believe much of what is being viewed is a factual prediction of the future earth.

Appleseed, which is based on the 1985 manga of the same name, is set in the post-apocalyptic aftermath of WWIII. A new breed of governemnet and scraped what remains of the world's government to put together an experimental utopia, 'Olypus' suposidly free of the past-world's troubles and strives. Deunan Natt, and Buliareous Heckatonickles are two of the best in the Police Force, and just when they thought they couldn't get more bullets coming their way, they're asigned to takeout a camatose terroist, AJ Sebastian, who's goal it is to destory Olympus. on the gorunds of it 'enslaving' human destiny.

Firstly, anyone who watches this can see how cheesy it is, but despite this, theres is alot more to consider about it than meets the eye. For stance, your confussed into believing who is the real bad guy-- the terrorist's moral values outway those of the Police & Government, yet what they're doing is rightly good also.

The animation goes from strength to strength, and isn't anything like AKIRA, but it's moderate for 80's B movie OVAs. The mecha design is seemingly bizzare, but factual and controversial. There are also references to make us aware of the physics side of the technolodgy used. One thing which puzzled me about this anime were that there were contious references towards greek mytholodgy, especiallin the characters names.

The analogue quality of the film though, doggs the whole thing from start to finish, with poor lighting, and fuzzy AV-recording.

All around, it's a highly enjoyable watch, with some laughable scnes in place, if your into anime of cause. ***8/10***

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.

A good anime and faithful (loyal, adequate) to the manga.

This animate movie, from the manga of Masamume Shirow "Appleseed", remains faithful. It includes the design, the characters and theirs characters, the tone and his comic, and one of the major story lines of the world of "Appleseed" are developed . Namely, through the city Olympus, the new world created for humans after the major global conflicts and their management by broods race created to manage and keep safe the humans. This "golden cage", as it's call in the animate movie, poses ethical problems through governance for the human world by non-human entities.

We can be a little unfortunate (disappointed) that the introduction out of the Olympus from the manga, is deliberately set aside to penetrate directly into the film's plot and probably to be consistent with the desired duration. But this shelving (lack) is recovered by a sequence in the film where the role (part) of Hitomi is explained about it.

The action, intrigue and pace (rhythm) of the film is very consistent. It's a very satisfactory achievement for this time and probably his budget.

The soundtrack is unobtrusive (discrete) but perfectly accompanies the action. A good and faithful manga.

The film is short (a little bit more than 1H) with a very good "rythm".

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.

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.