Venus Wars

I first saw this back on the Sci-Fi Channel when they used to show Anime on Saturday morning at 9 pm. I may have been 15, and it was my first exposure to anime, and I watched every single week. One week they showed Venus Wars, and I loved it when I first saw it. Something about it really stuck with me, atmosphere, story... I never forgot about it. Then recently I had an opportunity to order a copy and I did. I popped it into the DVD player, hoping that it would be as good as I had imagined it... it was. This movie just plain rocks. Every character is textured and believable, and the animation, while not being mind-blowing, is just perfect... it relays the grim reality of war time on Venus perfectly and the atmosphere it generates is what I remembered the most about it.

If you like anime that has an awesome story, good animation, I would suggest tracking this down.

I remember seeing this title in the Anime section at Tower Records years ago, and loosely recall reading about it and maybe seeing a preview or two.

So I bought a copy and was very pleased with a very solid story about a colonized Venus that proved to be an allegory for turmoil in the middle east, complete with massive fire fights, daring heroics, and fanatical religious overtones.

Venus, as some of you may know, is world embroiled by a massive greenhouse effect by sulfuric acid clouds, creating molten like heat on the surface. This film shows us a terra-formed Venus suitable for human habitation. But, humans being humans, they bring their ways, good and bad, with them to the worlds they form to call home.

There's the dashing loner teenager who races bikes for a living, his caring love interest who helps harbor him during times of crisis, the spunky and energetic reporter who is also a one-woman video crew, and the older and wiser veteran bikers and pit crew chief. Then there's the malevolent and monomaniacal Saddam Hussein type who has initiated the entire political conflagration on colonized Venus.

Race scenes, battle scenes, massive tanks and air ships, tracers shooting through the air, espionage--it's all here. The voice acting in the original Japanese language is typical Japanese; marginally over the top, but all the while complimenting the film at the same time. The music is okay (though I can't remember much of it), the translated and dubbed English dialogue is okay, but the restraints and compactness of the Japanese language as usual give the English translation a rushed feel (nothing new to anime fans, or anyone who's seen a dubbed Japanese film).

The animation is above normal for a Japanese feature, but isn't quite up to Disney specs. Still, it's very watchable and entertaining.

Nothing deep here. This is a good simple action film with some comments on the situation in the middle east. Good action and battle sequences, as well as romance and heroics. If you're an anime fan, then give it a shot.

Enjoy.

I saw this movie when it first came out. All i can say is that this movie is what movies are all about, catching your eye, the characters interaction with the environment around them. Suspense, action, Romance, horror, its all here. A story which shows us the trials of finding yourself, and what you have to do when it is time, will you sit there when problems arise or will you fight!? These are the kinds of questions Hiro the main character in this story is asked multiple times throughout the film. Bascically, everything is flawless in this delightful fast paced brilliant movie, Everything from the Characters, colors, trials, scenery to the Music score.

I don't know what the other people are talking about with how it sums up next to Akira, as it is a totally different movie with different choices and situations taking place. Sure it came out around the same time lots of other Anime's came out on sci-fi channel back in the day. Hard to say it is the same kind of film as i don't see any indication of similarity in it. It was a very popular movie for its time as well, not in the US but in Japan, Following many comics re-written to English by dark horse comics and soon following the Venus wars strategy game on the Regular Nintendo system. The fans of this series (movie and comic) could not get enough as I'm sure you will feel the same after seeing this Masterpiece. I still find it to be the greatest 80's anime of all time perfection.

The animation is good for 1989, but the plot is nothing more than an idealized war story with kids. And it is all happening on Venus of all places. The heroes are a bunch of motorcycle kids who want to save their city from the invaders. They are not even alien invaders, just a bunch of other people. They get some weapons, mount a rebellion which amounts to little, but in the process they get the attention of the army proper and they are conscripted. The day is saved.

The problem with the characters is that they are all teens. However annoying they may be, they are acting according to their role. Damn unsympathetic, though. The glory of war pop music on the background was also irritating. Bottom line: lame story, but good animation.

Uinasu senki, a.k.a. Venus Wars, is a pretty good war film. However, I find it lags in some spots, and I never really was a fan of animated characters on a moving live-action backdrop. Other than these minor complaints, the movie is enjoyable.