Armitage III: Poly-Matrix

I am a relative newcomer to Anime having only seen about 9 or so feature length films and episodes from about 6 different TV shows. Someone recommended Armitage I'm glad I saw it. Although not as popular as Ghost in the Shell or Akira it is the best I've seen after those two. Like most anime Armitage is set in the near future. In this case probably about 2050, on Mars.

Armitage suffers from a few minor plots holes and some visual problems but not too much worse then any movie. Armitage herself sometimes has some inhuman facial expressions (like most anime, think Dragonball Z but not ass exagerated as Slayers) This movie has a great plot and although, yes, it is a similar plot to Blade Runner, by definition so does any cop and androids movie. Besides Blade Runner wasn?t even the first with that plot? just the first really popular one. No one says Under Siege ripped off Die Hard just ?cause they are both about the good guy being in the right place to beat on some terrorists. (Sorry I just hate when people think that anything with a simlar plot HAD to have ripped it off) Anyway...

The plot is a little more developed then some anime but again, not as good as Ghost in the Shell although that may come from being put together from a miniseries with some scenes removed. Someday I?ll have to see the original four episodes. Armitage has a great sound track that goes well with the animation and plot. Visually it is average, not as nice as Ghost, or Akira but better than Dragonball Z or Titan AE.

I've often heard comments about how much anime "rips-off" other sources, usually blatantly. I can often see influences of other movies and tales in anime, but rarely is it such that the anime loses its soul... ...but then I saw Armitage III and understood.

Granted, I saw (1) the compiled "movie" version, and (2) the English dub version (neither qualities that I enjoy in my anime), but Armitage is just a rip-off of Blade Runner, and not a very good one at that.

I wasn't that thrilled with the animation- it reminded me of American "serious" animation, rather than anime; the voice-acting is bad, too; Elizabeth Berkeley is the saving grace (!) of the whole thing, providing a nice distraction from Kiefer Sutherland's wooden dialogue. As Armitage, she is tough, vulnerable, sexy, and naive at the same time. Kief is like one of the voice actors for the English-dialogue version of Megazone 23 part II... emotionless, and sounds like an automatic reading machine. Bleah.

Not recommended.

Here's why: Armitage is awesome!!She's soo totally in-your-face Ross is kinda good looking for a cartoon character. It keeps you thinking & questioning things all the way through. It's got everything a great show needs: corruption, murder, romance, mystery, suspense,Great fight scenes,Cool outfits.....need I go on?? The ending rocks.

Alright a full length feature of Armitage III, all the episodes on one tape and in wide screen. Well not quite. Wide screen is a good thing, and the voice actors for Ross and Armitage were alright, I've seen the actors do better though. Although this movie was watchable and still somewhat entertaining the original 4 episodes were much much better. The problem with the full-length feature was that it was cut down around 30 to 40 minutes shorter then what it would have been if all the episodes where put together. I don't even understand why this was done its not like the movie would have been unduly long, just around two hours. This creates problems and big plot holes. The characters get shallow due to cutting as well, In the movie version it doesn't get into the big reason why Ross hates robots, or why Armitage gets so mad when she's called a monster. If you get any chance to rent or buy Armitage III get the 4 episodes and not the movie.

My rating on the episodes 8.

This is a really cool movie. The animation is spectacular and the story is enough to keep you interested. It's a good length too, compared to most anime movies. Too bad I couldn't find a subtitled version out there. If you see it in a video store it's definitely worth picking up.