Spriggan

Spriggan (1998) is a relentless action-packed anime that throws logic, subtlety, and storytelling structure out the window in favor of nonstop brawls, explosions, and conspiracy. Based on the manga of the same name, it's very much a product of its time-with visuals, pacing, and dialogue that scream "late 90s anime."

Kevin and I from the K J and A Podcast describe it best: "This movie is 90% action and 10% everything else." That "everything else" includes a loosely strung-together plot about ancient alien technology (OOPArts), government black ops, psionic kids, and an ancient ark capable of controlling weather, life, and stasis-yep, it does everything.

The animation is surprisingly fluid and detailed for the era. The action choreography stands out-especially the city sword fight, the Jeep minigun scene, and the brutal hallway brawl with Fatman. Kevin praised it as "one of the best anime fights from the 90s," while I noted the fight scenes often seemed like "setups for trailers more than natural plot beats."

The characters are mostly archetypes: the brooding teen super-soldier (Yu), the creepy child villain with god powers (McDougal), the cigar-chomping cyborg thug (Fatman), and a handful of scientists there to yell exposition. The story hints at something deeper with Yu's dark past in Project COSMOS, but barely scratches the surface.

It's not essential viewing, but definitely a fun one if you're into 90s anime explosions and overpowered protagonists yelling things like, "I'm a f***ing Spriggan!"

Yu is a member of the group ARCAM; a organization set to hide and stop people from uncovering ancient artifacts. Yu is also a Spriggan, an elite fighting machine. He's strong, fast, agile and extremely deadly. When one of Yu's friend commits suicide with the message that Noah will be your grave, Yu starts to investigate. Colonel MacDougall, a psychic experiment kid, has found Noah's Ark and intends to use it to start a new world.

Spriggan is a visually amazing animation that puts you right into the action. The action sequences are fast paced and intensely violent. The inter film moves at a lightning pace, it doesn't stop to take a breath. So in that respect it isn't boring. But the draw back is the script. At times it seems heavy handed and doesn't explain everything. It doesn't have much depth to it, but its a very interesting topic to use. The action does pick up the flaws of the script, but action cant always save a film from bad writing.

Taking it ques from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Akira, its a wild and extremely fun ride, it just could have been a lot more.

The movie starts out with a fairly typical premise: Japanese High School student, Yu, is actually a super-soldier (A "Spriggan") and part of a secret army that recovers and protects ancient artifacts. From there, however, the movie is anything but typical. Lots of wild, incredibly animated action and over-the-top fighting with an actual plot behind it.

In short, the secret army's just found Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat, Turkey, and they dispatch their best agent, our Yu, to check out what's up. The enemy, the naughty United States military forces, sends their best agents in the U.S. Cybercorps to stop the project and recover the ark. Interestingly enough, these agents are codenamed 'Fatman' and 'Littleboy' - the same names of the two A-bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The movie veers madly between plot scenes and wild, edge-of-your-seat action sequences until it gets to it's stunning, and CGI-assisted finale. Highly recommended, even with it's vague anti-US slant.

This movie had so muh going for it. Great production value, the animation was excellent, and the action, while more-than-a-little over the top, was extremely fluid. But what happened? I just don't know. I think a developed backstory would have helped. Without that, the protagonist guy is little more than a fungible super-powered action star. It's true, it felt way too much like Akira. I've seen countless anime feature films, but for some reason I felt my perspective was too Western to appreciate the way the director tells the story. It's a tough call. Bottom line, I would have preferred rented it than buying it. It's not a "bad" film, and yes it's worth seeing just for it's stylised action-sequences and art, but this isn't the kind of movie you can watch over and again like other anime.

Person who said that Spriggan "isn't revolutionary but is still fun" summed it up best.

Only thing that I found negative was the scenes of really pointless, over-the-top, violence. The only reason Little Boy had the offensive capabilities he had, was so that the viewers could see his victims explode in explosions of gushing blood.

More flash than substance, but still a fun rental.

BTW, the word "Spriggan" (as far as the title reference goes) has nothing to do with the ugly, baby-stealing gnomes of European lore.

"Spriggan" is the "Americanization" of the Japanese word "Supurîgan," which means "Striker" and is the original name of the manga series "Spriggan" is based on.