Appleseed

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.

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.

Appleseed is an anime based on Masamune Shirows manga of the same name before he became famous with Ghost in the Shell in the mid nineties. Being released just before Akira it got unfavorably compared with the latter and could never hope to reach the bar that was set so high by Katsuhiro Otomo's creation.

This is in fact the first installment of the Appleseed franchise although there is a gap of 16 years between this OVA and the 2004 movie.

Although this 1 hour OVA never covers the entire manga, in terms of plot and story it still does a good job albeit the story being kept rather simple. Nevertheless the philosophical and political tropes of Shirow are well dealt with albeit not so deep as in Ghost in the Shell or in the two later Appleseed-installments.

Animation-wise it is clearly a product of an era before Akira gave anime that huge boost.

If you like cyberpunk anime from the 1980s and early nineties and if you enjoyed Shirows earlier work from the same era, like Black Magic M-66 (1987) or Dominion Tank Police (1988), then you will surely like Appleseed the OVA.

Based on the manga (comic) of well-known artist Masamune Shirow, this animated feature was a slight disappointment to me.

The story is good, but the animation is merely "OK" while it could/should have been mindblowing. The movie is IMO adequate, but seems somehow flat & uninspired, if you know what I mean. A wasted opportunity, if you consider that another work by Shirow, "Ghost In The Shell", is considered a classic in many respects. It set new standards for Japanese animation, and spawned, among other things, a brilliant series called "GiTS: Stand Alone Complex".

I consider this worth a rental, unless you're a fan of Shirow and want it all. Do check out the original manga, which comes highly recommended.

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***