Armitage III: Poly-Matrix

Armitage has long been one of my favorite animes. It's hard to describe much of the story without giving away at least small bits of the plot, I'll be rather brief. The basics of the story is about a cop, Ross, who travels to Mars and meets a female officer named Naomi Armitage. They get involved in solving a murder case involving a famous country singer.

The singer is found to be, shockingly, a machine. Issues are brought up about robots and the rights of machines. The robots are divided into various types, Seconds and the rumored mysterious Thirds take center stage. Many questions are raised and debated as the story progresses, it's very well written and thought out.

Ross himself is pretty much a normal Earth cop. He's calm and calculating where Naomi is quicker to act and fight. They make quite a great team. Ross pretty much gets dragged into the whole mess and keeps things well grounded. He stays cool under pressure and generally makes for one tough cop. Naomi is from the very outset a hardcore energetic fighter. She gets the job done using her own methods and lets no one stand in her way. If you make it through this movie without a soft spot for Naomi, you need to watch it again.

As the story progresses, clues appear and we dig deeper into the backgrounds of Ross and Naomi. The characters forge a friendship with new characters and enemies become clear and yet mysteries shroud everything. It will keep you guessing all the way through.

All in all, It's a very interesting anime that has managed to stay one of my absolute favorites for many years. It's well written, has plenty of action, and very memorable main characters. If you've never seen it, give it a shot. You'll have a great time.

• Rirath_com

I watched this a couple of times on the Science Fiction channel, before they became Syfy and now only seem to show the worst movies ever. This was during the day when they used to show lots of animes, granted I realize that anime movies just are not as popular as they were back in the late 90's early 2000's, but they are still better than giant snake monster vs deadly armadillo or some of their rip off movies like "The Day the Earth Stopped". This one had a bit of mystery to it at first and that what was so good about it. These two cops, I think one was a female cyborg or something were doing some investigating. I wish I could be more specific, but it has been a long times since I saw this one. It sort of has a Ghost in the Shell feel to it, but sadly the end of the movie is a strange shoot up action scene that kind of does not fit into the rest of the plot as well. Still, it was entertaining, one of those films that I would prefer to watch in its entirety without commercial interruption and in the original Japanese language rather than the English Dub, though I liked that Kiefer Sutherland did the voice of the dude (was not so wild about Berkely though). I remember this movie in bits and pieces, I sort of remember like a cyborg or robot killer, some strange fight scene involving this giant thing and a scientist. I just can't remember as much as I would have liked. Perhaps I can find this one on DVD and buy it and when I watch it again I can edit this review and be more helpful on the plot. However, I do know that I liked it enough to watch it twice and that the first hour or more of the film is grand while the last bit, while not bad just does not compete with the first part of the film.

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.

Having seen both the 4-episode OAV version of Armitage III and the Armitage III Polymatrix DVD, I note some interesting differences between the versions. Particularly interesting is the fact that the Polymatrix cinematic movie version was done _only_ in English, and subsequently subtitled for Japanese viewing--that's how the Japanese wanted it. There is no corresponding subtitled version of Polymatrix; it's an English-only film.

Polymatrix alters the storyline of the OAV series slightly, cutting a few scenes and adding a bit of new animation. It also adds two new voice actors, replacing the OAV dub cast: Kiefer Sutherland and Elizabeth Berkley as the two leads. For the most part, these cuts are acceptable; they improve the pacing of the movie at the cost of some additional story and characterization. While I was watching, I hardly missed what was cut. (For those who are concerned with seeing the whole story, the four OAV episodes should be viewed, preferably in the subtitled versions.) The ending is also changed slightly, and seems to me to make more sense in this version.

The storyline of Armitage III is set on a colonized Mars, and concerns itself with a new third generation of robots ("Thirds") that can actually think and create. A madman by the name of Renee D'anclaude has found out about these Thirds and is going around killing them. What is less clear, and somewhat confusing even when it is explained late in the movie, is _why_. It took repeated viewings of the OAVs, then finally the movie itself, for me to figure out the full political motivations behind the murders--and why it was that the Thirds stood in the way of an important political treaty between Earth and Mars.

Although Armitage III becomes somewhat confusing in the last twenty minutes, it nonetheless is an interesting and thought-provoking movie that should not be missed.

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.