Robot Carnival

Original title: Robotto kânibaru

Video
1987
Unrated
1h 30m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Adult Animation Anime Animation Comedy Drama Fantasy Sci-Fi

A collection of short stories, made by different animators with "robot" as the working title.A collection of short stories, made by different animators with "robot" as the working title.A collection of short stories, made by different animators with "robot" as the working title.

See production info at IMDbPro

Top cast26

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Kôji Moritsugu

Toymaker
(voice)

Yayoi Maki

Android
(voice)

Keiko Hanagata

Wife
(voice)

Kumiko Takizawa

Grown Daughter
(voice)
…

Aya Murata

Daughter
(voice)

Nariko Fujieda

Granddaughter
(voice)

Satoru Inagaki

Man
(voice)

Hideyuki Umezu

Man
(voice)

Ikuya Sawaki

Man
(voice)

Hidehiro Kikuchi

Kid
(voice)

Daisuke Namikawa

Kid
(voice)

Tatsuhiko Nakamura

Kid
(voice)

Kei Tomiyama

Sankichi
(voice)

Chisa Yokoyama

Yayoi
(voice)

Katsue Miwa

Fukusuke
(voice)

Kaneto Shiozawa

Denjiro
(voice)

Toku Nishio

Daimaru
(voice)

James R. Bowers

Volkeson
(voice)

User reviews25

Featured review

10/10

Truly great

Originally saw this back in the early nineties as a part of Sci-Fi's Saturday Anime. To this day, through all of the anime films/series I've seen, this still reigns as the greatest. No anime fan will be disappointed with this film, even those who aren't fans of the genre should enjoy this flick. It is sad that this film didn't get very much exposure in the States, as it easily could have been subject to awards. A great example of a film students interperetive dream; Trying to develop a correlation between all of the shorts (outside of their all contain robots), pulling some greater meaning from the movie. Yea, it's one of those types of movie, that appears to be on a higher philosophical level than just your average entertainment.

Trivia
The segment "Nightmare" was influenced by the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment from Disney's "Fantasia" feature film & the "Sleepy Hollow" segment from Disney's "The Adventures of Icabod & Mr. Toad". The main villain towers over his minions as they dance below (in almost the same animated motion, as in "Fantasia"). At one point the villain scoops them up with his giant hand & drops them, in the same fashion. Also, the human in the scene looks a lot like Icabod Crane, with his huge hook nose & giant ears. There's even a part when the man turns his head completely around, just like Icabod does in his film. The chase between the robot & the man mimics the chase between Icabod & the Headless Horseman.

Alternate versions
The version released in the United States by Streamline Pictures has the following differences compared to the original Japanese release:
Dialog in the segments Presence and A Tale of Two Robots was dubbed into English (even the dialog of John Jack Walkerson III, which was already in English with Japanese side titles, was re-dubbed.)
The order in which the interior segments were shown was altered. In the Japanese version, the order was: 1. Franken's Gears 2. Deprive 3. Presence 4. Starlight Angel 5. Cloud 6. A Tale of Two Robots 7. Nightmare In the Streamline version, the order was: 1. Franken's Gears 2. Starlight Angel 3. Cloud 4. Deprive 5. Presence 6. A Tale of Two Robots 7. Nightmare
A short segment to signify the end of the film was moved from after the credits to just before the credits.
Part of the credits which showed a series of still shots of the Robot Carnival while it was in its glory years (but included Japanese titles) was replaced with a series of character sketches with English titles.