Deddo ribusu

If Madhouse's Redline is a "flashy action ride", then Dead Leaves is a "nuts-to-the-wall flashy tripped-out action ride on speed". The movie's high-contrast comic book-like visuals had me expecting something unique, but I don't think I could properly have prepared myself for just how unique Dead Leaves turns out to be. The comic book style applies not only to the frequently grotesque characters and outlandish scenery, but also to the cinematography itself with several "panels" often being shown on screen at the same time, sound effects appearing as actual floating words, and unusual framing used to emphasize certain parts of the scenes. The narrative begins with the protagonists, Retro (a TV-headed man) and Pandy (a woman with a mysterious red spot over her right eye) waking up naked and without their memories only to go on a crime spree which gets them sent for life to a prison on the moon called Dead Leaves. Not for the straitlaced or faint of heart, Dead Leaves' mere 52 minutes zoom by at break-neck speed in a flurry of explosions, gore, sex and nudity, but if you can stomach the off-the-wall content you're in for a very enjoyable if lamentably brief anime experience.

As the above reviews imply this flick is utter insanity, but brilliant insanity! Thoughtful, creative and brutally raw Dead Leaves is essentially a Japanese acid trip in prison. Full pointless filthy creations that can quite literally only work and defecate! The creators are not surprisingly complete lunatics (But just the sort of guys you would love to have a drink with). The directors commentary is hilarious, opening with the pair discussing how long they have been in the bar drinking before even mentioning the film itself.

Involving the producers of Ghost in the Shell, three drunken Japanese legends claimed to have blown nearly the entire budget in the first ten minutes of the picture. A Dramatic but classic car chase between our protagonists' (one with a TV on his head, the other a strange clown looking woman.) Who set out on a ten-minute trail of destruction through an urban futuristic city, until their exploits dump them into the highest security prison on the moon.

The budget constrictions become so obvious throughout the rest of the picture but rather than holding back, these constraints actually add to films aesthetic affect. It's a comedy more than anything and these financial problems heighten the comedic factor to a great extent. Also the animation is inventive and affective, a simplistic style of animation that would in fact require enormous artistic talent on the part of the animators. Very typical of the best new styles of animation whereby extreme complexity creates a beautifully simplistic image. (Cartoon Networks Samurai Jack being a great example of such an animative style.) Dead Leaves is great fun, a new experience and not for faint-hearted or over conservative. As I say it's raw, brutal and blunt; the writers have held back in no respects whatsoever, putting the true dark extremities of the human consciousness into a comic script. So for fans of the genre or newbie's who want to see something crazy, off world and unimaginable – Dead Leaves is well worth a watch. You may feel slightly offended but will certainly not miss 55 minutes of your life! Enjoy.

This is a movie about visuals.. and absurd, over the top fun. An enjoyable ~60 minutes for your mind to take a rest. Let the mind take a break, seat it comfortably and allow the colorful animation splash a bucket of weird Japanese imagination to your face. I must say that this movie is best viewed without the subtitles. When I first was watching it without them I decided to turn the subtitles on so I could follow the story, but right after that I missed half of the anime's lively visuals. So if you really are interested in getting the full experience and don't know Japanese I would recommend to watch this one twice, once to get the story, and second time to actually enjoy the amazing animation.

Let me preface this by saying I don't watch a lot of anime, and when I do it's Howl's Moving Castle, or something along those lines. I think I came across Dead Leaves by googling for abstract or surreal movies or something like that, and the synopsis intrigued me so...why not?

The good: inventively insane visuals, unusual but effective animation style

The bad: everything else. Terrible, repetitive music. The plot is somewhere between flimsy and nonexistent. The characters are just vehicles for crude humor and gruesome violence, with no merit of their own.

I watched with interest for about 20 minutes as things just got progressively weirder and weirder, but it eventually became clear that the movie was going to just be an endless stream of pointless violence and crude humor and that's all, so I turned it off. If you already know and are familiar with this type of anime then maybe it will work for you. If you're looking for any degree of substance, then keep looking.

This is what happens when some of the most talented and creative people in japanimation get really drunk. A vulgar, violent, sexy caleidoscope of an acid trip that is simultaneously a love letter to japanimation and a parody of all its cliches, set to driving Yoko Kanno beats. In short it's plain freakin' awesome.

This came out around the same time as Masaaki Yuasa's mindgame and even almost 20 years later both still feel like the future of animation. Yuasa with his sketchy lines and paintbrush beauty, Imaishi with his vector-like graphical clarity and excess.

The story of Dead Leaves is simple. Two convicts from a lunar prison facility, Pandy and Retro, awaken on earth with no memory of their past and immediately get pursued by the cops. Wickedness and shenanigans ensue.

It's definitely a unique trip and a good introduction to Hiroyuki Imaishi's aesthetic that continues to evolve and refine, as evidenced in the recent opus Promare which managed to gain a more mainstream audience than Dead Leaves will ever have. Which is by design mind you.

It's beautiful madness from beginning to end, gleefully indulgent in sex and violence which are both played for laughs and can be exhausting if you don't know what you're in for. That is not to say it's ever just random. Every frame despite the excess is drawn with a level of taste, purpose and clarity that is rather unique to this day. It's basically the visualization of a great electro punk album and a testament to the creativity of Japanese animators. A promise to the future by Imaishi that he continues to keep.

Makes for a great double feature with his more recent short "Sex and violence with mach speed".