ANIME REVIEW: Appleseed Alpha (2014)
The work of Masmune Shirow never ceases to amaze me. His control over lines, shade, and the very idea of the man-machine interaction is something I have always loved to see and watch. Sure, it tends to be highly sexualized in the eyes of many, but it’s his artwork — he does what he wants. And it is anime, after all — a medium driven mostly by social malcontents (not meant as a pejorative term in the slightest). The animated works surrounding his manga, like the popular Ghost in the Shell, Dominion Tank Police, and the legendary Black Magic M-66 are always great, but one stands out to me for its greater themes of positivity: Appleseed. The adventures of post-apocalyptic soldiers Deunan Knute and Briareos in the attempted utopia of Olympus have always captured my attention, and the latest Appleseed entry is no slouch.
Appleseed Alpha is a prequel, set before Deunan and Briareos come to Olympus. This was back when they were a couple of scrappy mercenaries in postwar/post-apocalyptic New York City trying to make it tomorrow. The duo try to do odd jobs, but can never seem to break even. A job to clear out Ostrich droids in what used to be the outer boroughs of New York City changes all that, and puts them into direct contact with agents from Olympus. Deunan and Briareos know next to nothing about Olympus, which is why their encounter with those chasing the Olympian agents is quite surprising. The duo get wrapped up in it when confronted with a choice to change, and find out the secret the Olympian agents were willing to die for.
The animation and lip-synching was pretty good with Deunan and the Olympian agents, and the cyborg designs were top notch. The care to make Deunan seem as realistic as possible were reflected in the way her eyes and mouth worked, but were lost in light of her being a soldier without sufficient body armor (particularly over vital organs in her torso). I wanted to see more about the post-apocalyptic world of Appleseed — namely whether the movie’s ending would synch up with the beginning of the 2004 movie. Also in Appleseed Alpha, they talked a lot about the non-nuclear war but nothing about the meteor shower that destroyed the northern hemisphere of Earth — the one that wiped Beijing off the map and turned Europe and North America into Swiss cheese. That would have been a good thing to work with and its implications, but since it wasn’t a focus in the manga it wasn’t gonna fly in the movie…for some reason. Other than that, it was a treat to see the world outside of Olympus — the majority of settings in previous Appleseed outings have usually been Olympus — and what it really means for Deunan and Briareos to leave.
— previously published 8/13/2016 on Facebook Notes —
