Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7746 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-09-19
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Formats: Animated, Box set, Dubbed, PAL
• Original language: Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 104 minutes

Synopsis
Based on Masamune Shirow's acclaimed manga, APPLESEED is a haunting and thrilling vision of an apocalyptic future in which human life is slowly being controlled by a new breed of Biodroids, creatures that are half android, half man. In this future, the remnants of the world's governments create a city named Olympus near the Canary Islands designed to be a utopia. However, this utopia is controlled by the Biodroids, and soon the human population has had enough. Rallying together a band of terrorists, the humans decide that they must destroy Gaia, the computer that runs Olympus, thereby freeing themselves and delivering a fatal blow to the reeling superpowers.

Customer Reviews

Eyepopping...
Visually this movie is absolutely top drawer. Wether you like 3D animated movies or not this will have your yaw heading for the floor in minutes. The semi-cell-shaded appearance allows it to keep it's traditional Anime theme but the slickness and pure quality of the 3D animations is breathtaking. Unlike the likes of Final Fantasy, it doesn't try to look real, it tries to look like Anime. In the context of a movie composed from a previous Anime OVA that makes it more fraithful to its roots.

That much being said I found the plot was a little shallow in places. I don't know if the story didn't translate 100% to animation or wether simply compressing the serialized story into one movie left it a little light on detail. It could just be that having cut my teeth on EVA and GiTS/SAC this doesn't quite push all the buttons. Either way it was an extremely entertaining watch, and will keep most Anime enthusiasts entertained, just don't expect any deep thinking or mega-mind-melting psychology. 4 stars - mostly for the visual experience.

Interesting
First of all, this movie looks stunning. The animation is near flawless to my eyes beautifully blending hand-drawn, motion capture, CGI and 3D images. The music was good but could have been better given the talent that worked on the film.

As for the story, even though the premise of a post-WWIII world isn't new, this film adds to the genre nicely with plenty of plot twists and intriguing back-stories.

Action scenes are nice, nothing too over-the-top gory but with enough impacts to keep the action-hungry viewer entertained.

Overall and excellent film which definitely requires a couple viewing to fully appreciate it.

essential anime
Wow. I was amazed at the opening sequence of this film which outshines the brilliant opening of 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within' - the realistic kinetics of the human and 'mecha' characters is breathtaking. The 3-D computer generated animation is aided by motion capture and stylised with cell-shading to give it a clear association with previous anime such as 'Ghost in the Shell'. Sometimes the back drops are almost photo-real. This is real eye-candy stuff all the way through.

That's the hyperbole about the graphics over and done with, now I am going to have to try and justify why I gave this 5 stars and the 'Final Fanstay VII: Advent Children' only got 2! Well basically it's like this - I am a sucker for the work of Shirow Masamume whereas I think Squaresoft or whatever they call their film off-shoot are just trying to milk a franchise for all it's worth. If I was to compare the two films I'd say this film is not only visually far superior but it also has an interesting plot which isn't jut one big drawn out fight between the good guys and the bad guys. In fact at times it is really unclear who the good guys are and I enjoyed feeling unsure of how the story was going to turn out. The plot also makes you stop and think about the nature of humanity and what it means to be human in a very similar way the new series of 'Battlestar Galactica'.

It may not be true to the Manga but then this version of 'Appleseed' stands out in it's own right as an Anime milestone in terms of the excellent production and has had a clear influence on such films as 'Ultraviolet' and 'Natural City'. If you like kick-ass robot tanks and sci-fi kung-fu shenanigans you will love this film.