Appleseed: Ex-Machina

We have finally arrived to our third Appleseed movie, perhaps the most popular one too. This third movie was made completely out of computer generated images. With lots of very fast action, coolest ever mecha and big guns. This is a squeal to the movie released in 2004. We think new and old Appleseed fans, will enjoy the action, there is enough of it to keep everyone happy.

Ex-Machina was created with wider audiences in mind. It doesn't follow the original manga by Masamune Shirow. Directed by Shinji Aramaki, with a lot of influence from producer John Woo, the movie becomes more of a cyborg ass-kicking movie made in CG, than everyone's loved Appleseed.

The story takes place after the events of the first movie. These have different stories, but don't worry if you haven't seen the other two, you can go back and enjoy them after. In between all the bullets and jumps we can see some type of story, although pretty predictable and seen many times before.

Ex-Machina starts with a cool scene in a real world cathedral in Germany, where very cute cyborgs are keeping a hostage. Deunan and Briareos steal the action from the beginning, without waiting for anyone. At the end of the scene, Briareos covers Deunan from explosion, they take him away to hospital because of the damaged he received from that last explosion. There is a new type of bioroid soldier, Tereus. Based on Briareos's DNA, looking and acting just like Briareos who is going to be Deunan's new partner for a while - she is not happy about it.

We would love to write more about the story, but since it isn't so deep we would not want to spoil it for you. It is probably the only thing that cloud have been done a differently, but that's what you get when John Woo is involved.

There were lots of artists involved in creating and designing characters, backgrounds, animation, effects, lighting, even Prada was invited to design character costumes. We can only say very well done to character and mecha designs. The detailed textures were from another level of CG animation. Mass scenes with lots of boiroids and technology around. We loved the red flying bombs at the end of the movie, very well done.

We can't really compare the animation to any other CG movie or anime. It does not fit in. It is too good or kinda bad. It is amazing to look at, an eye candy, the detailed action can be watched again and again, to only see more and more details. They had really good animation actors for this movie. This is the part were this film scores the most points. The cool CG was something different than the previous Appleseed. It may look like your watching a FMV sequence of some game but it doesn't stop for a long time and won't disappoint. Some may think the animation changed for better some say it changed for worse, we are just thankful to see more Appleseed so soon after release of 2004 movie.

The soundtrack is not that noticeable while your eyes are trying to follow the action, but it does make a bigger impact, especially in the slow motion scenes. It is a kick-ass soundtrack for a kick-ass movie. We really loved the ending track with Lina Ohta.

In summary Appleseed: Ex-Machina is a pretty good squeal to the Appleseed movie from 2004. Filled with enough action to make you want to watch it again. It can be placed in your collection as a classic kick-ass cyborg movie made in CG. The story is way too much predictable and with lots of holes, but again, we gathered here for the mecha and the bullet action. It scores low in story and character depth, you may feel like there is something missing, but it scores over the ranks with detail of characters and background scenes. We recommend this movie to almost everyone, it does not have many scary scenes, since it was created with Hollywood and money making in mind. We loved it over all and are proud to have the DVD in our collection. We can't wait until the fourth movie is out, until then we just have to be satisfied with Deunan and Briareos in amazing action, here in Ex-Machina.

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Kurau: Phantom Memory

Sometimes it may seem that there are no good "light" science fiction anime out there. Most are hard to understand, if you can understand anything at all. Heavy mecha and angry boys trying to destroy everything around them. The point is, you can only watch them alone or with someone who you know enjoys that type of anime. Not many might enjoy them as much as you do. Of course, it's not always like that. Some may actually prefer dark anime over something like this. Kurau: Phantom Memory is anime filled with drama, action and surprises, but it won't get too complicated to understand.

Kurau: Phantom Memory was created from a novel - track it down if you will. Yasuhiro Irie direction brought this wonderful story to your screens. This person has been working on many successful anime, including Cowboy Bebop and the latest Full Metal Alchemist series. This anime was produced in BONES studios, by people too skilled for their jobs. If you don't know BONES or can't recall any of their works, you should be very ashamed of yourself.

The story takes place in far future from now. In 2100, Dr. Amami Hajime has been researching new types of alternative energy. In the first episode, Dr. Amami has a major test scheduled for his experiments, it happens to be on her daughter's Kurau twelfth birthday. She comes to the lab to see her father's experiment, hoping to have a little celebration there, after it's completed. Unfortunately the test goes very wrong, two little energy bolts come flying out of test container and one of them hits Kurau. In a few seconds she becomes particles of energy, completely disappears and appears after a few seconds, shinning in yellow energy.

All of this happens only in first 10 minutes of the first episode, watch rest yourselves. The story is a good doze of sci-fi and drama. It may look like its for mainly men audiences, but that is not very true. Women might enjoy watching these anime series filled with action, drama and kick-ass girl trying to escape and live peacefully, away from everyone.

Kurau and Christmas are always on the run, the sceneries change from cities and countries to the moon and back to earth chases. There are lots of bulk movement scenes, the detailed scenes are way to good, the characters are very well designed.

Animation was done by professionals who have a lot to show off with. We hope you remembered BONES by now and know how good their animation is. Kurau: Phantom Memory is a very successful project that should be at least rented, because it is by BONES. We never get bored from watching their amazing animated work.

Music adds a lot to the dramatic script of this anime. It's very enjoyable, you may find yourself watching openings and endings more than usually, because they have great music to them. Through out, the series filled with lots and lots of cool sci-fi sound effects.

Kurau: Phantom Memory may not appeal to someone looking for a deep story with mind twisting scenarios. It is filled with lots of drama, great action and two girls running away from the world that wants to capture and destroy them. Created by fathers of cool anime, BONES, these cool light sci-fi series should not be missed.

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Vexille

We love futuristic anime, with cool technology and lots of detailed action scenes. This movie is full of that, also it stands out from the rest with its unique alternative reality story. It stands out with its animation and sound track. It stands out a lot and is appealing to wide audiences, not only science fiction anime fans. We can't agree with anyone who says bad things about this cool movie.

This movie was directed by Fumihiko Sori who produced Appleseed 2004 movie, so expect some similarities. Animated by Oxybot, maybe not so know yet, but they will grow big in the future.

The stetting is quite unique. The story takes place in 2077, ten years after Japan isolates itself from the rest of the world. A team of American special forces called SWORD are sent on a mission to infiltrate Japan, see what they have been doing for the past ten years. What they will find will shock the world...

Although a really promising script, it sometimes becomes quite dull, with too much unnecessary dialog that could have been used elsewhere. Maybe it could have been better if it was made in to two or more parts with more depth to the characters and the story. As always we can't have everything at once, so just enjoy this movie as it is and don't say a bad word about it.

Characters look really good, the use of cell shading does really fit this movie in our opinion. Although they might not have real depth and backgrounds to them, they look alive and move accordingly. We also have cool mecha in this anime, from tiny egg shaped robots to "Jags", large scale sand worms absorbing metal to grow bigger.

The animation is the best part of this anime, if you can get the Blu-ray version, you will be amazed by the detailed characters and animation of Vexille. It is that good that you have to watch it many times to see just how good it is. People should understand that they are watching computer generated images not hand drawn or even live-action film. The movie is so good, you tend to forget about the animation and concentrate on how the story doesn't connect. Just look at “Jags”, how hard is it to animate something like that, do you think, crashing over the sand? It takes a lot of high skill to create stuff like this, look at many other scenes. For all this, this movie is compared even to FF:AC by some, but don't forget how many releases FF had, to how many CG releases did Oxybot or Sori had.

The director of Vexille made sure to have a great soundtrack. Great music similar to Appleseed movie. All mixed by Paul Oakenfold, the soundtrack does make the action more intense, we would love to hear more. Sound effects are nothing less than the music tracks tr, we can only thank the creators for this cool movie.

In a quick recap, Vexille is great entertnaiment, it was made with wide audiences in mind, many will find something they like about this movie and find something that they don't like, mostly it will be flaws in the story. Characters animated using cell shading techniques, the rest is pure and very detailed CGI. We recommend it to everyone, if you liked Appleseed, you will enjoy watching this.


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IGPX - Immortal Grand Prix

Here we have a unique anime, created by most known animation production companies in Japan and America. This cool anime might remind you of Zoids, Initial D or even Wipeout from Playstaion. It brings some awesome CG integrated very well with classic anime drawing, all in a futuristic sports setting.

The series were directed by Hongo Mitsuru, animated by Production I.G. and Cartoon Network. When two or more big companies collaborate, great things happen. Immortal Grand Prix is a very successful anime that should not be missed. It is based on the original 5-five minute episodes IGPX, there was no racing though, mechas only battled. We recommend watching that too.

The story is somewhat similar to most other sports anime, but with added cool futuristic mecha effect. The year is 2048, the most popular motor sport on earth is IGPX. The sport consists of racing through a track in two teams of three people, each person inside a humanoid mecha that reach speeds over 400km/h. But they aren't only racing here, they have to battle with the opposing team - that means breaking their beautiful IG so it can't keep up with theirs anymore. IGPX has become so popular that they had to build a whole town around the huge 60km track, just for IGPX racing industry.

This anime contains enough characters to keep everyone happy, they are well designed and thought out. Team Satomi, which we follow throughout the series, has many different personalities. Our main four pilots are always having arguments and conflicts between each other, most of the time they are in their own little worlds, which seems more interesting. The IGs do more amazing moves with every episode. We think not only this anime was one of the first to have sports with CG mecha armor concept in mind, but it also was the most original. We did feel a lack of real audiences and a bit of outside world, but we're all here mostly for the IGPX racing.

Not many can say a bad thing about animation by Production I.G. or their divisions, they create perfect animations, show ways of animating so the rest of the animating studios can only follow. The animation here is very good. 3D and 2D animations combined perfectly, with help of Bee Train, Studio, Xebec, CN with planing the story. We are proud to have this great piece of animation, we give very high scores for this animation.

Loved the great futuristic sound effects and music. It fits IGPX so well that you might forget it is there. The live race commentator might seem a bit irritating at times, we got over him after a while, so you will too. The soundtrack is worth a separate release, it is intense, fast, futuristic music.

In summary, IGPX is a series worth watching even for older audiences. This is a work of many great artists, collaborations between many animation studios. Made with care, many messages and lessons to be learned. The story is full of characters, all with their own unique personalities that are in conflict all the time. The superb animation brings you great entertainment. We recommend it to everyone, at least rent it or watch it on CN, because this work is not just another sports anime. Read more...

The Guyver: Out of Control

We promised a small review of all Guyver releases, here is the first ever Guyver, released in 1987. A great original, only available in VHS format. Every Guyver fan and most real science fiction anime fans should get this while it is still available.

Directed by Hiroshi Watanabe who has worked on anime such as Star Ocean EX. This movie was created in Bandai Studios, everyone knows Bandai, we don't have to mention anything about them.

The story is based on manga of the Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor. Although in this movie, it's Sho's sweetheart Mizuki, in the scene where Sho acquires Guyver Unit. In manga it's his best friend and Mizuki's brother Tetsuro. Also in original manga and other anime, Guyver Unit II are males. In this movie the Unit II is acquired by a female. The story is really short pretty short, so we won't spoil any of it for you.

There are only a few characters in this movie, but even those are extremely well designed. Mizuki could have had more work done on her character, like the female Guyver. She shows off enough nudity to make this movie erotic at times.

Think back 20 years ago, if you were born and old enough to see Guyver: Out of Control, you would have been blown away by it. Even know the animation looks pretty good and detailed. With lots of slashing and ripping off arms, the fight scenes may repeat somewhat, but in never devalues the animation. The lighting on the Guyver armor, the thunder effects – they look pretty cool. It is a must-watch legendary action for any Guyver fan.

We love themes of old anime. The way they sing about characters in the story. This one is no different, great theme. The voices of pain were a bit off, but we can't have everything in one short one hour film.

So there you have it, a little Guyver: Out of Control review. This great classic is a must-have or watch for any super hero anime fan, science fiction fan, monster fighting and gore fan, not to mention Guyver fan. This film is not for kiddies it contains nudity and extreme violence. Good old Guyver, it made us wonder, would Casshern defeat Gigantic Guyver?

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Cowboy Bebop Movie

What kind of review blog would it be, if we didn't include Spike Spiegel and the rest of the crew in our list. This movie appeals to people who don't have any anime or even like it. It is watchable like any kind of movie would be, you will forget that its just an animation. The movie feels like a good extended episode of the series, but you don't have to watch them to be consumed by this great animation.

Cowboy Bebop franchise had many great artists working on the movies and series. This movie was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. It's one of his most know work, just shows how good he is at what he does. Animation production was made by Sunrise, Bones and Bandai Visual, made by professionals and leads in anime industry, just check their work.

The story is made up in a way so that you don't have to know anything about Cowboy Bebop. Everything is explained about the characters efficiently and simply, so you can jump straight to the main plot of the movie. The timeline of this movie do link to the original series, the events take place between episodes 22 and 23. If possible, it is recommended to watch 22nd episode before watching the movie to get the most out of it. The movie follows a interesting and a deep plot line, maybe not so much like in the series, but interesting enough and with lots of good action included.

We follow a crew of four bounty hunters on a spaceship called Bebop. As they hunt, what seem to be a simple bounty turns out to be a chemical weapon terrorist attack. The government issues a very high reward, the crew wants that reward money and tries to get it, but finds that they have yet again got themselves into very deep and deadly situations. We won't spoil more of of the story, get it, watch it, loooove it like everyone else does.

All cast characters, with very unique personalities on board of Bebop. The character designs were made to look as much live-like as possible. They wanted to have more quality than the series, but keeping all the features. The city on mars looks very believable, with lot of people and bulk daily traffic. They have animated amazing looking Arabic market, with lots of interesting items to purchase, like beans. They even show a bit of a old western movie, they used different type of animation for it. Great stuff, like in a real movie.

Animation style of this anime is unique, it deserves big scores. Very detailed backgrounds and animations. The movie is full of action sequences with unique style of Spike's fighting, especially the final fight with Vincent looks good. The project was done by three great animation studios, they can only be praised for their work, their work always are up for awards and prizes. This is one of their most popular work, famous for many elements, animation is just one of them.

The soundtrack has been released separately, because it was so good. It really sounds very believable, that this type of music would be popular in the future. It of course, includes the classic jazz and blues sounds, just the way Cowboy Bebop series do. We recommend getting it separately if you have spare cash.

Cowboy Bebop is a unique animation that should be sitting in any science fiction fan's movie collection. It has been watched by lots of people who aren't even into animation. It was produced and directed by very famous people, gifted animators and designers. It is worth every single penny and should satisfy both series fans and anyone who hasn't seen Spike and the crew in action before. The plot is quite complicated and the scenes do contain violence, so it is rated for over 16. We also found little good or maybe bad news for Cowboy Bebop fans. The more we watch it, the more we like this movie.


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Ergo Proxy

Some sci-fi anime fans have this hunger for new content, they have to see some new cool mecha or some mind-twisting story to keep them satisfied for some time. If you are one of those people, this is the place to be for you. If you love dark complicated anime, Ergo Proxy is for you. It is not much comparable to any other anime, because it is so unique in both animation and story.

The series were directed by Shukou Murase, who had worked on quite a few popular anime titles like Samurai Champloo and Aegis of Uruk. Produced by Manglobe Inc., while they don't have many titles to show off like some other animation studios, all of their work is loved from bottom to top by many many many anime fans.

Ergo Proxy's script is really complex, in every episode there are so many philosophical and psychological ideas presented to the viewers, it is hard to grasp them. So many references to big great people in human history, Greek mythology and legends. This is enough science fiction to keep anyone's mind twisted for a while.

The story is very good, the start has so much it's hard to describe it properly. After sudden catastrophic changes in earth's environment most of human population has been wiped out. What has left of them live in a domed city known as Romdeau. The city is full of androids called AutoReivs, they are mostly created for a purpose of serving and helping human survival. Recently there has been a few mysterious murders in the city by AutoReivs infected by a virus know as Cogito. Our main character Real Mayer and her partner AutoReiv Iggy are top detectives who are sent to investigate these murders. But what Real finds is more than just a berserk AutoReiv. We hope you will enjoy this very dark and very twisting story.

Main characters in the story are going through their own psychological journeys. One is looking to be accepted into a normal society. Second is looking for something real to this existence. The third, perhaps wants to become more human. There are a lot of references to the real world people that lived some time in history. All the backgrounds and outside of the city look pretty convincing, the technology concepts are very believable. Names and actions of characters have very deep links to them. The anime concentrates more on character development and story than on the animation.

Animation is pretty dark, just how we like it. Detailed and realistic scenes take you straight in to the depths of the story, only at times you have time to realize just how good everything looks. Of course, you will watch it again and again. These series are a work of a lot of people who created Samurai Champloo, this is their development over a few years. This time the setting is in future, with guns and androids, not swords and samurai.

Soundtrack delivers from the opening until the ending sequences, with excellent sound effects that fit every bit of the cool technology. Music tracks so good that this anime has two OST releases. Voice actors have worked very hard to produce such high results.

In the end, Ergo Proxy hits all the right spots, it is worth 40 bucks all the way. With work of Dai Sato, Shukou Murase, you have to love this dose of science fiction. We recommend it to anyone over 16, but we can't promise you will understand everything, unless you do more research. With characters completely different to one another, traveling on their own different journeys, this is dark science fiction anime in its best form.

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Review List

A

Akira
Appleseed (1988)
Appleseed (2004)
Appleseed: Ex-Machina

B

Bubblegum Crisis
Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040
Battle Fairy Yukikaze
Blassreiter

C

Casshern SINS
Cowboy Bebop Movie


D

Dead Space: Downfall

E


Ergo Proxy

F

Freedom

G

A Girl Who Leaped Through Time
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Guyver: Out of Control
Guyver OVA

I

IGPX – Immortal Grand Prix

H

Heroic Age

K

Kurau: Phantom Memory

M

Macross Zero

N

Neo-Tokyo The Movie

P

Pale Cocoon

R

RideBack

S

Serial Experiment Lain

T

Texhnolyze

V

Vexille
Voices of a Distant Star Read more...