Now that classes are out of the way, I’m finally able to get down to watching the massive backlog of anime I’ve accumulated over the past three months. First up are Adult Swim’s two feature film specials, Metropolis & Inu-Yasha: Affections Touching Across Time. And since it aired first (and it’s the only one I’ve watched thus far), I’ll be starting with Metropolis specifically. Before I get down to business, I’m only giong to say that it’s a shame I couldn’t get the ball rolling with a more positive review.
Firstly, I suppose a bit of background is in order. Based on the manga by Osamu Tezuka, which was in turn—to my knowledge, anyway—based somewhat on the 1927 silent film of the same name, Metropolis is directed by Rintaro of Galaxy Express 999 Movie fame and written by none other than AKIRA and Memories mastermind Katsuhiro Otomo. It tells the story of a futuristic city named Metropolis, wherein the heralding of a massive tower dubbed the Ziggurat and the appearance of a Japanese detective & his nephew in search of a fugitive professor serve as the catalyst for massive political & social upheaval. The Ziggurat’s owner, a rich sort named Duke Red, seeks to dominate the city through some plot involving the Ziggurat and some robot girl he’s commissioned the fugitive Dr. Laughton to construct. It’s this robot, Tima, that falls into the hands of Detective Ban’s nephew Kenichi, and through interacting with him, discovers some sense of humanity while social unrest involving three rival political factions plays out around them (Duke Red & his Marduk faction, as well as acting president Boon who seeks to cause revolt to secure his seat of power, and a people’s revolution spawned from those left unemployed by Metropolis’ robot population). And while Duke Red searches for his missing Tima, his nutjob adopted son & chief Marduk agent, Rock, also hunts her down with the express purpose of killing her in order to prevent what he sees as a faulty plan and to make his “father” recognise him. Stuff happens, revolution occurs, it fucks up, Tima gets taken back, and so on and so on until the movie ends.
Really, for having such names as Rintaro & Otomo attached to this thing, I was expecting much better; I was really expecting and hoping to enjoy the hell out of this one. But while this wasn’t a horrible movie per se, it was not without significant issues that prevented it from really being as great as the critical hype and general praise among fans made it out to be. There was a lot lacking here, both from rushing too much content through just under two hours of film and what I can only see as trying to hard to conjure up depth within the story. There were especially major problems in the writing, carrying too many places where things like character interaction were just plain awkward (Kenichi’s uncle gets shot right in front of him and he practically ignores it), and there were far too many…leaps…both in regards to time within the movie as well as just how only a little bit of development goes way too far. For all the deep bonds Kenichi & Tima ended up sharing, they seemed to spend maybe all of a handful of hours together doing nothing but wandering aruond aimlessly; it seems strange that they’d be so close to each other when there’s almost no sense of real time progression at all. And the extremely dry feel to the casts’ dialogue just made many of the relationships in the series either stale, odd, or outright bizarre. Whatever motivations Rock really had were marred by the fact that he just acted & sounded completely sociopathic to the point of being one-dimensional, while such things as Detective Ban’s interaction with his robot assistant (dubbed “Pero”) just weren’t convincing. If it weren’t for the high-quality animation selling these characters’ emotions, there’d be almost nothing indicating any feeling or expression because the script was sorely devoid of it.
In terms of plot, the people’s rebellion against the government struck me as especially bothersome. After being introduced almost at random halfway into the movie, it seemed to rise and fall overnight…actually, I think it really did. But for the grand scale of it, that just seems ridiculous, nevermind the fact that something that was apparently supposed to be a significant shift in the story ended up taking all of four minutes of screen time before getting glossed over & forgotten in half that span. Civil unrest on that scale and it’s ultimately with almost no relevance to the story at all? It might as well have been cut out entirely, as the only actual service it gave to the plot was to an equally unnecessary & underdeveloped subplot about the political power struggle between Duke Red & President Boon, as well as giving Kenichi & Tima a place to hide from Rock for an evening or two (which, given the sheer scale of the city of Metropolis, could’ve been accomplished a thousand different ways, really). It’s like the movie sought to make some sort of grand commentary about social injustice or fascism or the pros & cons of technological progression or whatever and never thought it through; they just tacked it onto an otherwise simple story about a boy, his robot girl, and their adventures escaping from a rich bad guy in order to add some superficial illusion of depth. Problem is, that simple boy-and-his-dog robogirl story was decent enough, and would’ve been even better if they had spent more time on it rather than straying off to tell an otherwise stunted, arbitrary, & excessive “fight the power!” subplot.
Now, did the movie have any genuine, untainted merits? Of course. The animation was top-notch. Lush, fluid, vibrant, it was beyond even most other theatrical anime and Western animated feature films. It was truly spectacular work, and everything from the scenery to the computer-generated aspects to the simply motion of the human characters in their acting & expression was nothing short of excellent work. The character designs, while they may took a bit to get used to, actually worked very well, and definitely established a strong connection back to Tezuka. Musically, things were much less impressive, but the quirky jazz sound wasn’t out of place at all, especially as it concerned the parts of the story involving Detective Ban & Kenichi. Thinking about it, it almost seems as though the producers spent way too much time obsessing over the visual & auditory ends of things, and not enough on the storytelling elements. The dub was actually quite good, as well. Nothing quite as memorable or top quality as Cowboy Bebop or Fullmetal Alchemist, but a commendable performance all-around.
Considering the reputations of all the big names tied to this project, and especially given the sentimental attachment I have to Rintaro (the Galaxy Express 999 movie was what broke me into anime, you see), it’s actually rather depressing to have to berate this particular film. From Tezuka to Rintaro & Otomo, this thing should’ve been groundbreakingly fantastic. And yet it suffered from what I really have to say is poor writing that seemingly attempted to make way too much out of itself than what’s really possible given both the running time of the movie and the content itself. It looks and sounds awfully pretty, but what’s being looked at & listened to is ultimately rushed emptiness masquerading briefly as “social depth.” Shame…hopefully Inu-Yasha will provide a more fulfilling movie experience.
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