Appleseed (2004)

Visual eye candy

I recently discovered the Appleseed movies a month ago. I had seen the film VEXILLE which was made by the same person who did the 2nd and 3rd Appleseed films. After I was blown away by the mix of hand drawn animation and CGI, I knew I had to check out his other film work. I was even more blown away by APPLESEED and APPLESEED EX MACHINA.

It is 2131, there is one city left remaining on Earth called Olympus. Humans and bioroids (artificial clones) appears to co-exist peacefully. All is not well underneath the idyllic surface. The existence of bioroids have angered some humans thus leading to the destruction of a government building that contained third generation bioroids. The destruction of the building also means doom for bioroids who needs a life extension like Deunan's friend Hitomi.

Deunan Knute, a tough as nails female soldier and her ex-boyfriend Briareos, who is 75% machine and the other members of the ESWAT team needs to retrieve the lost Appleseed technology to help Hitomi and the rest of Olympus, and put a kibosh on the growing threat of the military.

I personally loved this film. The action was non-stop. The animation was awesome. I love the combination of hand drawn animation and CGI. The techno soundtrack fits perfectly into the setting of the film. I personally enjoyed the storyline. July 20, 2008

All Action, No Story

By the end there just wasn't enough to keep me entertained and I found myself growing bored with it very quickly. The break neck action and interesting concepts were fun at first but by the end, I really felt like I needed more and this feature wasn't going to provide it. If you were a fan of the manga, you'll probably be a fan of this feature as well but otherwise this is really just a release for people who are looking for some decent mech action without much story to bog you down.
June 20, 2008

The best anime of the decade!!!

Mind blowing... It is just AMAZING the kind of animation achieve on this ANIME/movie. Watch it! Own it!!! It reminds me of my ROBOTECH days... April 15, 2008

Action, love, technology... perfection...

This was very enjoyable and satisfying.

The case is the finest I have ever seen.

The content on the bonus disk is fantastic too...

This entire work says, very simply: "Someone Cared Enough to pay attention to everything and get it right."

The few criticisms that one might have over it not being exactly like the original Appleseed VHS back in the day, can be addressed by saying simply that it is 2008 not 1988.

The fact that the story, character design, and over all impact of the original work was retained is good enough for me.

The new take on this material is fresh from every perspective, without destroying what was truly the core of the original Anime.

I have watched this 3 times since purchasing it and it is beautiful and exciting.

Worth every penny. I'm just picked up the Appleseed ExMachina collectors edition also. I'm excited to watch it.

:D March 28, 2008

Better Rental than Purchase

I am glad that I 'flixed this film before purchasing. It was entertaining, but I have little desire to see it again. There were several holes in the story and the characters were flat and uninteresting. The theme could have been made into a great sci-fi anime series and I hope that this will be the next step, that and going to a hand drawn style rather than CG.

If you want to see a CG film that is just as pretty (or more so) then check out FF7 Advent Children. Guaranteed to rock your world!

Pros: Pretty CG, action, good theme and story
Cons: lots of loose plot threads, dull characters, too short, needed fleshing out

Viewing preference: Japanese with english subtitles March 23, 2008

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