Air Date: July 15, 1989

Genres: Action, Drama

Type: Movie

Studio: Production I.G

Age Rating: MA

Rating: 8.5/10

/Summary

The man who invented the OS that 80% of all labors programmed them to go haywire if certain conditions are met. This could cause the destruction of all major city around the world. It up to Asuma and the rest of team two to stop this event from happening and solve the mystery of how.

/Review

This was VERY different than the OVA and original series, I think for the better? The tone of the OVA and series is good for those formats but in movie form it would just equal to a cheesy action flick. This takes a bit of a more serious tone but still has a bit of the humor in it. Which is to be expected from the director, Mamuro Oshii. I don't want to dwell on him tooo much since pretty much every other review focuses on him. I will say that you can definitley see stuff that he'd be known for in it's earlier stages here. The biblical references and themes of Man vs Machine are the first to come to mind. His shot composition and look in general have very similar looks to ones that he'd use later. Like the scene where everyone in the market is running away while somebody runs forward has a similar one in Ghost in a Shell.

I do think that the biblical references could've been taken further than they where. It felt like they didn't go beyond surface level allusions, although that is a minor complaint since I do beleive the story is well done. It's pretty cleanly written, without to many major loose ends left. Things that I do have a problem with is them not really going into Honoa's motives and the movie kinda just ending on a "We did it!!" note without showing any of the aftermath. The plot of course still holds up without them.

I really enjoyed that Asuma took the lead in the story instead of Noa. I do like her but she has the entire OVA and series to be the main character, so them switching it up was a great call. I do think most of the cast get some form of attention, other than Yamazaki and Shiba. They are limited on run time so I wouldn't expect everyone to get equal screentime. I do wish they'd give a bti more focus to Gotou side of investgations, since I think it'll give a bit more background to things that Asuma may not have access to.

The visuals are amazing, I really enjoyed the shot composition and color pallete they chose to stick too. It creates a mood atmosphere to match the story. I did watch it on the Manga Video release that is just a VHS rip from the 1995 release they did, which isn't that good of quality. But that is a issue with the DVD release, not the actual movie. I really like thinking about how they did the visuals as it gives me more appreciation to it. The amount of layers to each shot it insane. I especially enjoy the scenes where the ARC is falling apart around everyone.

All of the action scenes look awesome, even if there aren't many. I belive there's like three of them in the entire movie. The plot is mostly around the mystery than action. But in those 'slower' scenes the characters looks consistent and are expressive. It does look a bit wonky for when they do the facial zoom thing that Oshii loves, but they're few and far between.

The soundtrack is pretty standard, it fits the mood the story has when it's used. Most scenes are pretty quite and more ambiotic, so the soundtrack doesn't really standout to me. I do listen to some of the tracks often though.

A bit of a side tangent: The DVD release that I have isn't really that good. As I said it's just a rip from the VHS so it looks pretty fuzzy. The sub is also hard subbed, which is supposed to be not that in DVD format as you don't have to do it. The audio option are a bit weird too. For the japanese audio it's only in stereo but for the dub they only mixed it in 5.1 surround sound. I undestand the Japanses being in stereo but they don't give the option in English?? It's odd to me because most people didn't have surround sound then nor now. The "Special Features" are mostly ads for their up coming releases. They don't even include concept art, only the trailers for 1 and 2 with Manga Video ads. The easter eggs aren't interesting, they're japanese commercials and trailers for the movie. No interviews or anything.

I do reccomend the movie to pretty much to everyone. The OVA will give more context to certain things and give more background to characters but it does stand on it's own fine. You might want to pirate it or get the bluray because of the problems with the DVD.