Appleseed: Ex Machina [2007]
Director: Shinji Aramaki
Writer: Masamune Shirow
Producer: John Woo
The first time I saw the original Appleseed was with Sam, by accident, because I had heard that the writer of Appleseed was also responsible for that piece of wank called Dominion Tank Police. Of course, I hadn’t realised that the guy was also responsible for all the Ghost in the Shell stuff, which is, arguably, the best damned anime I’ve ever seen. It was much like GitS in the way that it was fast-paced, gritty, mature, and dealt with some deeply philosophical subject matter. It did, however, deviate a little bit into Dominion Tank Police land, where the biggest Japanese, cultural mystery lies; their facination with the combination of super-cute and hyper-violent. It’s something that I can’t wrap my head around too well. In my experience, everything that’s hyper-violent is hardly ever cute, but those guys gobble that shit up like it’s eggs on toast. The cuter and deadlier the jailbait, the better. Anyway, Appleseed certainly had a tendecy to go there at times, but luckily they kept it to a minimum and focused more on the ravaged world, the rebuilt society, the constant threat of terrorism, and the introduction of so-called “bioroids,” synthetically generated humans, gengineered to have none of the negative human emotions, like greed, anger, jealousy, etc.
In this episode of Appleseed the story still revolves around Deunan Knute, the young, brash but gifted officer at ES.W.A.T., a paramilitary organisation working hard to keep the streets of Olympus safe in the year 2199. The world has been ravaged by decades of war and a vast majority of the world’s population has perished. In order to replenish the global population to a workable level gengineered humans, or Bioriods, are created, who are indistinguishable from humans, except that they have no propensity for violence.
Deunan’s partner at ES.W.A.T. is Briareos, a cyborg, and her lover. Before Briareos was critically injured trying to save Deunan from an enemy grenade, they loved eachother deeply but had yet to really start admitting that to one another. After that tragic incident, Briareos’ radically altered physique was always a barrier for them to get truly romantically involved. After Briareos gets injured while on a mission (see movie below), the Olympus council decide to use his genetic tissue to start making Bioriods, and the first to come off the assembly line is Tereus, who looks and acts exactly like Briareos, which confuses Deunan deeply, especially when she is partnered with him during Briareos’ recovery period.
When the Olympus council tries to get a hold of every remaining nation’s sattelite system, in order to combine it into a sophisticated network of sattelites to counter terrorism they get unexpected support from one of the largest industrial corporations left on the planet; Poseidon. One of their newest products, Connexus, a small, portable, wireless device that allows users any number of conveniences (think a VR-Blackberry on steroids), has shown some glitches and they are willing to make repairs in order to safe their corporate backsides. Secretely, unbeknownst even to Poseidon, a disgruntled employee is using these devices to link every consciousness on the planet together into one big hive-mind. Cue rapid violence and stunning visuals.
As said, the visuals are absolutely stunning. As with the first Appleseed, which wasn’t fully 3D yet, a lot of the visuals are there simply to impress the fuck out of you, and you know what? It does just that! The only thing they haven’t really mastered yet is how to make people look a) detailed, b) ugly. I’m sure that in 2199 there are some women left without a perfect 10 body and some men left with a beer-gut.
The story gets a little confusing sometimes, especially when you’re watching the Japanese version, as I did, and you’re watching it with horrible subtitles. In the end it all makes sense, logically, but the jarring things are mostly those things that are way out of proportion. A secret Poseidon laboratory the size of a city, hovering half a kilometer above the ground like some massive conglomerates of Borg ships. “Oh, I remember that place, I know where it is,” Briareos says like he drives past it on his way to work every day. Yeah, it’s a massive upside down pyramid made of Borg ships hovering half a kilometer above the ground, eclipsing the sun for miles around, I’m sure you have!
Anyway, as far as the quality of the anime, I prefer GitS, but there’s little that can touch that gem. Appleseed isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it does lack a certain depth. It has about the same depth as an average Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex episode, for those of you who know what that means. :)
