Appleseed

a police girl and his biodroid colleague.

The work of Shirow Masamune is largely recognizable, and it has inspired the world of Manga and Animé, as well as their enthusiastic fans. With cyberpunk titles like Ghost in the Shell (not reviewed here yet, I don't know why), Dominion Tank Police,  and today's entry, Shirow explored what makes us human through futuristic settings mingling technology and flesh. Sadly, trying to tell the original 7 chapters from volume 2 of from the manga, seems a nearly impossible venture. Be thankful they chose to work with this volume alone. Volume 3 was released on July 31st, 1987, around the same time this OVA began production, and the final volume wouldn't be released until April, 15th, 1989. Imagine how much of a mess it would have been to fit 25 chapters into and hour animated feature.

The 70-minute OVA from 1988 is based upon volume 2 of the manga, and opens with a woman's suicide scene. We soon realize it is part of Caron Mautholos nightmare as he nightly revisits his wife's suicide. He's a member of the police force of Olympus, a city built after World War III.  Charon's mental health has reached a sticking point that secretly drives him into teaming up with terrorist A.J. Sebastian to  bring down the city and its entire leadership. I just love how antagonists have a tendency to avoid going to therapy, and prefer to choose elaborated schemes to destroy the world as if massive murder and chaos could make you come to terms with your inner demons: "hey, I know a good therapist you could talk to". "Nah!, I'll destroy the world instead".

Good ol' opening titles style.

The future.

Enter the good guys Deunan and Briareos, two cops ready to go beyond the call of duty. Deunan can be the animated equivalent of any female action hero from an 80s film. She could be Red Sonja, Ellen Ripley, and Sarah Connor at the same time, while on the other hand Briareos is actually a human being, a WWIII survivor. Underneath his cybernetic implants and new body parts, he still enjoys burgers and fries. Their mission is clear: find who's behind the stolen new defense technology. Little do they know though, that their enemy is right next to them.

For someone from the 80s, the animation on this film is good enough.Some of the action scenes come off nicely. It looks like an average OVA from its era. Some will always criticize this, as the source material will always be superior regarding character design and action sequences. Obviously, the manga NEEDS TO provide attractive visuals in order to survive in a world where hundreds of thousands of the same work are being still made as we speak. The OVA on the other hand, like most of them, suffers from time constraints, and modest budget, so here and there you will see some ugly animation but, I would neither call it an abomination nor a crime against Shirow Masamune.

Dining with colleagues is dangerous.

Nothing is more chill than cleaning your gun in your underwear.

From a plot perspective, director and writer Kazuyoshi Katayama scrapped all the subtleties the Manga had to offer, turning off everything that makes Appleseed an interesting read. Instead we're offered a standard cop story where everything is reduced into "the good guys battle the bad guys" type of story that may appeal to children, instead of teenagers and young adults, who are the original target audience of the story. I have to admit, in rewatching the OVA I fell asleep several times. As a matter of fact, I had this review incomplete for several months because I simply couldn't watch it from start to finish paying attention to details in order to have something to say other than "the manga is better, discard this from your watch list". However, Appleseed is worth watching as an early exercise on trying to adapt Shirow's work into the small screen.  Most online reviews agree it's neither the worst, nor the best you can find in the cyberpunk genre during the OVA craze of the second half of the 80s. Perhaps, its only value lies in the fact this is an adaptation from one of the most popular authors of all time. Not everyone reads manga, they prefer the animated adaptations faithful or not. 

Cassette tapes in the future.

That 80s look Animé nails like no other.

My earliest memories of seeing some Shirow Masamune work, was through the Robotech comics. There were pages of ads from a variety of Animé/manga being published for the first time in the US, and one of those was Dominion Tank Police, originally released in Japan from 1985 to 1986. The Manga would obviously be adapted into an OVA in 1988 but it wouldn't be officially licensed until 1993. All I had was the ad, there was no chance I could get my hands into either the Manga or the OVA before it was legally available. My second encounter with his work would be his greatest work to date, Ghost In The Shell. This is circa 1996/1997 were there was a small but healthy industry producing dubbed/subbed VHS tapes with some of the most popular titles. Most of them would be from the 80s, but in the case of GITS, they managed to release a year or two after the Japanese release date. I was blown away. I even managed to get a deluxe reissue of the original manga and its sequel decades later. I know I should have reviewed it long ago, but since I like it so much, it takes me a longer time to decide how to proceed to avoid fangirling all over a post. Moreover, I did review the 2017 LAM, which I thought was pretty decent despite the negative reviews focused on Scarlett Johansson not being Japanese. In case you're interested here it is.

 

Robotech bioroids?

We're only here for the Mecha.

 

Another interesting fact we can observe on Appleseed, and in many other cyberpunk productions is how the artists perceived the future. Robots, cyborgs, transforming mecha, and power armors are everywhere. Yet, some of the most rudimentary technologies seem to be stuck in the past. The police department still has typing machines, and while they do have computers to profile criminals, they're still large in size. Watches are just watches, and phones haven't gone that far from video calls. No smart technology unless we go back to the robot part above mentioned. 

Now, we know and understand this retro futurism is there only for entertainment purposes, not to be historically accurate. Yet, in 2025 people are still listening to cassette tapes, wearing that old Casio F-91W, while living in an environment that is fully connected through the internet, very much like it is on Appleseed's city  of Olympus, where Gaia, a super computer, runs the various utilities and networks that make the city a safe place for humans, cyborgs and bioroids. So, old and new technology do share room in today's world. Two points for Shirow Masamune for predicting it. And two extra points for making the villains skip therapy and go straight into terrorist mode, just like it is today as well.

Yes, I'm sort of a hipster myself.

Yes, a collect call for Mr. Baldnutz, please.

Want more predictions? Well, just when you thought that was it, let's go back a bit to that opening suicide scene. Charon's wife, Fleia was an artist. The problem is felt stifled with all the artificial intelligence surrounding her. Aren't today's artists struggling with AI generators? Of course they are! that's why none of us should be using image generators to get some artistic result with a few prompts here and there. Fleia simply felt there was no reason for her to exist in such a pre-programmed world where there was scarce room for creativity and artistry. You can even create full songs with AI today. After she kills herself, Charon's anger towards this technological world grows bitter. Even though he's aided by A.J. Sebastian, who is only partially human, the reasons why Sebastian joins in the battle against technology remain unclear. I mean, you have survived with the aide of cybernetic limbs, why hate what kept you alive? Perhaps, he wants to secretly control the city?

 

There is no room for artists in the future.

Fleia warned us.

 

Overall, Appleseed is an experience you can choose to live or skip. If you're interested in the few animated adaptations of Shirow, go ahead give it a try. If not, perhaps try reading the manga instead. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.