"After the devastation of World War 3, the scattered governments of the world construct the perfect city administered by perfect Biodroids - artificially created half-human half robots. Life in Olympus is carefully controlled and monitored, however some of its human population have had enough. A dedicated band of terrorists plot to destroy the central computer and restore freedom to mankind Will they be stopped before they ruin the dream of paradise?"
"Appleseed is based on the internationally successiul comic series by Masamune Shirow, first published in 1985. Masamune is something of an enigma in Japan as nobody knows his real name, photos of him are rarely seen and little is known about his private life. He cites his influences as Miyazaki (Porco Rosso), Otomo (Akira) and Terry Gilliam, and his hobbies as painting bottles and making grip handles!"
Creator: Masamune Shirow Director: Kasuyoshi Katayama Screenplay: Kasuyoshi Katayama Copyright: Masamune Shirow/Seishinsha/TBM Language Format: English Language Running time: 68 mins Certificate: 15 Catalogue no: MANV 1060 Label: Manga Video Price: £11.99 Release Date: 7th November 1994 Also released in December 1996 on a double feature tape with Battle Angel Alita for £12.99, and on video CD (cat no: CDV 0122).
UK video release of well-known anime, adapted from equally well-known manga series available in English and set, in the aftermath of a destructive world war, in the idealised city of Olympus. There are tensions between survivors and the new artificial humans (Bioroids), and between factions of the city government. The two main characters, Deunan and her cyborg partner Briareos, track down the perpetrators of a terrorist outrage. Fairly sophisticated stuff with some interesting characters, though there are some unconvincing plot elements. One of my favourite pieces of anime, though the American-style dubbing doesn't improve it and there are some pointless changes to character and other names. [Geoff Cowie]
Jeff Gable: I just bought the Appleseed dub by Manga Entertainment, and I was pretty disappointed. I have the sub, and I don't recall the *extraordinary* amount of foul language on the tape! It was so prevalent that even my wife came into the room and asked *WHAT* are you watching! Practically every sentence had at least one or more foul expletive in it. My efforts to convert my wife to anime have just had a major setback due to the choice of language in this dub. Few american films have this much cussing in them...did Manga throw this in to make it more 'realistic'? I can't play this tape anymore without cringing. The use of four-letter exclamations was way overdone. <sigh> I guess it is back to subs for me. Icidentally, other than the foul language, I thought the voice-acting was pretty good. Tank I was disappointed. They jumped right into the story without much background info (the text at the beginning scrolled almost too fast to read) and the dialogue seemed plain bad. The story line itself also left something to be desired. There was potenital for a good movie there, but the whole thing was just handled poorly, except for the anime (not great, but pretty good).