Otaku Corner: EXMACHINA

Yello Everybody,

Today in my otaku corner post, I'm going to talk about the cgi anime movie Appleseed Saga: EXMACHINA. I went to see this movie in the cinema's yesterday. Appleseed was a manga created by Shirow Masamune who is also famous for creating the Ghost in the Shell manga. Appleseed is set in a future in which a devastating world war has destroyed most of the earth and in many places is still ongoing, it takes place in the new high tech metropolis of Olympus(a city built with high technology and populated symbiotically with humans and bioroids(genetically engineered humans who were created to stabilize society(they have no dangerous emotions)) and the main character is woman named Deunan Knute(part of the ESWAT anti terroist police group. Her partner is Briareos a friend and romantic interest from the time they were both soldiers, he is now due to an old accident living only as a fully robotic Hechatonchires cyborg(he has living cells and his brains the same but he's inside a robotic body, leads to romantic compatibility issues). Anyway that's the basic background information about the Appleseed world, this movie EXMACHINA is a new movie(only released late last month) and of course is entirely in Japanese, however thanks to my partial knowledge of Japanese and my knowledge of the series I could at least understand the basic plot of the movie(it was enjoyable even without full understanding thanks to the high action high quality animation and fantastic techno-esque soundtrack):

WARNING THE FOLLOWING MOVIE PLOT CONTAINS SPOILERS AND DUE TO LANGUAGE BARRIERS MAY BE PARTIALLY INNACURATE READ ON ONLY IF YOU WANT TO

The ESWAT team do a raid on an all cyborg terrorist group to recover some hostages, everything goes fine with some fantastic action scenes until just when it should have been all wrapped up one of the terrorists chooses to self destruct and allthough they escape just in time in the process Briareos is injured/damaged. Briareos is in a critical condition and Deunan is very upset, then Deunan is given a new temporary partner named Tereos who to her surprise and anger is a bioroid whose genetic data was based on Briareos(he looks like Briareos before he had the accident and become a Hechatonchires cyborg), Tereos is also a test case for the use of Bioroids in ESWAT. The leader of Olympus Athena is undergoing negotiations with the leader of a company/state group known as Poseidon Hajime Yoshino. The current new technology craze is the Connexus(a device which looks like a blue tooth ear piece but creates a digital display for communication, computing and entertainment purposes). Briareos regains conscience and is much better but is still unable to return as Deunan's partner. Hitomi and female bioroid friend of Deunan's(and an important person in Olympus) has her birthday party, Deunan comes looking a bit uncomfortable in her designer dress(design by Prada(the famous real life designer) specifically for her and the movie), Briareos shows up looking a bit strange in a suit and she is happy until Tereos shows up looking exactly like Briareos should if not for the accidentl Olympus is launching it's new Global Security net satillite system and Athena hosts a world conference with important dignitaries from around the world attending. ESWAT is doing the security and it's all gong well until suddenly some people start acting strange and attack the conference, including a partially cyborised ESWAT member who goes so out of control he ends up being killed by Briareos, the attack was found to have been caused in some way by a signal sent from some doves which were actually robotic. Everyone is a bit bewildered and at the same time sad over their comrades death. Later Briareos infected by some sort of computer virus goes out of control and hacks into the security net aswell as attacking and hurting Tereos and almost hurting Deunan. Briareos is imprisioned but realising that the cyborg doctor Kestner had something to do with it escapes with Hitomi's help, he is pursued by ESWAT but manages to find the doctor who activates the nanobots he imput in his system, tells Briareos how he was used to hack into the security net and the security net is being used to send a signal from Halcon laboratory(as mysterious laboratory with links to Poseidon). Meanwhile Deunan has realised that the connexus is controlling people and a ban and recall is called, however the public are too addicted to teh connexus to listen. Then the signal from Halcon begins and a large number of the populations are turned into a cyborised mob through the connexus's mind control. Tereos has caught Briareos who is going beserk thanks to the nanobots, they fight but Deunan arrives with an anti-nanobot injection saving Briareos. The 3 team up and go to Poseidon in search of answers, there they find out about Halcon a labratory researching the use of nanobots as a miracle drugs(re-fusing spinal cords and all that jazz), which discovered a sinister alternate use as a mind control device, the labratory was shut down after the death of it's head researcher. Poseidon lend the ESWAT members helicopters, troops and give Deunan a new cutting edge Land Mate(flying robotic exoskelton) to use and they head for Halcon Laboratories. Halcon turns out to be an amazing floating cube like structure, which is made up of shifting segments(making it a bit dangerous to fly through), inside they encounter a large number of flying robotic drones as well as a few incredibly high powered humanoid robots, a massive fight ensues which is spectacular and they manage of course to win. The doors to the inner sanctum are closing and Briareos tries to hold them open while Deunan and Tereos try to make it in time, they barely do but the Land Mates are all destroyed. Inside is the original head research of Halcon who after she died was hooked up to the nanorobotics by Kestner in an attempt to save her, she attacks the 3 with long rope like robotic arms. Briareos is caught and encapsulated apparently trying to convert him through nanobots, Tereos and Deunan try to attack her but she is too powerful. Briareos breaks partially free and gives Deunan the anti-nanobot injection to use on Her. Deunan charges and seems sure to be killed, however Tereos steps in the path of the robotic arms, being pierced deeply in the stomache, Deunan charges manages to avoid the remaining arms and plunges the injection into the researcher, who regains her sense of self, is horrified by what she has become, the anti-nanobot injection starts wearing of and she begs Deunan to kill her, which she does receiving the researchers thanks. Briareos and Deunan help the heavily injured Tereos out of the inner sanctum however the labratory is crumbling around them, Tereos tells them to leave, they refuse and at the last second a Poseidon helicopter arrives and they escape just in time. Olympus is severely damaged but with the signal and the connexus gone, they are mostly alive and Athena vows to rebuild. The end.

A PREVIEW ON YOU TUBE:



Anyway I enjoyed the movie and can't wait to see it with an english language subtitle and/or voice acting, the CGI animation is of an incredibly high level, the music score was very fitting and well done, the plot was from what I can tell solid enough and the action was highly enjoyable. All up i'd give this movie about 4/5 stars, in comparison to the other recent anime films i've seen(Vexille and Evangelion), it was better than Vexille(allround better) and worse than Evangelion(in enjoyability and storyline).