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+================
+ Appleseed XIII
+================
+
+A study in equality, unequal to its task.
+=========================================
+
+:CreationDate: 2014-03-19 12:04:18
+:Id: anime/review/appleseed-xiii
+:tags: - anime
+       - review
+:rating: 3
+:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/appleseed-xiii-complete-series-collection
+
+SHIRŌ Masamune (士郎 正宗) is a well known and beloved mangaka,
+although not one of the most prolific: in thirty years he's published
+only 8 books (plus many artbooks and some shorts). But most of those
+books have had a profound influence in both manga and anime: even if
+you've been living under a rock, you have surely heard of at least
+Ghost in the Shell. Most of his works share aspects of deep
+worldbuilding and thematic complexity, that makes them hard to
+transpose to other media: Oshii and Kamiyama moulded GitS to their
+views and sensibilities, leaving out a good part of the complexity of
+the original. Dominion is probably the most easy to adapt, since it is
+essentially a series of visual gags and jokes, if you ignore the
+attention to mechanics and weapons. Appleseed, on the other hand,
+seems to be the hardest one.
+
+Appleseed was published in 1985 in four volumes. It's set in a
+post-WW3 world, with advanced mechanical and biological technologies
+that allowed the creation of cyborgs, semi-autonomous artificial
+intelligences, powered suits, and a genetically designed near-human
+slave species, the bioroids. The manga (and the extensive endnotes)
+detail both the technological and political landscapes, delving into
+the goal and struggles of the various national and international
+organisations and social classes. All of this while also telling the
+story of the two main characters, Deunan Knute (a human woman) and
+Briareos Hekatonkheires (a human-cyborg man), who work as part of a
+crack para-military team, the ESWAT in Olympus City, to keep the
+peace, control terrorist organisations, and occasionally saving
+society from the consequence of its own short-sighted actions.
+
+Appleseed has been adapted to animation three times to date: as an OVA
+in 1988 (directed by KATAYAMA Kazuyoshi (片山 一良), who had
+previously worked with Studio Ghibli and Studio Pierrot, and would go
+on to direct The Big O among others), two movies in 2004 and 2007
+("Appleseed" and "Appleseed Ex Machina", directed by ARAMAKI Shinji (荒
+牧 伸志), who worked on Megazone 23 and later Halo Legends), and this
+new series, directed by HAMANA Takayuki (浜名 孝行); none of the
+adaptations has been particularly good.
+
+This series seems to be set after the events of the manga, and uses
+the device of international and terrorist intrigue to tackle one of
+the big issues in the Appleseed world: bioroids are bred and
+conditioned to be guardian slaves, given control of the cities
+infrastructure under AI supervision, but considered expendable and not
+deserving of basic rights. It could have been great, the mix of
+sentient species in Olympus City was written exactly for that purpose,
+but sadly the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
+
+Appleseed XIII feels overly fond of its own gimmicks, from the CGI to
+visual effects to the continuous references to Greek mythology. For
+example, the first 12 episodes are named after the Labours of
+Heracles, and their plots tries to somehow reflect each trial. Don't
+get me wrong, Greek myths have always been part of Appleseed, but here
+it feels more forced than usual. Another aspect that really hindered
+my enjoyment of the series is the visual presentation: low-polygon CGI
+without motion capture has never been a good idea, but nowadays it
+also looks dated. From the specials included in this release we learn
+that each episode was produced by a different company, because no one
+wanted to invest the time and money to create the entire show.
+Apparently the various companies and studios did not share their 3d
+models or animation routines, resulting in subtle (and sometimes
+not-so-subtle) differences in the way characters look and move from
+one episode to the next.
+
+Finally, the actual thematic centre of the story, the tension and
+contrast between the species, ends up taking second or third place
+behind the battles and some lovers' quarrels.
+
+I think I'm going to re-read the manga, now.
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