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Appleseed XIII
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A study in equality, unequal to its task.
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: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.
