Appleseed (1988 OVA)

In the wake of World War III, the city of Olympus has risen from the ashes.  Here, survivors can find a new beginning and form a peaceful society alongside the half human/half cyborg workforce known as Bioroids.  This perfect setting isn’t for everyone and there are those who would see it burned to the ground.  Standing in their way are Deunan Knute and her cyborg partner Briareos Hecatonchires.  Both are veterans of the war and have brought their expertise to the Olympus Police Department.  They are the only thing standing in the way of one disillusioned citizens quest for revenge and the fall of their new Eden.

Appleseed, created by Shirow Masamune, is a cyber punk dystopian series that is often lost in the shadow of its far more famous sibling, Ghost in the Shell.  Most people might know Appleseed from it’s trilogy of CG Anime films directed by Shinji Aramaki (the man who is currently co-directing the rather devisive new season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex).  So it’s ok to admit you might not know there’s a super random Appleseed OVA feature from the late 80s, predating GitS’ first foray into Anime.  But there’s good reasons why you’ve never heard of this particular feature.  If you didn’t know the title was part of a larger franchise that didn’t kick off until the early 2000’s, the Appleseed OVA would just look like another generic hyperviolent scifi action romp that is terrible and forgettable on almost every level.

The OVA throws viewers right into the action and dispenses with important details like backstory and character origins.  Deunan and Briareos get maybe a sentence for an origin tale before we continue our hop scotching from Action Scene A to Action Scene B.  It’s not helped that despite these two being the stars of their own feature…they suck as Police Officers or action heroes.  The pair bumble and banter their way through the movie producing few results and being incapable of solving a rather easy crime, particularly when the main villain tells them his motivations and they don’t put two and two together.  Not that the villains are much to brag about either.  One is a disillusioned cop who’s somber tale of woe barely registers in the sea of badness in this OVA.  The other is a Bioroid who is all talk but feels so unthreatening even when he’s shown committing violent acts.

If you thought the characters were a mess, theyre only a small ingredient in this horrible tasting meal.  I cant believe that Gainax is the studio behind this stinker cause it look terrible.  Appleseed looks nothing like the more majestic OVAs of the 80s and 90s but instead looks like it was rushed out to meet a quota of generic scifi action titles that populated both decades.  If anything makes it stand out, it’s the shoddy presentation for sure.  Speaking of action, there is plenty of it but tries to be more showy and over the top…and oddly fails at both.  The action feels standard and the amount of gore and over the top style isn’t as abundant as you’d think.  It’s all incredibly bland really.  It more than matches the main characters and the supporting cast who do nothing but speak action one liners that were all but done by the end of the 80s and make one bad or stupid decision after another (here’s looking at you important character who’s told not to step into a room of doom only to step into it anyway because…you’re an idiot).

Appleseed has only one thing keeping it from getting a flat out 0/10…and that’s the English Dub from Manga Entertainment.  Clearly they saw Appleseed as an edgy, adult animation action fest and sought to make the dub reflect that.  Every character curses every other sentence as a way to make the movie seem more mature and cool than it actually is.  Some characters have accents that don’t even fit the characters at all, especially the Australian Deunan and Brooklyn Briarios.  And yet, the dialogue is so bad you cant help but laugh.  Every voice actor is trying to sound like they have seen and memorized every bit of 80s action one liners and deliver them as silly as possible.  The result is the only gold worth mentioning about this movie.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s terrible dialogue.  But it makes a bland and boring story at least somewhat bearable and worth of a few unintended laughs (or maybe they were intended, this dub could’ve been a throwaway project just like the OVA itself).

If the Appleseed OVA had succeeded back in 1988, it could have gotten a jumpstart on the spotlight that Ghost in the Shell would snatch from it years later.  As it is, Appleseed has nothing to make it stand out beyond just how bad it is.  You know that’s definitely so when a not as funny as intended English Dub is the best part of the film.  Appleseed has found better success thanks to its CG film and TV offerings since the turn of the century.  So like I said, it’s no wonder this forgettable OVA is often overlooked in favor of those outings.  Cause this was…man was it bad, but at least it’s only an hour long.  And yet it feels longer…damn this was bad.

1/10