Appleseed

In the wake of a devastating Global War, the utopian city of Olympus now stands as a beacon of hope for the survivors.  One of those survivors is Deunan Knute, who has been plucked from her war torn hellscape and brought to Olympus.  Here, Deunan is made the newest member of Olympus’ E-SWAT defenders, alongside her once thought dead lover Briareos Hecatonchires, whose body has been reborn as a full cyborg.  As Deunan comes to terms with her new reality, she and Briareos become embroiled in a conspiracy to wipe out the Artificial Human population of Olympus, known as Bioroids.  With the sins of the war poised to take root, Deunan and Briareos must work together to preserve the peace their future desperately needs.
 
Released back in 2004, Appleseed seemed meant to kickstart a new generation of Anime filmmaking.  It was one of the first Anime films of its kind to be completely computer generated.  As a bonus, it was both an introduction to another property created by Shirow Masamune, best known for Ghost in the Shell, and launched the career of Shinji Aramaki, the man who would receive much of his work in this CG Anime Film field.  But as we take a look at Aramaki’s three Appleseed feature films, does the first one live up to the buzz it generated?
 
I should start with, by default, this is a much better movie than the Appleseed OVA from 1988 that I reviewed back in 2021.  The story is much more serious and mature than the glorified gory shoot e mem that was the OVA and the digital art style has its merits, particularly from a mecha and character design standpoint.  Briareos looks pretty cool, as do the E-SWAT mech suits that see more action than the leads outside of them.  And I’d be lying if I said Deunan wasn’t pretty hot.  Masamune knows how to craft an effective female lead for his works as seen in Ghost in the Shell’s legendary Motoko Kusinagi.  However, that’s kind of where most of my praise for the Appleseed movie kind of ends.  Aside from the first experimental animation attempt, there’s nothing else to make Appleseed stand out besides how utterly boring, unoriginal and, truthfully, how un-Anime it feels at times.
 
Most of the time I was watching Appleseed, I felt I was watching less of an Anime feature film and more of a compilation video collection of Video Game Cutscenes (especially since I was watching this on a High Frame Rate Television).  What little action that’s featured is brief and looks like something I’d rather play through than watch.  Actually, most of Appleseed’s story is told through several massive info dumps, this movie is like 80% exposition, 10% action and 10% attempts to flesh out Deunan and Briareos.  Mamrou Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell films had the occasional explanation of a region or a group, but for the most part they focused on the central mystery of their respective films and the characters plowing through them, plus their existential dilemmas.  Appleseed wants to spend more time telling you about the world of Olympus rather than letting Deunan and Briareos experience it for themselves.  Even by the time we get to the movies final act, the expositing isn’t done and when it is, the movie is practically over and there’s no time for an exciting action sequence to save the movie.
 
As I hinted, this doesn’t do Deunan and Briareos any favors.  Both characters might look like a fun pair but theyre anything but onscreen.  In fact, I feel like we barely spent any time with Briareos.  Appleseed misses the chance to really delve into some potentially stocked character dramas with Deunan as a long time warrior plucked out of her element and Briareos as her former lover who now has a very different existence to get used to.  But again, the world around them takes priority and theyre just along for the ride.  As a result, Deunana and Briareos come off as bland and lesser versions of Masamune’s much more famous Ghost in the Shell duo: Motoko Kusinagi and Batou.  What little action both are involved in has potential as well but the fights are too brief and lack any sense of excitement for an Anime trying to do something radical with the genre and they just feel as hollow and empty as many of the backgrounds and stage setting of the film (which feel plucked out of an untested Video Game).
 
Visually interesting animation can only get you so far in Anime storytelling (the Final Fantasy films from Square Enix can attest to this).  Appleseed was meant to be a game changer for Anime and instead, it just becomes another boring action flick with no action and very little heart and spirit to make it entertaining, all style, no substance.  It’s a shame because this could have been Appleseed’s shot at stepping out of its more successful cousins shadow (talking about Ghost in the Shell).  Perhaps one of the two sequels will fair better.
 
3/10
 
Next week we see if the sequels are the stories Deunan and Briareos truly deserve.  Check back Friday for Appleseed: Ex Machina followed by Appleseed Alpha Next Monday over at the Gundam Anime Corner.