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Appurushîdo (1988) Based on a manga by Masumune Shirow, creator of the popular Dominion: Tank Police series, this is pretty much the expected anime mix: little girls with big guns, hulking robo-warrior suits, a future city, chases and fights, cyborg computer jocks, shrill characters and a plot that sets up numberless future episodes. In a premise which prefigures Demolition Man, the utopian city of Olympus has been established in the ruins of a ravaged future earth but the inhabitants are so weedy that they have to recruit hardened survivors from the wastelands to form a special police unit to fight ambiguous terrorists out to destroy the status quo. The heroes are an elfin but spunky young girl and her lumbering cyborg best friend-partner, stock characters whose sexless relationship gives the film a curiously childlike feel despite its cynicism and violence. The background is messy enough to make it hard to tell the goodies
from the baddies all the time, which ensures a welcome plot complexity,
as the extra-civilised rulers of the city are so contemptuous of their
own police that the heroes' chief doesn't bother to brief them directly
and issues orders via a hologram, and the violent terrorists actually
have a point in that the sterile environment they are trying to wreck
has become dangerously stifling for the citizenry. But, of course, the
selling point is the spectacular high-tech urban warfare which explodes
between the sociological speculation and buddy-bonding. Directed and
written by Kazuyoshi Katayama. First Published In: Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction. Visit Kim's Official Website at www.johnnyalucard.com
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