Watched the anime Vexille (note: major spoilers in the Wikipedia link!) tonight, post-skiing. Vexille, named after one of the main characters, tracks the story of a completely isolated (diplomatically, physically and technologically) Japan; a malevolent plot courtesy of the internationally known Daiwa Corporation (makers of all kinds of advanced androids and robot tech); and the US Navy S.W.O.R.D. commando team sent to infiltrate Japan to figure out what’s going on after breaking up a secret meeting in the Colorado mountains. This show is kind of a mixed bag, however, for the following reasons:

1) The animation, done by the same team that did Appleseed, is good. I still think, however, that Appleseed was considerably more dazzling overall in appearance than this movie. Sometimes the visuals are very stunning, and other times they seem like the animated intro’s to a PS2 game or something (the ones you always skip past by hitting ‘X’ repeatedly so you can get to playing the actual game?). Also, in some ways this movie’s look seems to directly mimic Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in a number of scenes also.

2) There are parallels in the plot between Vexille and Appleseed too – I won’t reveal them to avoid spoiling it, but on the bright side, this movie doesn’t have the heroine shouting ‘Briareos!’ over and over again like Appleseed does.

3) The Jags (metal-seeking ‘worm whirlwinds’ in the Japanese wastelands) are obviously a Dune sandworm ripoff, plain and simple.

4) The characters (excepting possibly Maria) aren’t really developed well, if at all – they are pretty flat and one-dimensional.

5) Finally, one of the last battles between Vexille and Kisaragi (Daiwa Corp’s resident mad scientist) is pretty unbelievable.

Wikipedia references other reviews that call out Vexille for going over ground already covered by Ghost in the Shell – I agree with that in some ways, but Vexille put a reverse twist on the whole ‘man vs. machine’ debate (central to many of these similar anime) which had potential but became fairly formulaic in the end, not unlike the recently reviewed Sky Crawlers. The quest for better anime goes on!

candybowl