Further studies in cyberpunk….
So in keeping with recent viewing and reading schedules in and around the genre of ‘cyberpunk’ – I watched an older anime called Cyber City Oedo 808. This is a 3 part (apparently that’s all they ever did) future police/crime series that came out in 1990 in Japan, 1994 in English (UK and USA). Each episode is about 40 minutes long.
I was pleasantly surprised with this one. While it’s old enough that there’s no CGI in it – this came out not long after the seminal Akira (1988), after all – the animation is strong and the visuals are very interesting. The ‘cyber city Oedo’ is a future Tokyo, way, way overbuilt (compared to say, the future Tokyo seen in Ghost in the Shell or even Akira) and very huge. It even has a ‘space-scraper’ in it (a sky scraper that reaches way above the clouds) and in the third episode, a local hospital has a space elevator that reaches an orbital station(!).
The 3 stories are essentially crime/cop stories, each based centrally on one of the 3 main characters – Sengoku, Gogol, or Benten. At the outset all three are given the option of getting out of their orbital prison and becoming cops to work off their sentences, but the catch is they have to wear an explosive collar (keeps them from running away) and their boss regularly sets ‘deadlines’ for their work (at which point it could also explode and blow their head off if unsuccessful).
The first story (Virtual Death) involves a plot to kill the designer of the ‘space scraper’ – kind of a future-cop Die Hard without the humor (and sadly, no Alan Rickman. Every movie should have Alan Rickman in it). 🙂 This story largely focuses on Sengoku, who is a typical anime-looking action hero type. He also regularly razzes their robot helper, Varsus.
The second story (The Decoy Program) is probably the most over-the-top. It involves Gogol (who is a mohawk and Geordi-Laforge-goggles-wearing buff punk guy – kind of a son of Blank Reg) vs. a secret Army mecha prototype that is tested against him in hand-to-hand combat. While this plays out like some sort of future Rambo battle – there’s no way a human could sustain that level of injury and keep going like that, so it gets kinda borderline by the end.
The final story (Crimson Media) may be the most futuristic. While the Benten character has been up to this point the least-seen and most enigmatic, this is about him investigating a series of strange murders against research scientists that resemble a vampire killing. Benten has to be the most ‘anime’ looking character of the three – to me, he looks like the love child of Nick Rhodes (in Duran Duran’s prime) and Brian Eno back in early Roxy Music days – near-albino with full on makeup yet the hugest white Cher wig/mullet you’ve ever seen. I thought he was a woman for the first two episodes until he had more actual speaking in the third episode.
It would have been interesting to see where this series went had it gone on longer. The influences on later ‘anime cop’ series like Ghost in the Shell are defnitely there. What’s also kinda weird is that this show is set in 2808, much, much later in time than any other anime I’ve seen (Ghost in the Shell is set around 2030) – but while the city itself looks the part – the fact that they are still driving around in big trucks and (futuristic) motorbikes kinda begs the question of how little they’ve advanced in 800 years? Plus, you’d think instead of putting criminals in an expensive orbiting prison in the first place, just drug them up (Clockwork Orange) or barcode and lock them away forever (Fortress) or just make them into crackers (Soylent Green)? But whatya gonna do…?
For the anime-loving cyberpunk nerd, this is a good, if too short, series.
Other reviews: