Spriggan

Long before the era of prehistoric man, an advanced alien species inhabited Earth. Negligent of the power they held, these beings ultimately caused their own demise. However, the aliens left behind a warning to future civilizations on indestructible tablets: to destroy any remains of the ruinous technology created by their kind.

In modern times, the ARCAM Corporation and their paramilitary unit—the Spriggans—seek to seal the relics away and prevent renegade actors from exploiting their powers. Following ARCAM's recent discovery in the Ararat Mountains of what is believed to be the mythic Noah's Ark, Spriggan Yuu Ominae has been dispatched to investigate.

However, the site is ambushed by the US Machine Corps—a radical faction of the Department of Defense led by Colonel MacDougall. On the Pentagon's orders, MacDougall seeks to secure ARCAM's lead scientist and seize the artifact. Teamed up with fellow Spriggan Jean Jacquemondo, Yuu must stop MacDougall and the Machine Corps' elite soldiers from advancing on the Ark before it is too late.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ominae, Yuu Main

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

MacDougall, Colonel Main

Aigase, Ryuji Japanese

Dr. Meisel Main

Shiroyama, Ken Japanese

Jacquemondo, Jean Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Director Yamamoto Supporting

Arimoto, Kinryuu Japanese

Narrator Supporting

Yajima, Masaaki Japanese

Takanaka Supporting

Makishima, Naoki Japanese

Margaret Supporting

Tamagawa, Sakiko Japanese

Fat Man Supporting

Takano, Kenji Japanese

Little Boy Supporting

Suzuki, Katsumi Japanese

Otomo, Katsuhiro Producer, Script, Mechanical Design

Ikeguchi, Kazuhiko Producer

Kawasaki, Hirotsugu Director, Storyboard, Screenplay

Tsuruoka, Youta Sound Director

Reviews

Jul 25, 2008

Beatnik

Recommended

Spriggan's got a relatively interesting premise behind it, but doesn't do anything interesting with it.

Don't let that put you off though, there's still some fun to be had in the form of cool 90's action!

This is the first, and currently only time I've seen Turkey depicted in anime. The crew did an ok job capturing its diverse nature; that of being stuck between Europe and Asia. We see metropolitan Istanbul briefly, and far eastern parts like Diyarbakir in the anime and it looks good.

Well actually, the animation in Spriggan is more than good; its impressive considering it was made in 1998. As ... expected of Studio 4C. Facial reactions and action scenes are detailed and you find yourself scanning the whole screen to take it all in.

For a moment I thought this anime would be totally realistic but that notion goes out the window with a chase scene in Istanbul which made me grin like an idiot. I swear the main character's modelled after Jackie Chan. He moves around like a hyperactive monkey, doing back-flips and swinging on cables, its fluid and very dynamic watching him beat people up mercilessly.

Unfortunately that is all the character has going for him. Why did he have to be a 17 year old school kid anyway? Why not just a regular guy in his 20's or 30's? The anime doesn't delve into his dual lifestyle, that of being a school kid one day and ARCAM operative the next, and his extremely brief flashback-assisted back-story is almost like an afterthought. All it does is explain his origin, not shed light on anything in his personality, because he doesn't have one to begin with! He's a walking cliché.

So in the end I just see the character as a cynical attempt at appeasing teens. "Hey check this out! Wouldn’t it be cool if a kid just like you was a kick-ass mercenary!?" Not really. Unless he's getting the shit kicked out of him by a girl called Chidori Kaname, I'm not interested. At least Full Metal Panic gave us a compelling back-story to make the entire story have weight. The action scenes in Spriggan may be unrealistic, but they could have retained some sense of coherency with the narrative, it feels very lazy and my Suspend-Disbelief-O-Meter just wasn't compatible this time.

I can enjoy an over the top action-fest as much as the next Read or Die fan, but here it's not fun and it's not dramatic, and when it finally builds to an ever-increasingly illogical Akira-esque climax with a psychic super powered deformed kid and apocalyptic style crap blowing up, I'm losing even more respect for it to be even contemplating Katsuhiro Otomo's masterpiece, let alone riffing off of it.

Spriggan feels both old-school with its late 90's violence; the kind where people and objects are eviscerated with unabashed glee that would make the guys who worked on Ninja Scroll hyperventilate in joy, but the anime also feels ahead of its time because of that attention to detail and unconventional setting. You get the sense that if only the story were much much better, as in: if Studio 4C took a different approach at adapting the manga or just took an entirely different one to adapt in the first place, it would have been nestled comfortably in a list of Top Anime Movies Of The 90's; next to stuff like Production I.G's Ghost in the Shell which came out a few years earlier.

The story isn't even worth mentioning; it's just a bunch of plot points ticked off one by one. Guy has to go from A to B; objects have to get from Y to Z. Spriggan has to go from 'plan-to-watch' to 'completed' with a score that means it barely entertained me for the running time and I'll probably never watch it again. An interesting if disappointing look at Studio 4C's earlier efforts. They've come a long way indeed.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 9, 2016

Paraturtle

Mixed Feelings

Story:
I'm a sucker for evolutionary narratives with symbolism but I was suckered into Spriggan because of this. Right off the bat we're introduced to poor pacing that shows no sign of correcting itself. The entire story jumps around at the most awkward times and it doesn't help that a lot of things are ignored after the fact. It's not that there are subplots, as the main plot is already pretentious enough to cloud out anything else, but the events surrounding the main plotline are, more or less, canon fodder to increase the run time.

Combat sequences are fun and exciting early on but the movie transforms ... into more of a dialogue later on. A bit of a bummer since the first sequence is a lot of fun and felt super cool, but even the action scenes have some strange pacing issues and transitions that are stunted. Still, pretty cool stuff.


Art:
The animation is pretty dang solid. Loved it. Settings were lively and exciting during the first act but the second they reach the mountain the world quiets down and becomes very boring. However, the animation still flows well and things look fantastic. It's definitely the thing that kept me watching.


Sound:
Certain tracks are absolutely wonderful and the rest are invasive. Certain scenes are turned humorous due to the overly dramatic and completely non-sensable score. The sound effects themselves are pretty good but go unnoticed for the most part. A shame, since sci-fi's have the opportunity to create otherworldly, impressive effects. However, the work is more worried about the quality of the animation than anything else, which is ok. A shame, but ok.


Character:
Empty and vacant shells to carry out the narrative. Nothing more. That said, the main character had some depth that was pretty neat but it comes in mostly at the end. Everyone else isn't a real bother and doesn't bog down the flow so it's sufficient to get to the end of the work, but things have to happen and there's little reason for them other than "oh this character did this and that happened." They're used conveniently to make sure things move forward and nothing more. Nobody matters.


Enjoyment:
Pretty boring. A neat feature to gaze at the animation but nothing else matters. It's very similar to Akira except Akira has better pacing, a stronger world to explore, and many other neat features. Beyond that, this is a slightly above boring narrative that I'll probably forget about in a few weeks regardless.


((If you liked this review, friend me for new reviews on other works, both manga and anime!))

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 21, 2015

Luquillo

Not Recommended

An organization codenamed ARCAM has a mission to retrieve ancient artifacts and keep them secret. One of their teams discover the Ark of Noah spoken of in the Old Testament. Another organization wants it, and they're leaving a path of destruction in their pursuit of it. The Ark has the power to completely change the world. One of ARCAM's top agents in an elite group called Spriggan named Yu Ominae is pulled into the confrontation. Yu journey's to the heart of the conflict. -summary

Spriggan is another anime title that condenses its story to fit into 90 mins., when in truth, it would have been ... a much better outing in an OVA or even a TV series format. Well, no sense on crying over slashed stories. Spriggan is an action first, deal with characters and story later type of deal. The action and production values are so well done I know plenty of people whom forgot about the story altogether.

The production values are the main selling point. The artwork has many moments of beauty from snow laden mountain tops, to dark and dreary caves. There's a great amount of detail in the backgrounds, and although the character designs feel reminiscent of Akira, there are moments of creativity. The locations and set pieces are simply eye candy, and there's never a dull moment. The animation which does use a small amount of CG turns in some heavily appealing action segments; the viewer will be treated to bodies being ate up by gun fire, and very well choreographed action assisted by splendid camera work. The action fan will find quite a bit here to keep them occupied. I also like the mature feel of the anime, as it has this level of darkness to it which frees it completely from that "light up the mood" feel. In regards to the voice acting, it's been awhile since I saw the sub so I can't recall anything from it. However, the English dub had a competent cast, Chris Patton playing Yu was just as good as normally, while Kevin Corn as Colonel McDougall hammed it up with an annoying child-like high pitch voice, that hasn't gotten any less annoying over the years.

Spriggan maintains a very consistent tone on the serious side, and it definitely needed to sustain that feel because it does handle some dark material. The story takes a stab at a different variation of the Great Flood, and some of the things will probably get under the skin of the religious; but in the end it all comes off as window-dressing, because the entire story for the most part plays second to the action.

The plot follows Yu and another Spriggan operative by the name of Jean-Jacques Mondo, as they battle against heavily armed and powerful cyborg warriors. The plot is heavily action-saturated with small pieces of story here and there. It would probably be insulting to even say character development is brushed upon, since Mondo is only there to fulfill a role, and outside of how he fights you learn nothing about him. Yu's background is crammed in towards the end, but he becomes a pretty cool character early on, so he's easy to get into. The lead villain by the name of Colonel McDougall for the most part was that bad guy with serious delusions of grandeur. He wants the Ark to use its power and begin a second Great Flood.

Spriggan really could have been better. If only the writers chose to flesh out the character and story, plus take full advantage of its heavy themes. Instead, they wanted to focus on high production values. The only reason I don't completely have a problem with this is because it did very well on what it set out for. I will mention that it has a couple of deus ex machina moments that had me wondering could they have thought of something better.

I found Spriggan to be a mildly enjoyable action-fest. It doesn't suffer from tonal shifts, and it sticks to its guns. If you're searching for that little popcorn flick and you want to leave your brain at the door. Then this is that anime for you. If I had to liken it to other anime titles; it would probably be similar to Afro Samurai or Ninja Scroll.

Highs: Production values, nice action segments

Lows: All it appears to care about is looking pretty

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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