Appleseed

After Earth was decimated by World War III, the ruins of civilization were rebuilt, with the futuristic city of Olympus standing out like a crown jewel. Overseen by the supercomputer Gaia and populated with an extremely large number of Bioroids—genetically engineered people designed to handle all administrative functions—Olympus affords its citizens lives free from all worries. However, a surge of crimes has been occurring within this seemingly utopian environment.

In order to protect the people, Deunan Knute and her partner Briareos Hecantochires work for Olympus' Enhanced SWAT team, taking on the most violent criminal cases. When a group of terrorists threaten to destroy the Olympians' way of life, Deunan and Briareos swear to take them down—no matter the cost.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Knute, Deunan Main

Katsuki, Masako Japanese

Hecantochires, Briareos Main

Sakaguchi, Yoshisada Japanese

Areios, Athena Main

Sawada, Toshiko Japanese

Mautholos, Calon Main

Furukawa, Toshio Japanese

Hitomi Supporting

Shou, Mayumi Japanese

Nike Supporting

Takizawa, Kumiko Japanese

Sebastian, A. J. Supporting

Wakamoto, Norio Japanese

Maki, Taro Producer

Sugita, Tsutomu Producer

Katayama, Kazuyoshi Director, Script, Screenplay

Wolskel, John Script

Reviews

Jan 23, 2024

Watch100Animes

Recommended

Appleseed is a good but not particularly memorable and short OVA about a dystopian police state, but one that has a strangely compelling subtext for what it is. The story, taken at face value, is very basic. However, it manages to have a little subtlety and moral ambiguity that makes it pretty interesting and a villain with a legitimate point. Overall, it’s easy to recommend this OVA, even if it’s nothing stellar.

To get it out of the way, yes, the story is nothing to write home about and has been done many times before and better. It’s a typical buddy cop deal with Deunan, the ... plucky young female cop, and Briareos, the hard-edged, in this case robotic or ‘biodroid,’ partner. They have a hard-ass boss, Athena, who I grew to like pretty well despite being really cruel at times, which was, I think, a sign of some decent writing. The plot revolves around a resistance movement against a mega corporation trying to take over Earth’s defence system.

It’s a little convoluted, but the main villain, Calon, has a legitimate point. He is also a cop but turns coat because of his experiences with the unethical corporation trying to take over the planet. He is revealed as a traitor immediately, and the story uses this conceit very well to explore his thoughts, feelings, motivations, and inner struggle as he has to betray his friends and colleagues. While the corporation, I believe named Gaia, is not cartoonishly evil, they are benign and uncaring. They are also exceedingly cruel and unsympathetic to people's needs, as demonstrated with how callously they treated Calon when his wife died. Even Gaia's police force is full of, not evil, but cold bureacrats who simply follow orders. Calon is by contrast a highly morally-driven and broken man who thinks he's doing the right thing. It's a great little conflict. As said at the jump, it’s oddly engaging and fascinating, and I wish it was explored more, but a deep villain like this was not something I would’ve expected from Appleseed. I also liked how, in juxtaposition, Athena is your typical hardliner, quasi-authoritarian who just follows orders and has no regard for biodroid life or ethics despite being on the good team. All of this is really intriguing stuff; it’s only a shame the OVA is quite short, so it’s not explored that much to elevate the whole story beyond merely serviceable overall. Beyond this specific conflict, there's stuff like the funny hijinx with Briareos, Deunan and Hitomi being dumb, nothing compelling. Despite being very important, Sebastian does not steal his scenes compared to Calon and the overall plot is not great.

The characters are, on the whole, solid, though not always very good. I liked Briareos (excellent design), Athena, and especially Calon, a surprisingly decent villain. On the other end of the spectrum, I found that the main character, Deunan, Hitomi, and even Sebastian, the other major villain, were on the dull side. It’s definitely a mixed bag. There are no characters who are outright annoying or ruin things, but it’s carried hard by the good characters. I will say that as a fan of buddy cop movies, Briareos stood out as a likable character who I did end up wanting to root for by the end. It was one of those things stepping back and being surprised how much I genuinely cared about this Astaroth 2P costume looking robot cop. The voice cast for this was pretty decent, not great, but the dub had some overlap with other 80s and 90s shlock I have watched, like Mad Bull. The range of Calon’s voice actor from this, to the Brooklyn accent of Mad Bull, is genuinely impressive. The sound overall is another thing that’s just okay at best.

The comedy and character interactions range from alright to a bit cringe-worthy. I think the dub helps out here as the characters feel pretty realistic and have a bit of an edge to them, and it feels like a sci-fi version of New York or Chicago. So that’s an easy fit for everything there, and it’s less awkward. It’s too short to explore futuristic culture too much, but it’s okay.

The visuals are good, but nothing stands out. It doesn’t look bad, considering it’s from 1988, but you can definitely tell the era it’s from, and it has a few pretty bad sequences. It does not look exactly theatrical; there is a very much made-for-TV quality standard going on here, and it does have a cheap finish in some areas. I did like the action. It's slow, but competent and has some fun set pieces. Nothing to drag it down; it looks fine, but I was surprised Gainax, of all people, made this. You would never know other than the story having some kinda out there ideas. The designs are also somewhat forgettable sci-fi fare. Briareos is cool, but the mechs are some of the most generic ones I’ve seen in an anime, like something Iron Man would’ve rejected as an early draft for his bulkier suits. Sebastian’s design and augmentations are somewhat cool, but that’s all. The final giant mech that resembles a squid a little bit is very underwhelming, honestly, and I pretty much rolled my eyes when it appeared like, that’s it? This was the big threat being built up all this time. Its stilted and low-budget animation was also pretty disappointing. Narratively it’s fine, it just did nothing for me visually.

The length is a blessing and a curse. It definitely never overstays its welcome, making it easy to recommend. On the other hand, it could only get so far in just over an hour of screen time. Even then, it definitely could’ve been better with a more refined script and story or a higher budget. Considering the low budget, length, and release date, it’s a workman-like production.

Overall, this is definitely a mixed bag, but still good. I was dithering on how much I liked it, but I came out of it engaged with the parts I liked. There’s plenty of bad and mediocre, but it’s also short enough that it’s easier to overlook. In short, if you just want a fun sci-fi buddy cop movie with some ideas that might appeal to you beyond that and mostly inoffensive anyway, you might as well check this out.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 16, 2025

blizar

Mixed Feelings

Appleseed is definitely a step up from most of the 80s OVA slop that's out there. Running for roughly one hour, the OVA introduces a post-World War 3 utopian world mainly populated with genetically engineered humans called 'bioroids.' This interesting setting paves the way for a lot of potential themes to be explored, and for the most part, Appleseed does. Briefly.

The antagonist of Appleseed, Calon, introduces the idea that in creating bioroids to serve humanity, humanity ended up serving them instead. He also describes the utopian world the characters inhabit as a zoo, pointing out that the civilians, being bioroids, are programmed not to rebel ... and are thus complacent. These are simple yet effective, thought-provoking ideas that the OVA presents—but unfortunately, they never go beyond being stated. The story doesn't address or challenge Calon's beliefs, and the OVA concludes with nothing in the setting fundamentally changing.

The characters in Appleseed have basic personalities and are surface-level. Aside from Calon, none of the characters have their backstory or motivations explored. This makes it difficult to care about the two main characters, Deunan and Briareos, whose lack of depth leaves them uninteresting and forgettable. They also show no development throughout the OVA. Even when faced with Calon's ideas, neither Deunan nor Briareos reevaluates his perspective or challenges their own views on the bioroids or the utopian setting.

The animation remains consistently good throughout, with detailed background art that helps bring the setting to life. The sound design is fine, serving its purpose without standing out.

Overall, Appleseed suffers from being too short. The OVA could've easily been expanded into a 12-episode anime, allowing for deeper exploration of its characters and themes. Instead, we're left with a well-animated, one-hour-long OVA that introduces an intriguing setting and interesting ideas but doesn't follow through on either.

Final Scorings:
Animation: 7/10 (Good)
Sound: 6/10 (Fine)
Story: 5/10 (Good premise)
Characters: 3/10 (Undercooked)
Value: 2/10 (Unique but irrelevant)
Enjoyment: 5/10 (Interesting premise but lacked payoff)
Overall: 4.67/10 ~ 5/10 (Average)

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Nov 22, 2022

KamuiX1999

Not Recommended

I haven't seen this since I was a teenager in the '90s, and I remember being pretty underwhelmed after all of the hype surrounding it back in those early days. Having revisited it, my feelings haven't changed. This is only the second film animated by Gainax, and when compared to their first, Royal Space Force Honneamise, it's pretty obvious where all the money went. Appleseed looks like amateur hour, with a lot of stilted animation and just an overall bland look, which considering this is based on a manga by Masamune Shirow, is a massive problem. All of the characters are weakly defined, and it ... also has some of the most inappropriate music as well, which manages to lull one to sleep rather than excite. Every other Appleseed adaptation is far superior in literally every aspect, and when taking into account I am a much bigger fan of hand-drawn animation over CG (which is how every other adaptation is animated), that is saying a whole heck of a lot about how weak this is.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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