Back to thiccvader's Profile thiccvader's Profile

Original story with sloppy execution. Sigh, what a shame.

An illusionary city set above a top-secret underground cyber hardware was definitely not a conventional narrative the 80s Japanese directors would dare enough to initiate. I can get why this was revolutionary in Japan back then, the story was way ahead of its time. Megazone 23 successfully introduced the phantasm of virtual reality and oh boy you wouldn’t believe the amount of films this OVA have influenced. It starts with a really convincing premise, but once it crispens up... well, things are not quite what they seem.

It felt so disjointed and set forth my attention span to ... hit the lowest. There are too many plot holes that are based on ambiguity, thus I don’t think their original story will carry the film effortlessly and let us overlook its really reaaaally bad narrative. Half of their transition cuts seems like it was too rushed and the whole idea of emphasizing its cheesy sexual love scenes when finally they’ve set the right pace, for me, is the worst marketing idea to boost up a film’s popularity. Up until the end it still left me so confused dammmittt. Yeah I won’t waste my time trying to find the explanation on google. It aint worth it.

So go watch it at your own risk, don’t get fooled by its originality.

The most British anime with an alternative Victorian-era war setting and surprisingly, it's by far the best steampunk-related “animation” I've ever watched. Well, kind of.

At first, Steamboy seems promising with its philosophy of science versus science as the nation's military forefront plot, whereby scientific achievement is acknowledged as a scale to maximizes power. Those two very distinctive beliefs are stimulated by Dr. Eddie and Dr. Lloyd which also happened to be the main character Ray's dad and grandpa. Dr. Eddie believes that science as mankind's modern God should have been used for military purposes while at the same time, Dr. Lloyd believes that science should ... be used for the greater good and not for the greedy shareholders in the capitalist world.

But as time progresses, the debate between those two characters is getting really really reaaaallly boring. It felt like the film is suffocating me with its never ending midpoint plus their lack of emotional build ups, and to be honest if its not for their highly detailed “animation” i’ve mentioned earlier, i would for sure click the stop button cuz holy schnitzel i legit wanted to punch my laptop screen. To think that at first i thought Dr. Eddie is the antagonist made me wanted to punch both my face and my laptop screen (again) simultaneously cuz in the end it doesn't matter, both Dr. Eddie and Dr. Lloyd is just a bunch of sick delusional boomers that are blinded by their judgments. And when it finally gets better in their "rising action" act, the film somehow shifts its attention into a hero concept film by using Ray’s child innocence, sigh. But oh wait it gets worse when you hit the climax. The only way i can explain it into words without giving any spoilers is basically like listening to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons Summer in Presto opening that goes on and on but twice the speed with no ending at all.

The only interesting part i find from this film is their character placements. By placing three very different generations as their main focus and Ray as the center, it perfectly explained of how different their own generation view science can give a huge impact to mankind during the Victorian-era war. But to be honest that's it. I really tried to like this film tho, my expectations were very high specially this was Katsuhiro Otomo's film after Akira and Memories, which for me are two of his Magnum Opus.

So to sum it up, in the end im dissapointed and i don't think i'll ever try to rewatch it. It's suffocating and tiring, really.