ANI-MOVIE, *Megazone 23: Part 1 & 2

One of the more unusual experiments in the 80s anime boom was the Megazone 23 anime franchinse. The first two movies were theatrically released through AIC and Tatsunoko, but had completely different character designs between the year-long premiere of each one, and the third chapter was actually an OVA taking place centuries later. Each part of the trilogy has at least two seperate English dubs provided by American and British production companies, with the most infamous being Robotech: The Movie which tried making it a midquel to the Macross Saga before Carl Macek created Robotech II: The Sentinels to which he claimed that the Megazone 23 treatement was one of the worst things he was ever involved in since it didn't get a theatrical showing. Megazone 23 however acted as the template for several future sci-fi works of innocents trapped in an artificial world, so if it weren't for this anime you might not have Dark City or The Matrix. The purpose of this review is to go over both parts 1 and 2 as its an ongoing narrative carries over from one movie to the other.

Taking place 500 years in the future, world wars cause humanity to abandonned Earth, and split its warring factions into two seperate city-sized starships called Megazones. The one called Megazone 23 has the majority of its inhabitants believing that they are all existing in Tokyo during the mid-1980s. Acting as the main computer program known as Bahamut runs not only the simulation of 20th Century Earth but also the higher functions of the ship they are one. Shogo is a punk that comes across a transforming motorcycle robot connected to Bahamut's artificial idol EVE that reveals the illusion he live in, prompting him to try and stop Megazone's secret leaders from creating a new totalitarian regime as they are planning on confronting the rival invading Megazone. The first movie ends with Shogo ultimately failing in his mission, but surviving in the second installment by raising an underground army of bikers with bazookas bent on taking down their fascist overlordseaders. All this while both Megazone ships are on a course toward Earth where the defense program known as ADAM awaits to lay final judgement on the last living human civilizations.

The difference of styles between both parts of this series is nearly staggering, where as the characters in Part 1 has them with spiky hair and pastel-colored hair, the look for Part 2 was slightly more realistic with completely altered haircuts, making it very difficult to tell the few returning cast members from the previous chapter. The dubs seperated between the original international editions and the ADV Films redub are up to the individual watcher to determine which is better, although the ADV dub makes it easier to tell the difference between the returning characters in Part 2 after their stark redrawing. Animego currently has a collected edition of the entire anime trilogy, including both dubs of Part 1 and 2 in one convenient package.