ANI-MOVIES, *Ai City

Ai City was a short-lived manga that lasted 2 volumes in the mid-80s and was turned into an anime feature AIC studio. The 1986 movie has been released in English only once through Right Stuf on subtitled VHS as their first original anime home video market release. Koichi Mashimo directed this a year before he handled the Dirty Pair anime movie, so you can see his signature of energetic design in psychedelic action scenes, some of which might cause real seizures if watched for too long. Even though the manga was limited, the anime adaptation tries to add far more dialogue, characters, and subplots that a full-length production can handle. Anything from laser-toting Playboy bunnies, transformers, esper assassins, cyborg soldiers, and a giant Akira-type kaiju keeps the narrative shifting from one genre to another which probably is what kept it from becoming a memorable release on either side of the world.

Set in what is possibly a digital simulation or a giant psychic projection, the young man Kei was a test subject for an underground scientific organization called Fraud that modified K for their bio-cybernetic experiments. Kei escapes their clutches along with Ai, a young clone of his dead girlfriend. During their daring chase, they pick up a genetically altered house cat, a drunk former cop turned private eye, and an amnesiac older clone of Ai who helps them after falling for the detective. Fraud is after Ai because she is the key to activating a world-altering psychic event labeled the Trigger, but they also have to contend with their pervy ex-head scientist who spends the entire time naked inside a liquid vat riding a large mecha suit. Ai is eventually abducted by Fraud leading to a long series of battles that seem like they are right out of an 80's sidescrolling video game, which then gets a Groundhog Day conclusion reopening at the beginning of the film leaving the viewer wondering if everything they just watched was a dream or a timeloop.

Ai City(also titled Love City)tried to throw in everything but the kitchen sink in its anime adaptation, similarly to how Project A-Ko did even though this was not intended as a parody. There are numerous examples of bizarre exchanges between the characters like vaguely mentioned rivalries or affairs on between both the good and bad guys, specifically when the majority of the bad guys are psychically freed of their mania right before the genetic abomination monster that appears nears the end. They try to stuff so much into a single feature with conflicting plots and gratuitous fan service that it rolls out as an incoherent experience that even hardcore cyberpunk fans will have trouble with, even if they have a bag full of weed to get through it all.