ANI-MOVIES: The Mouse And His Child

The Mouse And His Child was the first full-length animated movie put out by Sanrio along with what would eventually become Fred Wolf Films who animated the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Based on the book by Russell Hobson which is a children's story that contains some mature narratives and symbolism, Fred Wolf and Charles Swenson who created Mike, Lu And Og both directed this 1977 theatrically released adaptation. The movie meanders in its own minutiae which makes it incredibly tedious to sit through, while in contrast the film is visually pleasing. This was probably one of those films you caught on cable TV in the 80s on a lazy weekend afternoon and vaguely have a hazy memory of. It was the second film for Fred Wolf Films after the adult animated feature Down And Dirty Duck, so The Mouse And His Child was a major contrast from their prior production, similar to if like Ralph Bakshi did a Saturday Morning cartoon after finishing up Fritz The Cat. Despite the fact that the film had decent enough advertisement behind it, after its theatrical release it got folded into the highest level of obscurity with only a VHS release in America with little fanfare. This isn't really a lost treasure but more of an important footnote in animated film history that was forgotten mostly because it gets caught in its own pointless philosophy.

A toy of a father mouse and his child dancing when they're wound up begin life in a toy store but are thrown into the garbage when they fall of a shelf. The mice come across a rat named Manny who runs a small rat empire with enslaves other abandoned toys to do the hard labor, but the mice manage to get help from a prophetic frog who helps them on their journey to be free of needing to be wound up in order to move. The mice's quest for self-autonomy leads them to a wise peg-legged muskrat who rebuilds them and independent of being wind-ups. The closing part of the movie has the father and son mouse freeing the other toys enslaved by the rats, and for some reason the papa mouse marrying an elephant toy at the end which no one seems to question as its one of the first cross-species weddings in an animated movie.

The Mouse And His Child does contain a reasonable quality of animation put into it, however the theoretical questions it insists on dumping into the laps of young viewers makes it a chore to sit through. The musical score is equally grating with the opening and closing theme being sung off-key by the voice of the child mouse. The only real mark for this might be its English dub cast with Sir Peter Ustinov voicing the snidely rat Manny, along with other talents like Sally Kellerman and Cloris Leachman, plus fans of Wizards will recognize Bob Holt as the savant muskrat. You might be able to track down an old video cassette copy of this if you're a compulsive collector of vintage cartoons, however the film has little staying power to make it significant.

ANI-MOVIES, *Elio

Elio was Pixar's attempt at doing an original movie since Elemental, even though on its own that borrowed heavily from their parent company's film Zootopia. This movie could however be seen as a backwards version of Disney's Lilo And Stitch to which they conveniently remade into a live-action movie that came out the same summer. The one thing I noticed from most reviews of Elio was the vacancy of any comparisons to The Last Starfighter because it borrows a metric ton from the classic 80s sci-fi flick. The concept for the movie was dreamed up by director Adrian Molina when he was CalArts which is plainly obvious as a majority of character designs look like they were out of the cookie cutter "CalArts Style" that much of the older animation fans claim to be tired of, even though you could compare them to previous shows like Steven Universe. Molina directed this along with fellow CalArts graduate Madeline Sharafian plus Domee Shi with the screenplay written by Pixar regulars such as Mike Jones. However, all this talent didn't stop Elio from being Pixar's biggest dud losing out big time to K-Pop Demon Hunters which didn't even get a theatrical premiere and went straight to streaming. The family film is on its own a reasonably decent production, but Pixar's higher-ups had watered down Adrian Molina's original prospect partially due to his vision of the title character being queer-coded. If this is another situation similar to when Disney cancelled The Owl House because it was upsetting conservative parents because of its LGBTQ nature hasn't been fully confirmed, but Pixar's unwillingness to invest in the creator's original vision adds to Elio lackluster outcome. It is visually eye-catching with Pixar's new use of lenses and lighting help sell the interstellar benevolence you might be looking for in a movie with friendly and not-so friendly aliens.

Elio has dead parents like most Disney kids, so he's now living with his Aunt Olga who is a major at an Air Force base specializing in tracking down orbital space trash. Elio is obsessed with aliens and overhears a meeting Olga has about a signal which one of the crew claims is an alien response to the first Voyager space probe which causes Elio to respond to the signal causing the entire base to lose power. Olga sends Elio to a military camp where he gets taken by a collected organization of aliens called the Communiverse who believe he is the leader of Earth and send a clone of him to take his place on Earth. Elio wants to become part of the Communiverse, but they can't except any new members after the last one they rejected declares war on them. Grigon is the warlike leader of a race of huge caterpillars who stomp around in mecha suits modeled after giant crabs, and Elio tries to establish peace between them and the Communiverse, but fails to do so and becomes a prisoner. Grigon's son Glordon meets Elio and escapes with him to the Communiverse that hold Glordon as a bargaining chip to establish peace of which Grigon agrees to, but after having a fun time touring around all the sights the Communiverse has to offer, Glordon admits he doesn't want to go back to become bonded to his own mecha suit. Elio makes up a clone of Glordon to takes his place, but Grigon is not fooled and takes over the Communiverse which reveals Elio's deception, and they send him back to Earth. Glordon accidently uses Elio's star craft to go to Earth which is secured by the Air Force base, so Elio, his clone, and Olga rescue Glordon after taking back the spaceship. Once back at the Communiverse, Elio is able to work out a peace treaty and gives up his shot as an ambassador to live on Earth with his aunt, even though he still keeps in contact with Glordon via ham radio.

Elio wasn't seen as being a failed production because of the quality Pixar put into its visual aesthetics, but instead to how few people actually went to go see the film in theaters. Disney didn't have as much confidence in this as they had for their Lilo And Stitch retread, so they didn't put any genuine advertising into it, least of all any merchandise. The premise of a boy wanting to be abducted by aliens isn't all that original, even though Pixar managed to add their own touches to make it gratifying. This wasn't Pixar's hugest departure from their former glory, however Elio suffers from poor management and a blitzed ad campaign.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Fox And The Hound

The Fox And The Hound was Disney's 24th full-length animated theatrical release based on the book by Daniel P. Mannix which has a radically different ending from the one adapted for the movie. This was Disney's first movie in the 80s and its biggest challenge was the transition of a new generation of animators, one of which was Don Bluth who with others all left halfway through the film's production to go off on their own and animate The Secret Of Nimh. Other new animators that worked on this as their first major production were Tim Burton, Brad Bird, John Lassiter, and Henry Selick, so this was the launching pad for many of the studio's future alumni. The movie was the highest grossing animated title of the year which helped as it was the most expensive film of its kind at the time. This success helped bring about a direct-to-video midquel 25 years later, although the original was considered the last of Disney's classic animated movies before the company's renaissance which had the unfortunate side-effect of condemning The Black Cauldron into the realm of obscurity.

An abandoned baby fox gets adopted by the old widow Tweed that she names Tod and he becomes friends with her neighbor Amos' new pup Copper under the tutelage of the older hunting dog Chief. Tod and Copper have fun together during the fall, but Amos takes Copper on a long winter training journey. Once springtime comes around, Tod has grown up and tries to rekindle his friendship with Copper who is now a better hunting hound, but when Chief gets hurt chasing Tod away, Copper threatens to get back at him. Tweed takes Tod out into a game preserve to ensure his safety, even though that doesn't stop Amos and Copper to hunt down Tod along with his new fox friend Vixey. An encounter with a ravenous bear causes Tod to rescue Copper with the faithful hound protecting him from the trigger-happy Amos, and the old friends part ways.

The Fox And The Hound had mixed reviews when it first came out but still did well as it was the only American animated film that was released that year intended for children. This was the final film that Disney's two remaining Nine Old Men who were the studios main animators when they first opened in the 1920s. The casting for this was masterful with Corey Feldman and Kurt Russel voicing both the young and older Copper, Mickey Rooney as the older Tod, Sandy Duncan as the pleasant Vixey, Pearl Bailey as a helpful owl, Pat Burttram as the ornery Chief, and veteran cartoon voice actor Paul Winchell playing a featherbrained woodpecker. Again, the original source material was supremely edited down for its animation adaptation whose finale makes the one for The Little Mermaid look tame, but Disney did manage to pull off a good enough production. The film does suffer from serious pacing issues and filler sequences that padded out the runtime, but it is ultimately an enjoyable watch for the whole family.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

For being the first animated Star Wars movie as well as the only one not released through Fox, The Clone Wars received a theatrical premiere at the dead end of summer 2008 which didn't help its box office numbers. Meant to bridge the gap between Episode II and III of the prequel trilogy, this was first covered in an excellent 2D micro-series on Cartoon Network directed by Genndy Tartakovsky of Samurai Jack fame, but three years after that trilogy ended a new Clone Wars series was made also by Cartoon Network, this time entirely animated in 3D. The drawback to this is that the micro-series was not considered canon which really sucked if you had come to adore the unstoppable Captain Fordo, although this didn't become totally non-canon until Disney took over the entire franchise. The 3D series ran for 7 seasons first on Cartoon Network, briefly on Netflix, and then concluding on Disney+. The 98-minute-long movie was obliviously intended to be a prolonged pilot episode, but some corporate bigwig thought they could sell more Happy Meals if it was shown in cinemas months before the ongoing TV series. Directed by future Star Wars pioneer David Filoni, The Clone Wars movie was intended to act as a self-contained arc that would be the opening for the weekly network cartoon, so the production quality was not up to theatrical standards which was noticed by most viewers. If this had been released a decade later, then the movie would have gotten enough exposure on the various Disney networks, but because they had to get greedy with it, the license holders had the biggest Star Wars theatrical bomb instead, or at least until the sequel trilogy came out.

Set sometime after Attack Of The Clones, the titular Clone Wars are fully underway with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker leading the Republic army against the Separatist forces throughout the Outer Rim of the galaxy. Anakin is surprisingly presented with his own student, Ahsoka Tano, an enthusiastic teenager ready to prove herself as a Jedi in training as the two of them have to rescue Jabba the Hutt's kidnapped son. This is all a scheme by Count Dooku and his apprentice Asajj Ventress to have the Hutt clans support the Separatists instead of the Republic. The film goes from one action scene to another leaving little room for character development, so the film is simply one big toy commercial and not in the somewhat entertaining way it was done in the 80s with Transformers and He-Man.

The Clone Wars is a sad excuse for a Star Wars movie. Where some fans had problems with the Solo motion picture, at least it was a solid effort at a full-length feature. This animated outlet should have remained on television as it was first intended. One of the only positive aspects is the debut of Asoka who fortunately became a much more likeable character throughout the TV series, plus Christopher Lee returns to voice Dooku making it his last Star Wars appearance. It also has some of the most cliche dialogue you'll ever hear. It is entirely possible to skip this film and just go straight into The Clone Wars series unless you are an obsessed Star Wars completionist.

X-Men '97: Don't Call It A Comeback

Previously on X-Men, the original animated series ran from 1992-1997 on Fox’s Saturday morning lineup. After three more animated series, including an underrated anime, a follow-up to the 90s show was finally picked up. Since the first cartoon aired, Marvel Comics and Fox had both been bought up by the unshackled juggernaut of Disney. The Witcher screenwriter Beau DeMayo mapped at a new 10-episode TV series exclusively for the Disney+ streaming service. This revival was titled X-Men ’97.

Premiering in 2024, the first season brought back the iconic theme song that had fans from all over headbanging but this time with a rotating cast during the opening credits. Like Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the X-Men lineup for each episode matched which characters were officially on the team roster at the time. Instead of Saban Entertainment, the production is handled by Marvel Studios which doesn’t suffer from the horrid CGI that their What If show had. The actual animation is provided by Tiger Animation along with Studio Mir which was the Korean creators who did The Legend Of Korra. Ten episodes were made for the opening season with two more seasons in the works.

A large majority of the original voice actors returned including Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, George Buza as Beast, Lenore Zann as Rogue, and Adrian Hough as Nightcrawler. The rest of the cast is filled out with replacements as some of the actors from the former show had either retired or passed away with the brightest example of this has Holly Chou replacing Alyson Court as Jubilee allowing an Asian American play the firework-shooting mutant even though Court did get to play an older virtual version of her.

Season One takes place about a year where X-Men: The Animated Series left off, Professor Xavier left control of the X-Men over to their old nemesis Magneto all while Jean Grey is about to give birth to her and Cyclops’ baby. It’s revealed that Jean is a clone as the original shows up after fake Jean gives birth to Nathan Summers who is immediately captured by Mr. Sinister and infected with a virus. Bishop, who had joined the X-Men since last time, takes the young Nathan to the future where he can be cured and eventually become the time travelling Cable. The clone Jean changes her name to Madeline Pryor and leaves the team. The Friends Of Humanity continue their anti-mutant terrorism, and their chief assassin X-Cutioner causes Storm to lose her powers which she regains after help from Forge. All this while the cybernetic Bastion plans on using Sinister and an entire population of human Sentinels to first wipe out the mutant island of Genosha, and then later the rest of the mutants. Gambit dies on Genosha, Rogue briefly hooks back up with Magneto, and the recruit Sunspot joins the team. Xavier returns to Earth from the Shi’ar Empire and helps the X-Men stop both Magneto and Bastion separate missions. The final battle has most of the core X-Men being split into two parts in time, some in a post-apocalyptic future while the others are sent to ancient Egypt.

X-Men ’97 was not only a return to form for the franchise, but it was also unbound by the limits of a network cartoon show intended for kids. Its new streaming run allows room for more character introspection, conflicting romances, mature themes, and dramatic reveals. Much more ground from the vast history of X-Men comics is covered in these ten episodes which is helped by the extra minutes of airtime. The core message of observing mutants as a prejudice and various forms of discrimination is still present, so nothing is lost from the huge generation gap between this and the original series. The animation goes through a major evolution with crucially upgraded battle scenes that take serious hints from numerous anime titles such as Dragonball and Evangelion. Season Two is due out in 2026 with all of the Season One cast returning, so you can bet your adamantium bones that it will be as awesome as its predecessor.

ANI-MOVIES, *Sky Blue

Originally titled Wonderful Days, the 2003 Korean animated movie Sky Blue is a mixed media project combining 2D animation, CGI, and live footage doctored to appear animated which finally got its American release in 2004, although there has never been a western release of it on Blu-Ray or DVD, or any authorized streaming in English even though there is a dub of it. Sky Blue was released in Japan after Gainax rewrote it, and in many versions of the movie there are a few minutes cut out of releases outside Korea mostly for pacing with an alternate prologue. Another change from foreign releases was having the musical score replaced with totally different songs possibly due to licensing issues, but this radically changes the context of certain scenes. It is nearly to the point where Sky Blue and Wonderful Days are mutually exclusive movies, so it depends on which copy on the film you come across. There was also a director's cut of Sky Blue came out a decade later with an additional 9 minutes added on to it, so be sure you don't overpay for a copy of it.

Taking place in 2142, the environment has broken down, and the remaining humans are surviving in the dystopian city of Ecoban powered by recycled waste, and those who live in the wastelands become scavengers in order to survive. Shua is one of the outsiders who are trying to stop Ecoban's energy production which is polluting life outside the city which blocks out the sun with stormy clouds. Shua works for Dr. Noah who was outcast after he built this poisonous ecosystem destroyer and has to see about shutting it all down. Shua is mixed with his dedication toward his allies and his feelings for one of the city's security agents, his childhood friend Jay who is now working under the thumb of the commander Cade who got Shua banished in the first place by blaming him for the death of a superior officer years ago. There's a huge clash between Ecoban's ruling class and their military which a ragtag rebellion is able to counter with their attack on the city's power complex.

This was the directorial debut of Kim Moon-Saeng who prior to Sky Blue only worked on commercials although he presents a very professional production in his first and so far only fully animated movie. Aside from being featured at several international film festivals, but despite that there wasn't an authorized physical release for English speaking audiences to enjoy. It is an amazing cyberpunk spectacle with stunning animation even though the characters fall flat and are basic action movie stereotypes.

Magic Knight Rayearth: The Original Amphibia

Magic Knight Rayearth was a game changer as well as a genre breaker. Created by the powerhouse quartet known as Clamp, the manga appeared in the monthly Nakayoshi magazine and was split up into two halves, the first from 1993-1995 and then the second immediately afterwards running until 1996. An anime TV series came out less than a year after the manga premiered that went on for two full seasons, followed by an OVA remake simply titled Rayearth, plus six different video games only one of which got released in America as the last title put out for the Sega Saturn system.

Clamp had already gained past success with Tokyo Babylon, X, and RG Veda, plus their connected series of Clamp School Detectives that is in the same universe as Duklyon and Man Of Many Faces. Magic Knight Rayearth is partially tethered to the Clamp School books but not officially a tie-in. The manga wasn’t simply another magical girl series, but also the mecha genre and as one of the first isekai titles to ever be released.

The saga begins with a trio of eight-graders each from different schools on a field trip to Tokyo Tower which is Tokyo’s answer to the Eiffel Tower. The three girls are the tomboyish Hikaru, the prideful Umi, and the rational Fuu who all get whisked away to the magical land of Cephiro and chosen to be the legendary Magic Knights by the mage Clef. The girls must journey through the land gathering weapons and learning magic to rescue the childlike Princess Emeraude from the high priest Zagato who has seemingly usurped the throne. Emeraude acts as the Pillar of Cephiro where she must constantly pray for the country’s safety and serenity, and Zagato’s actions have now filled the land with monsters and other dangers as it slowly falls apart. Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu are helped on their quest by the mysterious mascot character Mokona who looks like a bunny-eared marshmallow. Along the way, the Magic Knights acquire evolving weapons and armor as well as giant mechanical gods called Mashin each equipped with elemental powers. Zagato sends his minions one at a time who all fail to stop the Magic Knights, most of which become their allies along the way, including the vagabond Ferio who starts a romance with Fuu. The Magic Knights eventually obtain all three Mashin and movie on to their final battle with Zagato.

Now, to explain what happens at the conclusion of the first half of the series would give away one of the single biggest plot twists of all time. Seriously, you will not see this coming! The second half concludes the series in a new saga with the characters trying to save Cephiro from the aftermath of the first half. The Magic Knights are called from Earth again and this time to protect the country from three separate invaders from foreign nations. Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu gain more allies and enemies all while living up to their responsibilities as Magic Knights. There is a stark difference between the second half of the manga and Season 2 of the anime adaptation as there is a stand-in villain for the anime where the manga’s true antagonist would be revealing too much. The anime diverges in its own direction as both it and the manga’s second half were being released nearly simultaneously.

Magic Knight Rayearth was such a hit that plans were being made to bring it to America as fast as possible. The manga itself got its English release in the pages of Tokyopop’s premiere anthology magazine MixxZine at first in American left to right format and then later in the standard Japanese tradition of right to left. Dark Horse Comics eventually picked up the publishing rights and rereleased the manga in hardcover box sets. The anime was a different story as The Ocean Group put together a dubbed pilot specifically for Fox Kids that wasn’t greenlit, but Media Blasters stepped up a few years later to put the series on VHS and DVD. The OVA series titled Rayearth which was a grim reverse isekai take on the original story was released by Manga Entertainment although not as prosperous. The Sega Saturn game didn’t flourish as much in America either as it was for a dying video game system.

The impact Clamp made on anime culture with Magic Knight Rayearth can be broken down into several categories. The mecha genre is slightly touched on as the Mashin in it is magic based even though the concept came out a decade earlier in Aura Battler Dunbine. The parallel world concept also got its big start here gradually became a thriving source in the mid-90s because of Rayearth which led to similar anime titles like El-Hazard and Vision Of Escaflowne to which eventually became the isekai boom of the last few years, the difference being that Rayearth is a portal fantasy whereas modern isekai involves being reincarnated in another world. The major anime subculture to get a boost from this series though was the magical girl wave which at the time was shifting to young superheroines like Sailor Moon who used their powers to fight aliens and monsters, even though Rayearth went a step further by bringing ordinary girls from our world and having them gain magical abilities in an enchanted realm while putting them on a quest straight out of a JRPG in a standard “save the princess, save the world” scenario, despite the fact that journey turns out to be anything but typical.

Magic Knight Rayearth has left an even bigger mark on American media. The most obvious is the Disney Channel original Amphibia which creator Matt Braly admitted to, the only difference being that his show had the three girls being separated when they first came to their magical world instead of starting out their adventure together. Even Amphibia’s trio of girls powering up scene at the end of the series is straight out of Rayearth. Now with a brand-new anime remake on the horizon, Magic Knight Rayearth is a quintessential piece of anime nostalgia that is still worthy of being appreciated by modern day audiences. Clamp’s other manga-turned-anime titles like Cardcaptor Sakura, Angelic Layer, Chobits, and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle have helped the rise of anime into a commonplace medium for English-speaking fans everywhere. Rayearth is the ultimate otaku melting pot with giant robots, high fantasy, video game logic, and cute girls conquering evil.

ANI-MOVIES, *Windaria

Windaria might be known to some older American otaku as Once Upon A Time which was released on VHS and DVD originally through Harmony Gold, the same company that put out three separate anime TV shows in English under the title Robotech. The infamous Carl Macek was behind the American transfer of the film which had to remove several minutes worth of footage to make it compatible for younger viewers, as well as having the entire script rewritten because Harmony Gold was given no scripts from the original Japanese production. In fact, there are several scenes with violence and nudity that were edited out, and the film had a happier ending glued on to it, plus an added narration done by Russell Johnson, aka: Professor from Gilligan's Island. Based on the novel by Ultraman author Keisuke Fujikawa who also adapted the script, Windaria was a 1986 film directed by Kunihiko Yuyama who went on to work on anime such as Pokemon and Slayers. The movie might seem to borrow quite a little from some of Hayao Miyazaki earlier works like Laputa and Nausicaa, however the truth is that this anime came out at the same time as both of those films which just happened to have a dieselpunk theme to them with a hint of fantasy/adventure thrown in.

The small farming community of Saki lies near a huge old tree called Windaria which lies in between the nations of Itha and Paro who for some reason after a century of peace decide to go to war. Getting caught in the middle of this is Windaria resident Izu ends up becoming a turncoat between both factions all while he ignores the love of his sweetheart Marin. Itha's Prince Jill and Paro's Princess Ahnas have been carrying on a secret romance together and hoped to create a union for both countries, but the greedy plans of their tyrannical parents force them into becoming enemies resulting in each of their deaths. Paro ends up being the victor in the war after having Itha flooded by their own aqueduct sabotaged by Izu who becomes drunk on the reward he received and totally forgets about Marin until the queen tries to have him killed for overstaying his welcome. Paro heads back home only to find that nearly everyone there has died including Marin, although her ghost appears just before she ascends to a flying ship that collects departed souls with Paro claiming he'll become the captain of the ghost ship after the current one's tern is up in a few months.

Windaria was director Kunihiko Yuyama's next film he worked on after the trippy Time Stranger, so going from one story that celebrates life through time loops to another that displays how everyone is susceptible to corruption in a fairy tale themed setting shows how diverse Yuyama is as a director. The original full-length version of Windaria has never been officially released in America and has only been put on VHS by Streamline Pictures and later on DVD by ADV Films, so you're really missing out on the superior version unless you can get a copy of the imported laser disc with subtitles as Once Upon A Time is just a pale shadow of the true edition.

ANI-MOVIES, *Metropolis

Fritz Lang's 1927 classic of Metropolis was made into a one-shot manga in 1949 by the God of Anime, aka: Osamu Tezuka. Decades later, it was turned into an epic movie at the dawn of the new millennium directed by Rintaro who had previously done the Galaxy Express 999 duology, plus written by legendary Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo. Unfortunately, the sci-fi drama didn't leave its mark on the international market as it only made less than half the budget back, partially due to Americans unwilling to see non-Ghibli anime theatrical releases. The film was animated by Madhouse who had previously done anime adaptations of Tezuka's Unico manga. Rintaro envisioned this as a dystopian future but with Tezuka's character designs that explores the symbiotic relationship between men and robots which was the basis for the creator's later series of Astro Boy. The film models itself after the ultramodern vision of the original Metropolis film, even though you can see some major Final Fantasy VII influence from especially in the titular city's layout.

In the probably American metropolis coincidentally named Metropolis, the upper class secretly run the city with their surplus of robot workers who have replaced most humans in their everyday job. The big dog in charge is Duke Red who's not-so-secret police of the Marduks are under the command of his adopted son Rock to maintain security, but Red's master plan is a giant contraption called the Ziggurat meant to capture the power of sunspots even though he's really intending it for global domination. The Ziggurat's key part is a realistic android girl named Tima that Red ordered from the criminal scientist Dr. Laughton, but this activity has gotten the attention of a detective from Japan, Shunsaku Ban along with his nephew Kenichi who were hired to find the rogue doctor. The detectives are assigned a robot police escort that they name Pero and track Laughton to his secret laboratory where Rock decides to cancel his father's contract on his own resulting in the death of Laughton and Kenichi falling to a lower level of the city along with Tima who has no idea she's a robot. Kenichi and Tima befriend some of the garbage-collecting robots of the underground along with a human revolution planning to rally against the Marduk who in turn are hunting for Tima which Rock is targeting to keep out of Red's grasp. Despite this, Tima eventually ends up in Red's clutches as he banishes Rock, although he managed to disquise his way into the activation of the Ziggurat which causes Tima to lose control resulting in the destruction of the weapon and the end of the Marduk's reign. Kenichi manages to get one last piece of humanity from Tima before her remains fall from the Ziggurat and are picked up by the worker robots who carry on the spirit of her innocence. You will want to check out a post-credits scene what happened later on after Kenichi decides to stay and side with the robots.

Metropolis was a true retrofuture production bridging the gap between Tezuka's Golden Age designs with Rintaro's cyberpunk viewpoint. The film goes in a totally separate direction from Tezuka's original manga which on its own was only partially inspired by the 1927 movie as the role of Tima was based on the androgynous robot Mitchy who was later repurposed as the main character in Princess Knight. Metropolis has several moving parts although it's not difficult to follow and the scene-transitions are deliberately inspired by those from silent movies. The movie also carries over Fritz Lang's theme of how building a Tower of Babel so mankind can stand next the gods ultimately leads to destruction. This grand movie took an entire five years to complete as at the time was the most expensive anime film ever made since Akira, but the high production cost failed to help make this a more memorable hit as they should have put a little more money into international advertising.