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.