Appleseed Alpha

In the ruins of post-nuclear New York, Deunan and her partner Briareos work for a warlord called Two Horns. Deunan is human; Briareos is a cyborg whose body is mostly machine. They are looking for a city called Olympus, where they believe they can build a life. On the way they run into another job. The subject is not the war but the relationship between the two. Briareos has no face; all of his feeling is carried in tone of voice and posture, and the best thing the film does is convince you that these two have been together a long time. The form is entirely computer animation with motion capture, a technique Shinji Aramaki had already used on the earlier Appleseed films. In the action sequences the camera moves in a manner close to a game engine. The source is Masamune Shirow's manga. This is not a continuation but an origin story told from the beginning, so it can be entered without the earlier films. It was produced straight to video. The voice cast includes Yuka Komatsu, Junichi Suwabe and Aoi Yuuki. Who it is for: viewers who like science fiction action and cyborg stories. Who it is not for: anyone after depth; the narrative is thin and the characters' pasts are largely left unexplained.