#273: Cyber Metropolis Oedo 808 (1990–1991)

Studio: Madhouse

Director: Yoshiaki
Kawajiri

Screenplay: Akinori
Endo

Articulate Solid: Hiroya
Ishimaru as Shunsuke Sengoku, Kaneto Shiozawa as Merrill “Benten”
Yanagawa, Tesshō Genda as Rikiya “Goggles” Gabimaru, Emi Shinohara as
Remi Masuda, Kyousei Tsukui as Versus, Mitsuko Horie as Kyōko “Okyō”
Jōnouchi, Norio Wakamoto as Juzo Hasegawa

Seen in Japanese with English Subtitles

Madhouse would comprise
success with Substandard Metropolis in 1987,
one of their extra pass titles which helped when its director Yoshiaki Kawajiri pushed for a
theatrical launch and it paid dividends for the studio¹. That turned into as soon as
nonetheless an adaptation, in conserving with the work of creator Hideyuki Kikuchi, and with Cyber
Metropolis Oedo, Madhouse and Kawajiri decided to originate their beget
usual intellectual property, one which turned into as soon as meant to be a multimedia one.
This got here to be shining as there turned into as soon as a video sport, the 1991 sport for the PC-Engine
CD-ROM², and a novel¹. Cyber
Metropolis itself, made for the straight to video format, turned into as soon as highest to final for
three forty plus minute episodes, by no formulation main to anything else extra, but quiet
turned into a cult anime within the decades after, even when via different dubs
and tune tracks being created for the photographs as we can get into.

Oedo is a cyberpunk legend
the establish, with criminal sentences that you may perchance perchance perchance imagine to attain longer than the typical human
lifespan, prisoners are forced to dwell within the orbit of divulge, presumably in a
solution to lengthen their lives to suffer for their cybercrimes. Three prisoners
housed in an orbital detention center are supplied an different by Juzo Hasegawa, a
police chief, that they’ll lower their lifestyles sentences for every criminal they
lift in, with every having to ability to comprise lifestyles on Earth but with
explosive neck collars completely on that, ready to be timed, prevents any
prisoner to take this supply to soar as soon as they’re attend in public. This
explicitly nods to length chambara tropes locations within the shatter as “Oedo”
is probably going a reference to “Edo”, the usual name for Tokyo, whereas
in Japanese history, the weapon they’re all assigned, jitte, if a science
fiction version of a weapon, with sai-love blunt ends, that turned into as soon as extinct by police
in Edo-length Japan. Previous this, the straight to video sequence is a
hyper-exaggerated world, the establish in episode one, the main location is a
divulge-scraper, a skyscraper so comically impractical in peak, now in orbit at
the discontinuance, that if the central risk managed to disable the gyroscope fully and
trigger it to plunge, it could perchance well perchance perchance comprise resulted in a pure worry of cataclysmic
proportions. This has a fluctuate of tropes and clichés of this model of
“cyberpunk” of androids, cyborgs with psychic powers, and one of our leads
having monomolecular wire, a idea the likes of creator William Gibson, a sizable prefer in cyberpunk fiction, amongst other
writers had been fascinated with the establish you may perchance additionally just comprise gotten weaponised wire so spirited on a
molecular stage that it is going to additionally slit via anything else, even via the neck of a
cyber enhanced saber-toothed tiger. The leads, interconnecting as strange
characters, nonetheless attain get the starring function every for the three episodes, Shunsuke
Sengoku the lead for episode one within the divulge-scraper. Sengoku is your conventional
hothead, who’s daring as an anti-hero prefer but additionally anti-authoritarian, with
a admire-hate relationship with Juzo and in particular against the sentient computer
that occupancies them. This computer is arguably the fourth lead and deserving
it, as the deadpan retorts within the Japanese dub are very comic, all from the
perspective as an AI which can’t realize one of the necessary crucial insults thrown at it, such
as when it has to show how, with an within geo-scheme draw, it could perchance perchance’t
perchance “hump off” on allege. For episode one, with Sengoku and his fixed
argument with this robot, you get a sizable first episode to launch this work,
the establish the unparalleled tone despite how absurd that is in actuality works fully.

Rikiya
“Goggles” Gabimaru stands out as a personality that could perchance no longer frequently ever get to
be a lead in an anime, an older man if with a Mohawk, the extra archaic of
the noble anti-heroes irrespective of his visible note.  His is the model of macho melodrama, which is
secretly sentimental and melancholic if filtered via acion tropes, encountering
an outmoded accomplice of crime who turned into as soon as also his outmoded flame, concerned a couple of conspiracy
appealing the execrable military mission of psychic robots. The proprietor of the monomolecular
wire, and lead of the third episode, is Merrill “Benten” Yanagawa.
Benten inherently stands out of the solid as, amongst very clear characters in
the history of anime, even minor ones, you may perchance additionally just comprise gotten here an extremely androgynous final
lead, a extremely clear prefer who could perchance additionally be primarily the most iconic for the entire
manufacturing, bringing up a aggregate of glam rock feminization, with pink
lipstick and hyper female aspects, with kabuki beautiful and a shock white
mullet, strange in designed but fully timeless. His episode also is largely the most
idiosyncratic even in a extremely in vogue and artistic manufacturing, in that this
brings apprehension tropes into science fiction with artificially created vampires.
The final outcome of this brings a gothic and morose sensibility to the proceedings
with the main oz even of tragedy to the manufacturing, because it entails a lady
cryogenically preserved doomed on this lifestyles forced onto her by one more, because it
usathe gore in imagining an undead particular particular person being driven out an airlock in
divulge. It is that this episode in particular the establish the purpose to’s ability to be crucial
irrespective of also being ridiculous exhibits the advantage of this tightrope act, deliberately
and unintentionally.

It is a
ridiculous anime in a actual contrivance, the establish we’re dealing with a premise the establish there
is by no formulation a 2nd stopping to search data from its beget logic or feeling contrived in a
contrivance that undercuts religion within the topic matter. Cybernetic saber teeth tigers is a
high watermark within the absurd, as talked about earlier within the review, but present in
episode three, this takes it extra with them stored in a cryogenic hub in tubs
amongst 300 300 and sixty five days outmoded patients, a location in outer divulge linked to a
correctly being facility by a divulge elevator, and armed with lasers, with the anime managing to
add extra flourishes to these form of moments. That is right via every episode with
all these “questionable” moments changing into highlights alongside the
tone and magnificence of the work a success you over. The seriousness of the manufacturing
helps, feeling love the delirium on the entire present in a video sport from this time, and
serving to that is how that is Madhouse
at their highest of quality. Yoshiaki
Kawajiri is an insanely gifted prefer in anime, even when he is within the
animation division after his directorial profession seemingly ended into the
2010s, but as mighty of the virtues is the entire group too, the establish your
mechanical animation director for an instance is Takeshi Koike, the future director of Redline (2009), one of primarily the most underrated theatrical anime in need
of higher consideration and exhibiting the establish his work here sooner than got here from.

The audio is its
beget odd history for the OVA. I watched this within the usual Japanese version,
but the history needs to be marked how, whereas Manga Entertainment bought the license with sizable hobby, they
took their beget choices which added extra to the story beyond a actual pulp
anime. They had been identified infamously for “fifteening” their dubs already,
the establish to lengthen the age rating with the British movie classification for all
physical dwelling releases, they added swearing into the dialogue alongside including
their beget flourishes. That is an idiosyncratic manufacturing nonetheless in that they
went extra in changing the tune music. I love the morose synth supplied by
composer Kazz Toyama, but while you happen to could perchance additionally be
speaking of Cyber Metropolis Oedo,
namely to its British launch as the Central
Park Media/U.S. Manga Corps launch
decided to no longer bolt forwards with this resolution within the US, you may perchance additionally just comprise gotten to
notify about this version because it’s section of the legacy within the West. Rory McFarlane’s contribution, combining
laborious rock, thrash steel and synth, even influenced by Mountain’s Nantucket
Sleighride (to Owen Coffin)¹, is a clear salvage to hear, and
thus it’s charge speaking about too as a highlight even heard in snippets. For Kawajiri himself, that is going in
the golden length of his profession between the leisurely eighties to the 2000s, one
the establish you witness here that, for all his notoriety with certain titles for their
transgression, what his trademark turned into as soon as, whether the screenwriter of the story or
no longer as on this case, his trademark the establish these kinetic tales of higher than
lifestyles figures, in higher than lifestyles eventualities, which by no formulation for all their moments
of absurdities feel fully a high quality in grandeur for this era of pulp
anime storytelling. Even Ninja Scroll
(1993), which shared within the extra notorious remark material of his profession, showed
this and, despite the determining Cyber
Metropolis Oedo turned into as soon as no longer the highest hit as Manga
Entertainment hoped for¹, that could perchance abet from the virtues
stumbled on here, in a length chambara legend, and fabricate even higher plot in Western
anime popular culture amongst the different titles Kawajiri
would helm.

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1) Taken from
the documentary Inner Cyber Metropolis Oedo
(2020), directed by Andy Hanley.