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Killer designs and amazing animation should provide a decent alternative to kiddie-fare like El Dorado and Fantasia 2000.
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Bazooka explode good.
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That mean little kid is the main villain. Don't let the looks fool you. He pops heads with impunity.
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IGN Sci-Fi Anime Previews
Think Indiana Jones meets Akira, and you've got the new Spriggan movie.
January 10, 2000
Although there are many excellent anime movies/series/episodes out there, there are a few that stand out as the benchmarks by which anime is measured. There are maybe three or four titles in existence which have the story, the design, and the style such that you can show anybody who's not a real big anime fan and they'll go, "Wow!" And of those movies, perhaps the one that is still considered the best after all these years is Katsuhiro Otomo's classic film, Akira. Nothing, not even Macross Plus, Tenchi Muyo in Love, or Ninja Scroll match the scale and scope of the 1988 film. Of course, we wouldn't even be mentioning Akira here if we didn't think this next film could top it in every way.
Today: Spriggan: The Movie
Premieres: 2000 in theaters.
Who's Putting it Out? AD Vision
Who Developed it? Bandai Visual (animation), Hiroshi Takashige/Ryoji Minagawa (manga)
The Skinny: AD Vision knows that it's got a hit on its hands. While almost nobody in the US really knows anything about the movie, and few have ever read the manga (available in the US under Viz's Striker collections), that could be its advantage. Princess Mononoke was great and Pokemon was cute, but Spriggan's a full-length feature film of nothing but mind-blowing animation, and if anything's going to turn the Matrix/Star Wars/Independence Day/Indiana Jones crowd, this is it.
What it's all about: The Arcam Foundation, an international foundation of archaeologists and military units that specializes in searching and containing ancient artifacts of immense power from countries that would seek to exploit them, discovers Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat, Turkey (where some would say it actually exists). This Ark is supposedly an atmospheric weather control device of incredible abilities, and the Arcam team needs to control it as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the U.S. Military comes on the scene, with plans to wrest it out of Arcam hands for its own nefarious purposes. The team is led by MacDougal, a child-like "esper" of incredible power (everything's "incredible" in this movie, by the way), who intends to destroy mankind using the Ark.
Enter Yu Ominae, codename: Spriggan. A 17-year-old boy trained by the best martial artists and owner of the Omihalcon armored muscle suit, he's got 30 times the strength of a normal man and is incredibly skilled in the art of mass destruction. Basically, it's his job to get to Turkey and stop MacDougal in an all-out psychic screaming match. That and a little hand-to-hand combat, of course.
What to Expect: Incredible animation, design, and sound. The editor on the series is no less than Akira's Katushiro Otomo, and the director is one who's collaborated with him in Memories. Bandai Visual, which has created some of the best animation of the late 90s, including Macross Plus, and Cowboy Bebop, outdoes itself here, with the craziest animation you've seen since Ninja Scroll.
Don't expect the philosophy or contemplation of a Macross Plus or romanticism behind Tenchi Muyo in Love, though. This really is an Indiana Jones-type story by way of James Bond action sequences and an anime filter. So the story is pretty straightforward, but it should be one heck of a ride.
Who's it for? Anybody who likes things to go "BOOM!"
Who should avoid it? Anybody expecting happy fluffy animals.
Will we watch? Yes. After seeing Princess Mononoke, Perfect Blue, Pokemon, and Ghost in the Shell on the big screen, we're interested in seeing how AD Vision treats a theatrical release .
Movies:
Previous Anime Previews:
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