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"Freeze, you dirty mutant!"
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"Don't look so surprised. Compared to my friends' weapons, this bazooka is a small pistol."
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"I don't care about peanut butter and chocolate! This isn't the same thing!"
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IGN Sci-Fi Anime Previews
Can an anime company turn an American computer game into real anime, or is it a Sin against nature? Check inside and find out!
February 22, 2000
For all the talk about high art and quality of anime as compared to American animation houses, you have to remember that anime studios are also mercenaries at heart. Pay them enough money, and they'll do anything, the way you want it. This isn't to say that they'll do bad work, but to say that original anime and anime style are for sale, if the price is right. And American companies are taking note. A few notable examples include AIC's (Bubblgum Crisis, El-Hazard) work for Myth II, Studio Madhouse's (Card Captor Sakura, X) production of the Satanika OAV, and most recently, Macross creators Tokyo Movie Shinsha for its work on the Batman Beyond movie. AD Vision's experiment, however, takes everything one step beyond, letting a Japanese company run with a basic concept and adapting an American property to appeal to audiences on both sides of the Pacific. Can it happen? Read on and find out.
Today: Sin: The Movie
Premieres: Summer 2000.
Who's Putting it Out? AD Vision
Who Developed it? Phoenix Entertainment/AD Vision
The Skinny: Texas-based AD Vision and Texas-based Ritual Entertainment got together back in 1998 at the Atlanta Electronic Entertainment Expo. Ritual Entertainment, a videogame company best known currently for its work on the Heavy Metal 2 title, had a hot little first person shooter called Sin, which had a pretty solid storyline and a great urban combat engine. Talk was exchanged about turning the game into an anime movie, which was met with enthusiasm. Phoenix Entertainment, a studio that gained fame with Giant Robo and Super Atragon, was hired to develop a story and animate it. Unfortunately, many rewrites down the road, the anime got delayed past the videogame launch, and AD Vision hopes the time spent will help move it beyond the moderately-selling game.
What it's all about: It's the 21st century, 2027, to be exact. The city of Freeport is a town where imminent governmental collapse brought upon the creation of private industry security. One of the best is run by a half-man, half-machine John Blade, leader of the HARDCORPS (no relation to the Valiant title). In the course of an investigation into mysterious kidnappings, John runs across Elexis Sinclaire, brilliant and beautiful biochemist whose company makes a drug called U4. Of course, the missing people are experiments for this mysterious drug and its mutagenic effects, which cause the classic "melting people" syndrome seen in anime. Now, John and crew must stop Elexis before she unleashes a menace on Freeport beyond their wildest imaginings. And so on and so forth.
What to Expect: At less than a million dollars, don't expect Princess Mononoke. Heck, don't even expect Anastasia. However, an animation budget goes further in Asia than it does here, so expect good things. Unlike Giant Robo or Super Atragon, Phoenix's Freeport is neither bright nor pretty. This is a city on the brink of decadence and collapse, with a thin veneer of civilization covering it all. That's what it'll look like.
The story is going to be pretty simple. You know your good guys, you know your bad guys, and you know that a lot of cool things are going to have to blow up. Clocking in at an hour, Sin's not going to have a lot of time to lay out a leisurely multi-part anime storyline, and this is where Phoenix Entertainment has to prove to us that it can write something that's quick, punchy, and to the point. Without a well-known anime, legacy, or giant press campaign, Sin has to work as a self-contained piece, or it'll lose just about everybody. Anime fans won't care for the Westernized character designs, and casual cartoon watchers may be confused if there's too much obscure or expository dialogue. ("It's U4." "U4?" "U4, the evil mutating drug." "Drug?" And so on...)
Who's it for? Sin fans, anime fans interested in seeing a cultural experiment in action, and people who want to see hapless victims getting ripped apart.
Who should avoid it? Anybody that believes that all anime is cute and cuddly.
Will we watch? Yes. We'd like to see if anime can help disprove the theory that videogames can't make great movies. It works on Japanese games. Now it's time to see if it'll work on ours, too..
Pictures:
Movies:
Warning: Some scenes may be too graphically intense for younger viewers.
Previous Anime Previews:
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To see what other people are saying about Sin, check out the letters.
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