Spriggan...

After anime distributors had switched from VHS to DVD-only products, I picked up Spriggan...

Directed by first-time director Hirotsugu Kawasaki and supervised by Katsuhiro Otomo, the legendary creator behind the cinematic masterpiece Akira, Spriggan is based on the comic Striker by Chu Takasige and Ryoji Minagawa, which originally appeared in the Japanese monthly magazine, Shonen Sunday. The comics were a popular success, selling millions of copies of the paperback releases, which led to a fervent bidding war over the right to make a movie based on the property. Otomo and Kawasaki eventually won out, and with the backing of acclaimed animators Studio 4°C, masterfully combined traditional cel animation with ground-breaking computer animation to create a stunning action film.

There is a single plate. Its message is a warning to us who live today from an unknown civilization built long ago that vanished into the distant reaches of eternity. It says, "We return our arts to the dark from which they were created. Thus they cannot be summoned a second time." In accordance with this message, an organization called ARCAM was formed to seal away knowledge of this ancient civilization. We know ARCAM's special operatives as... The Spriggan.

At the top of the world, the ancient artifact known as Noah's Ark has been uncovered. Buried and forgotten since before the birth of history, it holds the potential to elevate its holder to the status of a god... or to wipe mankind from the face of the Earth in a second! Now a desperate battle erupts across the planet as two secret organizations race to recover the lost artifact; one seeking to destroy it, the other to enslave the human race! Monstrous half-human cyborgs face off against Earth's ultimate defenders, the secret organization known as ARCAM and their elite agents, the Spriggan, in an epic duel with the future of our species as the prize!

From the ends of the Earth to the end of the planet itself, SPRIGGAN is the ultimate action adventure, a breathtaking tour de force of hyperkinetic storytelling and spectacular animation!

According to IMDB...

Originally, the title for this movie was going to be "Striker," which was the altered American manga name created by Viz Manga. This name originated in the mid 1990's for no more reason than the American translators thinking that "the name Spriggan didn't sound cool." A couple of years later, Viz Manga re-released what they had already translated before (three heavily edited volumes out of a total of eleven original volumes from Japan) in an anthology under its proper name, "Spriggan." Yet in 1998, Studio 4c announced that that they were going to make a Spriggan anime and had told Viz Manga that they liked the name "Striker" so much that they were going to use it as the title for the international release of the film. Viz Manga then hastily re-lettered their "Spriggan" release back into "Striker," hoping to benefit from cross promotion, but Studio 4c then changed their minds without telling Viz Manga and used the original "Spriggan" name as the movie's title.

In Spriggan we have an epic battle between the forces of good and evil. There's lots of action, bloodshed and gore. Spriggan had the trappings of a really good action movie, but, in my humble opinion, the climactic battle with the "Fat Man" occurs too early and afterwards, the story starts to go down-hill. The final battle is reminiscent of the final battle in Akira, but, not quite enough to save Spriggan from the clutches of mediocrity. There is some eye candy, but, overall, I gave Spriggan a 2 out of 5.