Appleseed Alpha...
I picked up Appleseed Alpha...
According to an interview of Masamune Shirow with IGN:
After watching Appleseed Alpha, I believe that this story fits in nicely with the rest of the anime franchise. This installment fills in some of the background elements that appeared in the original Appleseed OVA (circa 1988), but, still leaves some unanswered questions.
There is some violence and bloodshed in Appleseed Alpha. but, as is typical for the franchise, there are no naughty bits to speak of. And, of course, my favorite giant war machine does make an appearance. Appleseed Alpha is very entertaining and is a worthy addition to the Appleseed franchise. I would give Appleseed Alpha a 3 out of 5.
Appleseed Alpha takes place before Deunan and Briareos make their way to Olympus. The character of Two Horns seemed to come out of nowhere, since my experience with Appleseed has been confined to the anime. But, after doing a bit of research, I learned that Two Horns is actually a character from the manga side of the Appleseed franchise.Left to survive in a post-World War society, two mercenary soldiers - Deunan and her cyborg partner Briareos – are sent on a mission on the outskirts of their war-torn city. During the operation, they run into Iris and Olson, two citizens from the utopian city of Olympus, who might have a way to save the world but the ruthless Talos and the scheming warlord Two Horns have their own plans. It's up to Deunan and Briareos to safeguard their newfound contacts and help save humanity's last hope.
According to an interview of Masamune Shirow with IGN:
The last two Appleseed films were made using a toonshade style, which was closer to traditional 2D anime, but Appleseed Alpha was created to look more photo-realistic, via modern CGI...I have to say that I don't really like the look of the first of the re-launch Appleseed movie (circa 2004) because the backgrounds and objects looked more "real" than the character animation. The character animation didn't seem to be a part of the world that was rendered around them. The character animation improved quite a bit in the second movie, Appleseed Ex Machina (circa 2007). And now, with fully CG-rendered characters and backgrounds, this latest installment in the Appleseed franchise looks really, really good.
...Regarding his first impressions of the series' new look, Shirow explained, "The challenge with CG production is that, as you get more photorealistic, you lose the ability to use over-the-top anime-style expression without being unnatural. And if you go too anime, the realistic expression becomes out of place. Mr. Aramaki showed great skills for the previous films with anime style, but I was very excited to see the realistic textures with damages (the post-war environment visuals) and lighting effects. [My] first impression was, in a positive way, that it looked like today's state-of-the-art video games."
After watching Appleseed Alpha, I believe that this story fits in nicely with the rest of the anime franchise. This installment fills in some of the background elements that appeared in the original Appleseed OVA (circa 1988), but, still leaves some unanswered questions.
There is some violence and bloodshed in Appleseed Alpha. but, as is typical for the franchise, there are no naughty bits to speak of. And, of course, my favorite giant war machine does make an appearance. Appleseed Alpha is very entertaining and is a worthy addition to the Appleseed franchise. I would give Appleseed Alpha a 3 out of 5.
