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Major Spoilers Throughout
This was the least desired way to
have experienced the 009 Cyborg
franchise for the first time. Thankfully this was not the first time I
experienced a work adapted from Shotaro
Ishinomori, one of the most prolific and well regarded manga authors of his
era, as I had seen 009-1 (2006) in
my early years into anime, a television adaptation of his female cyborg spy
character which got released from ADV
Films only to disappear as a license when the company did. 009 Re: Cyborg promised an enticing
work on paper, part of a push to reinterpret these legendary characters of Ishinomori, a band of people (and one
Russian baby) turned into superpower cyborgs, for a grand scale computer
animated film which even joined the bandwagon for three dimensional effects
films in the late 2000s and early 2010s were trying for. At the time someone like
Kenji Kamiyama directing and writing
the script was enticing, having gotten attention for his work on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002-3),
the TV series, and Eden of the East (2009).
It was clearly intended as a big event feature, and it is the first time 009 Cyborg had been brought to the UK
officially too, as we never got the 2001-2 television series, nor any of the
other animated adaptations since Shotaro
Ishinomori first started the manga in
1964, so a good adaptation could have made any of the other titles in the
franchise of interest for release.
Sadly it becomes obvious what
this is, a folly in terms of a crowd pleasing theatrical animation with cutting
edge graphics. Final Fantasy: The
Spirits Within (2001) is evoked, and that is not a good sign. It is a
chimera which cannot survive beyond its ill advised creation, a 3D animated
spectacle which however has one foot in Mamoru
Oshii’s more esoteric work, including lengthy discussions in bars and
churches as much as action. I like esoteric Mamoru
Oshii, even his live action work, but 009
Re: Cyborg even without taking this superhero team, from around the same
time as the X-Men in the USA, into this tone is also an atrocious and vague
mess. There is no clearness to what it was after, with a plot way too serious
and ill defined for its subject, and with a questionable “have you cake and eat
it” tone with the premise, which is religious and ends up being about God, but
goes about it in a vague hard sci-fi tone it does not clear up.
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It begins with the leader of the
team from the source text, teenager Joe Shimamura (“009”) who has superhuman
speed, brainwashed. In a world where skyscrapers are being destroyed by people
who are brainwashed by “His Voice”, evoking a religious terrorist group at
first, Joe is pulled from following the culprits blowing up a tower in Tokyo,
pulling the team along into this plot. One immediate concern is that, for a
reintroduction to these characters, this team consisting of nine figures does
not get enough time between them for fans or for new people. One, Pyunma, has
no real contributions beyond a subplot about angel skeletons, others only have
cameos, and that for the plot only two have any real dynamic between them, Joe
himself and Jet Link, cyborg 002 and the North American member who joined back
with the American government when this film begins. For the one female member
of the team, Françoise Arnoul, this film is really egregious for this, only
really here to wake up Joe by jumping out of a helicopter, expecting him to
save her, for a sex scene with him off-screen, and for sex appeal, least in
terms of how painstakingly depicting her stockings are. This is not a good
thing to raise, and even as someone who defends Rintaro’s 1996 adaptation of X, attempting an unfinished CLAMP manga into ninety minutes even if
that is a lot of characters who appear and then get killed off, there was at
least an animated spectacle to it like a visual dream. This is however a film which
gets bogged down into an esoteric narrative it never really wants to take a
risk with but is too esoteric for a mainstream audience, and also having little
time to make proper use of this cast.
By halfway through, it is
literally God or what is presumed it behind these bombings, never pictured and
merely an abstract construct rationalized. Even in a lengthy philosophical
discussion on evolution and religion in a church, “they” are only viewed as on
the rational side of mankind’s thought patterns being God and now seemingly
deciding to turn people to blow up society for reasons. “Reasons” is apt as eventually
you are in the supernatural, in spite of the fact this should have focused on
its cyborg heroes first even with a spiritual plot, made worse by the fact that
this does not want to stray into the spiritual. A strange tale could be
envisioned from this, a Noah’s Ark scenario with a nuclear submarine with a
nuclear payload instead of the flood. Dubai is totaled in a cataclysm in the
biggest set piece, but this film never wants to get into this subject in any
real detail to bring real causality to even that disaster. When those brainwashed
envision a young blonde girl with angel wings, and there is an angel skeleton,
not of the Simpsons variety but eventually
finding itself on the moon after the end credits, this is a story whose plot should
have fully committed to this religious existentialism fully, but is confused
and not pulling punches in any direction. It is literally the heroes versus
God, but God is depicted as a vague function within the brain, so this cannot
get spiritual even if a character is riding a nuclear missile in space and
crying out to His Voice humanity is capable of good, nor that the ending
involves a heavenly world that is never really given space to even be purely
surrealistic. It is paradoxical, and this is without the fact key characters
never get a lot to go with, or that this is still structured around action set
pieces
Neither helping is that, in terms
of animation, this is flawed to. Cel shaded three dimensional figures, it could
have looked good but, with its realistic character designs, it feels restricted
in what can be animated. You even see an unfortunate choice of action scene
which completely undercuts a big theatrical production, showing it had compromised
itself with its animation, in which Joe runs on missiles. Unfortunately there
is an iconic scene from an older anime, 009 Re: Cyborg placing itself in
comparison with Project A-Ko (1986),
a beloved film length tale where its lead runs on missiles in the air for one
of its best known set pieces. Considering A-Ko,
a great work even in terms of animation and one shown theatrically, was
originally meant to be an episode in an erotic series, only to be given the love
and weight to stand out in that sequence of its own as great animation, it
really makes 009 Re: Cyborg look
worse as it really is not a good looking production at all. The one thing which
is arguably great, and he is always reliable, is the composer Kenji Kawai, always reliable as Mamoru Oshii’s regular composure that
can always produce great music. The resulting film however is an actual
disaster, including the knowledge Production I.G., who developed this, are an
acclaimed anime studio, looking even worse as a film which really does not
achieve anything. I had come to this with prior warning over years for its huge
flaws, but if there is a really scathing comment I can make to kick it whilst
it was down, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was at least a fascinating misfire
from its era, whilst this was not a good idea in any of its content, and is
dour and obvious to be appreciated unintentionally either.
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