•        
 


 


Title:
 Appleseed XIII Complete Series Collection

UK Distributor:  Manga Entertainment

BBFC Certificate:  12

Suggested Retail Price (SRP):  £29.99 (DVD), £34.99 (BR)

Episodes:  13 (of 13)

Audio Options:  English, Japanese

Subtitles:  English

Release Date:  7th October 2012

Reviewer:  Rich (Webmaster)
 

Appleseed is one of those franchises that frequently seems to be dead and buried before suddenly reappearing in a new format.  Based on a manga series by Ghost in the Shell creator Masamune Shirow, the original anime adaptation of Appleseed was an early release for Manga Entertainment back in the 1990's.  It was re-released on DVD before the franchise was resurrected with a pair of big-budget CGI animated films in the mid 2000's, and after a proposed 26 episode anime series was cancelled it was resurrected as an online series, Appleseed XIII.

Appleseed XIII is, like the rest of the Appleseed franchise, set in a devastated future world where humanity has retreated to a number of highly advanced supercities.  The city of Olympus is one of the biggest, a futuristic utopia ruled by the supercomputer Gaia and genetically engineered clones known as Bioroids.  Gaia creates the Bioroids to support the human population and undertake whichever tasks there is a public need for, imbuing them with the best genetic makeup for the task they are assigned.  However, whilst the system seems to work quite well not everyone is happy with the setup, Bioroids hold most of the positions of power in Olympus and are afforded similar rights to humans leading some to see them as a threat.  Terrorists frequently try to sabotage Bioroid development or disrupt Gaia, and Olympus maintains an uneasy peace with the supercity of Poseidon, where Bioroids are treated as nothing more than slaves.  To defend against these threats Olympus employs ESWAT, an elite agency affiliated to the police which boasts agents with military training and some of the most sophisticated ordinance the city has at its disposal.  Deunan Knute and her cyborg partner Briareos are members of ESWAT and have developed a good track record for success since they joined, but a new threat is emerging which is beyond anything they have previously encountered.  Olympus is attempting to revive a mission to send a Bioroid crew into outer space to colonise new worlds, prompting an increase in the intensity of terrorist activity.  Chief amongst these threats is the Human Liberation Front, a terrorist organisation which draws on technology that outclasses the powered suits ESWAT use, and with a more targeted campaign of violence threatening strategic targets under their protection, Deunan and Briareos find themselves directly in the firing line time and time again.  But who is masterminding the terrorist attacks?  And are they just driven by hatred of Bioroids or is there some deeper reason for their actions?
 

Appleseed has been a bit of an erratic franchise in many ways.  The original anime adaptation veered quite considerably from the original manga, whilst the two CGI films also took a different approach.  Appleseed XIII is therefore a bit of a re-boot of the franchise, taking it back to its manga roots whilst retaining the CG animation of the most recent film adaptations.  The central setup of every iteration of the franchise has been largely the same, focusing on the hot-headed but highly skilled soldier Deunan and her partner and

lover Briareos, who was severely wounded and saved from death by being turned into a cyborg.  Having found a society which is trying to rebuild the Earth the pair vow to fight to protect it, but beyond that the story has been different each time, with the character's backgrounds and aims changing with each iteration.  The premise and setup of Appleseed XIII follows the manga more closely, with Deunan and Briareos taking on various threats in their daily job as ESWAT members and slowly becoming embroiled in a much larger plot.  The series - like its source material - focuses strongly on Deunan and Briareos as they confront terrorists, prejudice and major conspiracies as well as the complications of their own relationship, and it's not only the character focus that it retains either.

Despite the fancy CG visuals a great deal of effort has been put into recreating the look of the original manga, with the characters, setting and mecha all recognisable.  The visuals and design is excellent, the technology and the city of Olympus in particular, and the animators have even gone so far as to mimic pen strokes from the original artwork on character clothing.  In many places it's visually stunning, and the action set pieces are fast paced and very well animated.  It's the action which brings the series to life, with mecha wheeling around the cityscapes raking each other with tracer fire as they're backlit by explosions.  It often looks great, and I loved the contrast between the high technology and mythological statues that pepper Olympus, but what lets it down is the animation.  On the battles and action scenes it is excellent, but when it's just human characters talking or interacting it feels a bit like a computer game cut scene.  Despite the fact motion capture has been used there's still a floatiness to the human characters, still a feeling that they look like they're walking underwater.  There's a lack of movement in the clothing and hair which makes it seem a bit flat, a lack of blood when someone is shot or falls to their death, simple details that you don't really notice normally but nag at you when they're not there.  This is more notable in some episodes than others, but it's a real shame considering the quality of the animation for the action scenes that the slower-paced scenes lack something.  The voice acting and music is good, but some of the more emotional scenes are a little more melodramatic than moving.  The storylines however are pretty good, there are a couple of mis-steps such as one episode which is basically a vampire/zombie film in the middle of a sci-fi series (it just about gets away with it), but the central premise of racial tension and fear is a strong one.
 

The main storyline does take a long time to get off the ground, and for a big chunk of the series it's a bit confusing until it starts drawing the plot strands together, but on the whole it's not bad.  The fear and scepticism of a society rules by a computer and bio-engineered clones for the benefit of humanity is an interesting one, most sci-fi posits those kinds of societies as having a dark secret and follows the hero trying to expose it, but Appleseed XIII puts the viewer on the other side.  This time you follow the defenders of the new world order as

they try to defend it from those who wish to bring it down, a nice reversal of roles that posits the human freedom fighters as prejudiced terrorists.  It's a concept the series could have explored a lot more, and it's not the only thing.  Deunan and Briareos' backgrounds are touched upon, with oblique references to the incident that caused Briareos to be made into a cyborg and their time before coming to Olympus.  A lot is made early on of Deunan's tough upbringing of military training under her father, and later the effect the death of her African mother had on her, but none of this is really covered in any depth.  There's very little focus on Briareos' emotional state too, how has becoming a cyborg affected him?  What pressure does it put on his relationship with Deunan?  It does touch on this, but it's usually from Deunan's point of view.  There's also the question of the Human Liberation Front, most of the time the terrorists remain as evil bogymen when there could be a lot of mileage in exploring their motivation.  It's a missed opportunity.

Appleseed XIII has a lot to recommend it.  It's a fantastic action series with a well thought out and stunningly depicted setting, and the design and visuals are frequently jaw-dropping.  It admirably tries to retain a focus on the characters and has some good action storylines and a couple of decent human stories too.  Aside from the action the series is at its best when it takes the time to explore the humanity of the Bioroids, cyborgs and robots that live in Olympus, and takes a look at the tensions between them and the human population, but the problem is that it doesn't do this enough.  There are unexplored depths to the premise that the series doesn't come close to delving into, and the lack of insight into Briareos and Deunan's past together makes it hard to see them as a couple, in fact most of the time Briareos seems more like a father figure than a lover.  The animation can sometimes be a bit ropey on the human characters, lending the series a kind of stagy, melodramatic feel, but it must be said that there are some very strong episodes that get the emotional impact just about right.  Some of the standalone storylines are actually better than the main plot for just this reason, but there aren't enough of them.  In the end Appleseed XIII is a good action series, but it could have been great sci-fi series.  Maybe we've been spoiled by the likes of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, but it feels like a missed opportunity, it's to Appleseed XIII's credit that it creates an intriguing world which you want to see in more depth, it's just a shame it doesn't do it.

Extras

There's a hell of a lot of extras on here, with the usual clean opening and ending sequences joined by trailers and commentaries for episodes 7 and 12 featuring the US dub cast, plus behind the scenes looks at the making of each episode.  A different animation studio was used for every episode, and the making of features focus on each in turn, detailing their creative processes and direction of each episode.  It's rare to get such an in-depth look behind the scenes of an anime studio, and to get 13 of them is a huge bonus.  Great stuff.

Ratings

Feature:   Extras:
___________________________________________________________________________

Reviews Archive