Vexille is currently the only anime directed by Fumihiko Sori, who was the producer of the first Appleseed movie. His previous best-known directing work was for the live action movie Ping Pong based on a manga of the same name.

Vexille (2007)
Bekushiru 2077 Nihon sakoku (ベクシル 2077日本鎖国) (lit. “Vexille: 2077 Japanese Isolation”)

Vexille is a movie that looks on the outside to be very much similar to Appleseed, that is what originally interested me. But, when you look deeper and watch the movie, you realize that it’s really… a lot like Appleseed. The visuals in this movie are really a mixed bag ranging from Resident Evil Degeneration-like (read, bad) all the way to stunningly stylized and near-photorealistic. The story, that I won’t spoil for you because there’s actually a good twist in it, very generally involves a future where Japan has entirely cut itself off from the world to the point of erecting a futuristic dome that jams satellites over the entire country. They do this so that they can conduct some kind of huge bio-robotic experiments that are banned internationally. Vexille and crew are sent in from America to see what’s going down, and going down something definitely is. With the story kind of stretched thin at points, for the most part this isn’t a huge action flick, but the story as a whole is definitely worth checking out and this movie is recommended for regular people and film/anime buffs alike.