Katsuhiro Otomo (featuring Rintaro)
Katsuhiro Otomo doesn’t have a studio tied to his name. He has done many movies for/with many studios, so he gets a section of his own. Otomo’s work varies from good for family to barely good for public consumption, so keep in mind that only his best works will be listed here. Otomo is a ridiculously experienced and time-tested anime director and the quality of his work is often second to none.
Akira (1988)
Akira (アキラ)
Buy on DVD: Right Stuf | Amazon
Buy on Blu-ray: Right Stuf | Amazon
One of the most critically acclaimed anime movies ever created, but also one of the most divisive. While I recognize that Otomo went way beyond any of the anime of the time in both story and animation complexity, I just don’t think that Akira really deserves the reverence that it heralds in many anime circles. The excellently restored 25th anniversary Blu-ray version makes the movie sound and look the best it possibly can, but by today’s standards it’s still beginning to look tired and show its age. The movie’s 124 minute length doesn’t do it any favours either as the storyline spends itself of intrigue after the first hour. Otomo then permanently departs into the realm of surreal allegory and the initial story’s build-up fails to pay off in a meaningful or even terribly entertaining way. I think that most people should save this movie until they already have a good appreciation for Otomo’s work, as anime that plays out like a bad dream can be a good thing, but this is one movie that always leaves me wanting to wake up long before it’s over.
Roujin Z (1991)
Roujin Z (老人Z)
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Buy on Other Region Blu-ray: Amazon | eBay (a Region Free Blu-Ray Player is required)
Roujin Z showcases Katsuhiro Otomo’s lighter side quite well. It has good amounts of both charm and humour as well as some of the fancy robots that Katsuhiro likes so much. The story follows an old man and the college student who is his care-worker as he is conscripted into a government-run beta test of a new machine designed to automatically tend to the needs of bedridden old people. The machine doesn’t work like it’s supposed to, though. Overall good times, worth the watch, but not as much as some of Otomo’s other masterpieces.
Memories (1995)
Memori (メモリ)
These three vignettes are a bit unusual. I wouldn’t suggest them to anyone new to anime, but anyone reasonably well-acquainted with anime’s propensity for the odd will surely love them. The first in the series is a space sci-fi called “Magnetic Rose” and it is my favourite of the three. It has an awesome storyline, beautiful animation, and enough weird to kill a yak. The second in the series is called “Stink Bomb”, a funny story with an emphasis on smell jokes as opposed to art direction that is still quite good in spite of its inanity. Lastly, we have “Cannon Fodder” that is set in a war-torn city akin to something from a George Orwell book. It follows a boy who idolizes his dad who is one of hundreds of people who operate a large cannon that is used to fire into seemingly empty space. This one is very, very stylized and impressively is shown in one continuous “cutless” shot. The camera moves from scene to scene instead of clipping over or changing angles. Overall, these three anime movies are a great, robust package and can be enjoyed by pretty much everyone (note: Satoshi Kon even worked closely with Katsuhiro Otomo to make this movie happen, so it’s a AAA anime director double-whammy of sorts).
Steamboy (2004)
Suchīmubōi (スチームボーイ)
No, it’s not a hentai, it’s about the power of steam. The premise of this movie is that steam is a ridiculously powerful source of energy (which it kind of is when you think about it) and that in Manchester, England a boy named James Ray Steam ends up receiving a metal ball filled with powerfully concentrated steam from his grandfather, Lloyd Steam. He can’t let it fall into the wrong hands or its immense power could be used to take over the world (or something of that sort). This movie features top-notch animation, great voice-acting (especially in the English version, surprisingly with the likes of Patrick Stewart), and a story that is easily comprehended by Western audiences. While Otomo does have surreal works that even rival some of Satoshi Kon’s, this is most certainly not one of them. Costing a whopping $22 million and ten years to make, this ranks as my overall favourite film directed by Otomo to date.
Rintaro
Metropolis (2001)
Metoroporisu (メトロポリス)
Buy on DVD: Amazon | eBay
Buy on Other Region Blu-ray: Amazon (NO English dub/subtitles on disc)
While directed by a man who sometimes goes by Rintaro, I’m including this under Otomo’s section because he wrote the screenplay and it bears much resemblance to his other works. Metropolis is an amazing anime and was the movie that first made me love and appreciate the work of Katsuhiro Otomo. Placed firmly in the genre of “action-sci-fi-tragedy”, the movie explores how fine the line is between human and machine in a fictional future. The animation style for this movie is most aptly described as “super-slick Astro Boy style” (primarily because it’s based on a manga from Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy), and the the widely varied environments within the movie are all presented superbly. While its source manga shares little more than a name with Fritz Lang’s 1927 black and white epic, the Metropolis anime takes many queues from both the look/feel and the dystopian themes of its classic namesake. Definitely a must-see for anime fans, and a good introduction to both anime and Katsuhiro Otomo’s writing for anyone else.