After seeing Akira it's natural to be curious of what Otomo's produced. This collection of short movies(all more than 20 minutes though) is a fun, action-packed and imaginative reminder why anime is among the best genres, and NOT restricted to kids(or in the case of these shorts, not really for kids at all).

The last short of the three is called Cannon Fodder. It features a very cool style unlike normal anime, some neat "camera" tricks and illusions of 3D, and a heavy but playful mood. It's quirky and good but not great.

The second short is called Stink Bomb, which is a crazy, fast-paced disaster/action story with a healthy dose of black humour. It's very well made, with insanely detailed tanks, helis, airplanes etc, and lots of explosions. The whole thing is funny and bizarre, and easily a classic.

The first of the three shorts, which in my opinion should have been saved to last, is Magnetic Rose. Here the humour of the two others is gone, and we have a very gripping and serious story set in a sci-fi environment. This is more like Otomo's Akira stuff; epic but with great characters. Some scenes are gut-wrenchingly emotional and disturbing. All set to a classic opera score, it is chilling and eerie and grand-scale in a way Hollywood never seems to get right.

If you like to watch the occasional anime, this is a very good choice. Don't know how easy it is to get a hold of, but it seems to be very popular at least in Japan.

Kanojo no omoide 4/10 - Some great music, the rest is only okay

"Kanojo no omoide" is a Japanese science fiction animated movie from 20 years ago. A couple astronauts hear strange singing from a place they considered deserted. So they go on a journey to find out who or what is the reason for this strange occurrence. The director here is Kôji Morimoto, who is probably a name to animation fans these days as he also worked on a segment of the Animatrix movie. However, I must say that even if I liked the animation in here, I cannot say that i found the story too interesting. The whole tragedy plot in terms of love, fatherhood etc. was a bit over the top the longer the film went and it was also some weird contrast to the horror elements in here. All in all, I can recommend this film only for the beautiful music used in several parts. I think it would not have been the worst decision to keep this at 30 minutes max instead of 45. Not recommended.



Taiho no Machi 4/10 - Never tries to make a statement on (anti-)war, but the storytelling perspective is fairly mediocre

"Taiho no Machi" or "Cannon Fodder" is a Japanese animated short film from 1995, so this one is also already over 20 years old. At slightly over 20 minutes, it is the shortest by far from the trilogy of films included on Memorîzu and Katsuhiro Ôtomo is not just the writer as usual this time, but also the director. At the beginning and end, the focus is on a boy and his family and how they deal with life in a place that is vastly influenced by the military. In-between there are tons of war action and army references and we even see a character on one occasion who through his beard may have a bit too much resemblance with Adolf Hitler. Anyway, it's not a Nazi film or anything, but it is much more about the mystery who they are fighting and why, which is an idea I like. Still the exact execution here did not seem too memorable to me and the animation style wasn't really to m,y liking either I must admit, but that's just personal preference and not really because it looks older than mid-1990s. The exact plot and attention to detail, especially about the story rather than the animation could have been a bit better too and as a consequence I found most characters really forgettable, even the key players. About the voice acting I cannot say too much as I focused on the English subtitles, but I guess it wasn't too bad. Still all in all, this is not my favorite from the Ôtomo trilogy. But it's also definitely not bad enough to be a negative deal-breaker that may keep you from watching the entire thing. Nonetheless I give it a thumbs-down as a whole, this one here at least. Not recommended.



Saishu Heiki 6/10 - What a difference the wrong medication makes

"Saishu Heiki" or "Stink Bomb" is a Japanese anime short film from 1995 that runs for 40 minutes and was written by Katsuhiro Ôtomo and directed by Tensai Okamura, both pretty prolific in their fields. This film is easily over 20 years old already now and the story is about a young man who takes the wrong pills and eventually ends up as an environmental and military catastrophe. It is an extremely bizarre story indeed, but somehow it is actually working. Maybe my preference for this one is that I also liked the animation style here and that most of the characters were interesting enough by just being there and without really in-depth exploration and background elaboration. The twists and how a seemingly harmless story initially becomes more and more dramatic by the minute were both well-handled. You actually get curious about what happens next, to the protagonist and in general. This is not typical anime style, but still successful from my perspective. The voice actors did an okay job as well as much as I can be a judge of that as my focus was mostly on the subtitles which yours should be too unless you actually are fluent in Japanese. I am generally not that big actually on anime that isn't particularly recent, but this felt like a well-rounded effort that never drags and succeeds from all production value perspectives. A little film that is as bizarre as it is entertaining. Go see it.

For the movie to watch on my 34th birthday,I decided to choose one of the movies that has been waiting years (!) to be played. In the mood for a Anime, I got set for a memorable viewing.

View on the film:

The lone story not written by Katsuhiro Otomo, the screenplay by Satoshi Kon for the opening tale, brilliantly continues to build on the recurring themes across Kon's works,in a compact form. Landing on a space ship whose distress call has been frozen in time, Kon welcomes the investigating crew with a eerie Horror atmosphere sprung from an increased blurring of dreams and reality (a major Kon theme) spun from Eva Friedel's memories haunting the ship.

Writing the other two stories in this Sci-FI anthology, the scripts by Katsuhiro Otomo (who also directed the third segment) wonderfully link them together via dark satire and allegorical menace, with Otomo being inspired by the real Gloria Ramirez incident, in having Tanaka spread his deadly stench completely unaware, whilst Cannon Fodder charges up the existentialism of a meaningless/never ending war.

Drawn from three different pairs of hands, the animation is linked to each tale with a incredible, hand drawn-animation clarity, from the detailed drawing of Eva's memories and the gas following Tanaka on every step he makes, to the smoke from the cannons of Cannon Fodder clouding the memories.