This past June, my friends and I traveled to the Meadowlands Expo. Center (which is about 10 minutes outside of NYC) to attend the AnimeNext 2005 Convention. Now when you go to a convention the best times to hit the dealers room is right when they open to find all the unique, hard-to-find items and about an hour or so before they close because that's when they just hand you stuff from posters to dvds. This is how I acquired
Cyber City: The Final Collection.
Cyber City is directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri who is also the director of
Ninja Scroll. This feature though is a series of three episodes. These episodes revolve around three convicts in a futuristic setting. These convicts (Sengoku, Benton, and Goggles) are serving life sentences when they are approached with an offer. An offer to work off their sentances by working for the police and take the "high risk" assignments. But what will keep them from running off? Explosive collars are put around their necks. If they try and take them off: Boom. If they run off: Boom. If they do not complete their tasks within the time frame given: Boom.
Each episode focuses, but not exclusively, on one of the convicts. In the first episode, "Time Bomb", Sengoku is the highlighted convict. He has to break into a building that is in lock down from terrorist activity, figure out what exactly is going on and "remedy" the situation. Not my favorite of the three but they get better. In the next episode, "The Decoy", Goggles is put up against a psychic cyborg to test it's capabilities with his life determining it's success. Last but not least in "The Vampire", there is Benton. Researchers that were working on an illegal genetic experiment are being killed. Benton needs to discover and dispatch the culprit. Question is, does he want to?
Honestly, when I started watching this it was slow going and did not really hold my attention. I watched it in english so I can't compare it to the Japanese, yet, but it seems the only way to distinguish the convicts from other people is by the number of swear words they can put in a sentance. It seemed to me most of it was unnecessary. I did however enjoy the animation style and the plotlines once they got going from their slow start. That being said and after digesting the episodes, I concluded that I enjoyed it but was glad it was a handout and not a purchase.
Some other works that Kawajiri had a hand in are:
Blade of Kamui, Wicked City, Neo-Tokyo, Ninja Scroll, Ninja Scroll: the Series, X: the Series, and
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.
Boma at 8:40 PM
