Manie-Manie: Meikyuu Monogatari (Neo Tokyo)

Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Manie Manie The Labyrinth Tales, Labyrinth Labyrinthos, Hashiru Otoko, The Order to Stop Construction, Construction Cancellation Order, Running Man, Meikyu Monogatari

Japanese: Manie-Manie 迷宮物語

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 3

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Sep 25, 1987

Producers: Kadokawa Shoten, Streamline Pictures

Licensors: ADV Films

Studios: Madhouse

Source: Novel

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Supernatural

Duration: 16 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 7.06¹ (scored by 12,759 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #4007²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3800

Members: 34,193

Favorites: 129

Resources

AniDB

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7.06

Ranked #4007Popularity #3800Members 34,193

MovieMadhouse

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Episodes: /3

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Synopsis

Manie-Manie: Meikyuu Monogatari is an anthology film composed of three short films by acclaimed directors Rintaro, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, and Katsuhiro Otomo.

Labyrinth Labyrinthos
While Sachi is searching for her cat, Cicerone, they both fall through a mirror and become trapped in a mysterious, mind-bending labyrinth. They follow a clown's shadow into the distance, not knowing where it will lead them.

Running Man
Bob Stone is a reporter working on an article about racer Zack Hugh, the ten-year reigning champion of an extremely popular and deadly automobile race. By the time the two meet, Zack's body and mind are shells of what they used to be. When the next race starts, Bob observes what happens when both man and machine are pushed to their breaking point, and what it takes to be an enduring champion.

The Order to Stop Construction
Salaryman Tsutomo Sugioka is dispatched into the heart of a dangerous jungle in order to halt a construction project after the foreman's mysterious disappearance. There, he discovers the deadly and uncontrollable world created by the automated construction robots. When the chief robot is resistant to his orders, Tsutomo must figure out another way to stop the project before his company's financial losses become too great.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

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Characters & Voice Actors

Sachi

Main

Sugioka, Tsutomu

Main

Mizushima, Yuu
Japanese

Hugh, Zack

Main

Ginga, Banjou
Japanese

Stone, Bob

Supporting

Tsukayama, Masane
Japanese

Robot 444-1

Supporting

Ootake, Hiroshi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Maruyama, Masao

Producer, Series Composition

Rintarou

Producer, Director, Script, Screenplay, Series Composition

Otomo, Katsuhiro

Director, Script, Character Design, Key Animation

Kawajiri, Yoshiaki

Director, Screenplay, Character Design, Animation Director

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Opening Theme

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Ending Theme

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Reviews

Apr 15, 2021

Ernacram

Recommended

Manie-Manie: Meikyuu Monogatari is a movie consisting in three short films. Since these short films are completely unrelated, have different art-styles and are made by different people, I will review them separately.

The first short film, Labyrinth Labyrinthos, is the most experimental of the movie, with an original art-style that doesn’t look like anime at all, and it is hard to tell what’s exactly happening in it, despite the fact that the animation is of very high quality. It involves at little girl and her cat chasing a mime from a circus in a labyrinth. Since it is pretty short (roughly 15 minutes), there is ... no actual story or character development, but it is interesting for its nightmare-like visuals. Most of the background music is classical music. Sadly, the voice-acting is a bit bad, and the sound effects are weird.

The second short film, Running Man, is less experimental, with a more classic art-style, and a more understandable story. It is set in futuristic city and focuses on a champion racer who goes crazy and starts using telekinesis to destroy his opponents. In this film, too, the animation is superb, and is even more detailed – the faces in particular – than in the previous one, and only for that, it is worth watching. However, this short film is too slow, and the voice-acting is, just like in the previous, not very good.

The third and last film, The Order to Stop Construction, is the longest and the most complete, as it has an actual introduction, a confrontation and an end. It is about a salary-man who has been ordered by his bosses to stop a fully automated construction project. He arrives at the construction site and discovers that the robot who is in charge of the project has gone crazy and wants to finish the project no matter what. The characters and the story in this short film are most fleshed out than in the previous ones, and contrary to the second film it doesn’t focus on only one character. The voice-acting is more decent than in the two other films, and the background music is alright. The art-style is more anime-like, and the backgrounds are very nice and detailed.

The problem with this movie is the same as all collections of short films: they are too short to leave an impact on the viewer. Nevertheless, these three short films are interesting to watch, the first for its nightmare-like visuals, the second for its very detailed animation, and the third for its story. I recommend watching them.

SUB-SCORE EXPLANATION:

Animation: great animation and backgrounds in all three films → 9/10

Sound: the first and second films have some problems in the VA and the sound effects, the last film is alright; the BGM is decent→ 6/10

Story: the first film has no story, the second film as a very short story, the last film is good→ 6/10

Characters: no character development in the first film; some in the second film; characters in the last film are more fleshed out→ 6/10

Enjoyment: all these films where enjoyable in some way; some sentimental value; high re-watch value → 7/10

Overall: 7/10

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May 23, 2022

YudiYusantoS

Mixed Feelings

Here is my review of this anime in 2022!

Story (7)
There are 3 stories Labyrinth Labyrinthos, Running Man, and The Order to Stop Construction.

Labyrinth Labyrinthos
Honestly, I don't really understand the story. I only know that there is a girl who follows the clown with her cat into the carnival. After that it continues to the next story.

Running Man
The story is about someone who is ambitious to win the race until He's dead. The theme is cyberpunk and feels like Old Neo-Tokyo.
...

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Feb 9, 2021

Adampk

Not Recommended

Once upon a time three well acclaimed directors came together to make a brainwashing program and u get what we see today as Neo Tokyo. Apparently from what I can see it worked like a charm in brainwashing people.

So lets talk what was so dreadful in it that I would call it a brainwashing program.
It has 3 short where obviously are not related to each other written by different people about different things. (Minor spoilers ahead)

Labyrinth Labyrinthos (1st short)-
It was kind of story which cannot differentiate the line between a masterpiece and nonsense. Yep, can take it either ways because ur brain is not gone ... register it anyways. I could seriously tell u, I understood more about the story by reading its summary compared to watching it. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen which cannot be salvaged. I would compare it with alien's from mars sending cryptic codes which people of earth misinterpreted as holy text from gods. This was most unexplainable thing out of the three and this was present both at the beginning and at the ending of this movie like as a sign of Hypnotism initiation and completion. "Muddled portrayal of grotesque feature" is the best explanation for it. I cannot tell u any more about art, characters, storyline etc because I cannot read Martian unfortunately. Overall if there is really something called so bad which can only be considered as good by a fanatic, then u have it in form of this 1st short. I just hope whoever wrote it doesn't have such epiphany again, it probably would be matter of life or death for this world next time.
Score-1/10 (as every sane person should)

Running Man (2nd short) -
It was fortunately more understandable. It had a few more lines to offer compared to what preceded it, which makes it more recognizable. But question remains, is any less bizarre than previous short? Answer is no. While I could comprehend it at emotional level, it makes no sense from most of what was shown. From what I got the theme is "stress of work". We got a racer who is yelling and making faces while racing throughout the short and news reporter standing at the stand whose only role is to act as our perspective. Now comes the freakish occurrences. Everything is breaking without any explanation from engines to human faces everything is cracked, exploded and destroyed, but still the racing goes on. A point comes where u cannot differentiate between different racers who are still riding on. There are even more strangeness with pupils disappearing in madness, red streaks of light coming through mouth of yelling protagonist, he appearing both at home and on his cart with an expression of mad rage simultaneously and there Ghosts are still riding on while further racers and their carts are breaking and being destroyed over and over. Everything went haywire just like my spoilers. When finally all was said and done, the last narrative described the incident as "a mystery that no one seem to mind, if it remains a mystery" Probably those are similar to my feeling about this short. Never open a Pandora box, it only looks beautiful as a mystery.
Score-3/10 (for being understandable)

The Order to Stop Construction (3rd short) -
Probably the most sane plot out of the three. But is it? probably, yes. While the characters are insane, plot is still sane. It is ur run-of-the-mill insane robots tropes ( though I am assuming this trope is supposed to be some sort of innovation in 1987). Nothing much is going on, a pretty straight forward story with a wacky ending. So its suppose to be safe, isn't it?... No, never ever fell for that. while plot is still safe, the art and designs is right out atrocious. U could have a migraine after seeing the artstyle. One may argue that it was the similar since the beginning, but u see the ingenuity of it shined the best in the third short. As my saying going the true colors of a art came out in the finale. Remember my warning after brainwashing "horrendous artstyle" probably will be interpreted as "clean animation". So exercise extreme caution.
Score-5/10 (art was pretty similar to final fantasy : legend of crystals, probably scores also should be similar. I am not a guy who will treat unfairly only based on art and animation for a old 1987 work being bad)

Finally...I am surprised at myself, i could attempt to put this obscurity in words. As one of the survivors of brainwashing, I felt a immense duty to make the society more aware. Probably many fanatics will trash me for this, But I atleast tried to warn u all.

Coming to final scores, 3/10 overall (+1 for attempt and for being only a short, +1 for being a old anime and as a respect to its well established directors, +1 for the purpose of this anime - brainwashing works very well)

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Manie-Manie: Meikyuu Monogatari

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