Redline

Takeshi Koike's debut feature; seven years in the making. Redline is an anime about racing, only presented like nothing seen before. Produced by Madhouse, with second key animation from Gainax, music from James Shimoji and a cast and crew pumped with everlasting potential, this is certainly one of - if not the - most adrenaline filled anime film to date.

As a film about racing, the plot is fairly standard fare, but the larger than life presentation coupled with the sheer imagination and creativity that has gone into Redline is second to none. The story - despite cliches - is both exhilarating and incredibly well paced. ... The action is, as you would imagine; fast, fantastic and full of adrenaline. The drama is at times cheesy, but it fits well with the films over-the-top attitude. The crazy antics in Redline make it clear the film isn't to be taken too seriously; it isn't a production that sets out to challenge our minds, but rather an exhilarating thrill-ride that's sole purpose is to entertain. In that respect, the story delivers and then some.

The tagline for Redline during its release was 'Witness the Future of Animation' and it's safe to say the studio never doubted the creativity of the team behind the film. Madhouse handled the production, with second key animation from Gainax - the films full development totaled seven years, with over one hundred thousand hand-made drawings. The amount of action and detail on screen at any one time is so vast the film begs for repeat viewings. The animation - in a word - is mind-blowing. The film is full of colour, detail and beauty like no other, the art style is vigorous and unique, and the character designs are fresh, exuberant and interesting.

The music - chiefly a variety of electronic compositions - is sublime. It blends seamlessly with Redline's fast-paced visuals, the sound editing is first-rate and the vocal tracks leave warm, fuzzy feelings - especially the ending song. The vocal talent is superb and particularly noteworthy; the film employs actors rather than seiyu in the leading roles. The leading man - JP - is voiced by Takuya Kimura, a member of the pop group SMAP and veteran actor who starred in Yoji Yamada's The Hidden Blade, part of the directors Oscar nominated samurai trilogy. The leading lady - Sonoshee - is portrayed by none other than Yu Aoi; an actress with many award-winning films under her belt, multiple of which were directed by national treasure and acclaimed auteur Shunji Iwai. Lastly, JP's right-hand man Frisbee is handled by Tadanobu Asano, one of few Japanese actors making a name for himself in Hollywood (recently he starred in Marvel's Thor). To quote journalist Helen McCarthy; "casting him was a stroke of genius."

The main characters all very much fit into conventional archetypes, but they're not made to be complex, deep, thoughtful beings. The characters, like the story and presentation, are themselves larger than life, quite literally. JP and Sonoshee alone make up about half the human population in the entire film; all of the other characters belong to their respective alien races, besides two other humans. The characters are written to be entertaining, to build the scale of the film and to perform as the archetypes we know and love, but that's not to say they're by any means flat; the main characters receive a sufficient amount of development, and the supporting cast is comprised of an exceedingly rich, varied, exciting and incredibly fun horde of wonderful characters.

Redline is a film not to be taken too seriously and anyone doing so has certainly missed the point. Needless to say, if you want a realistic racing film then you have come to the wrong place. However, if you want a fast, funny, eye-watering, explosive experience that will suck you into a world which words barely do justice, this is the film you're after. But, more than a film, Redline is an experience. Every element works in melody, bouncing off and complementing one another, ultimately creating a tremendous overall work that is magical to behold, completely unlike any other anime production to date.

Redline is excellent proof that you can have too much of a good thing. Especially when you neglect everything else in the process.

The first 10 minutes do an excellent job of letting viewers know what’s in store for them. It’s here that the film treats us to an intense and gorgeously animated race sequence and equally beautiful backgrounds and character models. From there on out it’s clear that the films intent is to overwhelm the viewer with adrenaline-filled races brought to life with mouth-watering animation and sound. Storyline and character development are of the lowest priority.

It’s no surprise, then, that Redline sticks closely to ... the usual 3 act structure. We’re first given a taste of things to come while the personalities and motivations of the major players are established, topped off with introducing the long term goal. The second act is all about the preparation with some rudimentary attempts at character development while act 3 is the main attraction: a 40-minute onslaught of non-stop racing packed with over-the-top, high speed moments and more explosions than 3 Michael Bay films put together.

Sounds good on paper. But Redline goes so overboard with its spectacle that it somehow becomes a bit dull. It’s simply too much.

First off, there are too many characters. The main characters are pretty forgettable and the only contestant who was somewhat cool was the established champion. The film further hurts itself by introducing subplots and characters who aren’t related to the race. A sizable chunk of screentime is reserved for a b-story involving an evil government (basically space-China) that’s out to stop the race and dig up some ancient weapons or something. Ultimately they’re only there to cause tons of explosions and other kinds of destruction. This in a film that’s already filled to the brim with explosions and spectacular set pieces.

This is Redline’s second excess. There is simply too much going on in the third act. A big race alone would have made for a wonderfully thrilling climax but Redline throws in an obligatory mafia subplot as well as the aforementioned evil government. What it all leads to? Stuff getting blown up and more stuff getting blown up.

This wouldn’t have been so bad if there was a reason to care or even some sense of urgency but there isn’t. All the cars race at impossible speeds and run just fine even after taking enough damage to wreck 10 spaceships. The result is that tension is basically nonexistent in this film. Nobody of note dies and damage to the vehicle is shrugged off so easily that one gets the feeling the only thing at stake is the film’s running time.

It’s a real pity seeing as the film is brilliantly animated and incredibly stylish. The film had a production history of 7 long years and you can tell when watching it that all that time was well spent in honing the stunning visuals to perfection. It’s no exaggeration that this is a new benchmark in terms of pure animation. The film’s many characters have detailed, instantly distinguishable models and are fluidly animated, machines roar and rush over surfaces with incredible speed and there’s even the occasional use of deformed animation for stylish effect that’s very effective. The visuals in Redline are a labor of love and the best part is that it overwhelms the senses in a way that seems difficult (perhaps impossible) to replicate in another medium.

In the end, that makes it all the more tragic that these gorgeous visuals aren’t telling a story worth caring about. Worse yet, its main hook (the visuals) simply can’t be used to carry a 100-minute feature film. Some serious editing could have reduced it to have its length and it would’ve made for a better-flowing and much more enjoyable viewing experience.

As it is, Redline is a stunningly animated but overlong film with such incompetent storytelling that it cannot reach its full potential. One can only hope that first-time director Takashi Koike’s next project will be a lot more polished. As it is, the talent is there. It simply needs to be honed and guided properly.

Ah Redline, what words can I use to describe this epic adrenaline rush? To be honest words are not enough, this is one of those films that you have to see to fully comprehend its greatness. However I am going to attempt to pass on my thoughts of this film in this review of what feel is one of the best anime films I have ever seen. Period.

Now in when it comes of the plot of Redline it is short, sweet and straight to the point. The film follows our main character JP, a driver who wants to race in a tournament called Redline which ... is held every five years. However he fails to qualify for it and just when he believes his dream is over, by chance two people drop out of the tournament which gives him a qualifying place.

It has been mentioned by critics and viewers, that Redline lacks a plot or that the story comes across as lackluster and while I can understand that point of the argument I can also argue against it. The film has enough of a plot to work in cohesiveness with the rest of the film and while it's not overly complex or thought-provoking it doesn’t have to be. I would like to think of it this way: Would your rather watch film with an overly drawn out plot and character development which could be potentially tedious and slow down the fast-paced nature of the film? Or would you want to watch a film with a condensed plot that has enough story and personality to make you care about what you are watching? Personally I prefer the latter.

When it comes to the visual presentation of Redline, words fail me. I mean seriously, no words can truly say how beautiful this film really is. Japanese animation studio Madhouse have crafted one of the most visually stunning animated films in existence, you really have to see it in action to comprehend its awesomeness. Firstly there's the character design, from the human-based characters to all of the other alien races and cybernetic beings that reside within Redline's world, the designs are diverse, unique and interesting. Secondly you have the vehicles which are also fabulous, coming in many different shapes and sizes, from simple to completely crazy designs, with individual quirks and weapon arsenals to be admired. And lastly there's the locations of the film that vary from the rocky crayons where races are done to spaceships floating above planets, all of which have an incredible amount of detail that draws your eyes in especially on a large cinema screen.

But I feel that the main aspect that makes Redline so great is the fluidity of the animation. The quality of the animation in this film is actually insane, with several sequences of high-octane action crafted with some beautiful choreography, nicely placed camera angles and great use of speed. Everything moves in such a smooth manner, with no moments of slowdown or inconsistencies whatsoever. The film delivers an experience like no other in the animation department and really conveys on the concept of speed, pushing you to edge of your seat and beyond.

But what is a film without a good soundtrack? Luckily Redline happens to have a brilliant soundtrack crafted by James Shimoji, which compliments the visuals wonderfully. The soundtrack is mainly composed of techno-based music, but it works well with the action on-screen, its explosive, fast-paced and it sounds so good! Also personally I felt that Redline's soundtrack really reminded me of the video-games F-Zero GX and Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, both of which have great soundtracks with explosive music that sounds great on the highest volume level. I also have to note that the sound editing in this film is tackled perfectly as well.

In terms of the enjoyment of Redline, I say be prepared to fall in love with this film. After watching the trailers for this film you get a rough idea as to what you will be watching, however those trailers cannot prepare you for the whole film. As a lot of people know this genre of film has been done before, after all Redline is a film about guys, girls and cars. But what Redline as film does well is give us a familiar format to work with, but it's covered in such an innovative, stylised and charismatic fashion that you will be left in awe after you see it. Also throughout all of the chaos and mind-blowing visuals, Redline never feels like it's heading into unnatural territory, in fact a lot of aspects about Redline feel realistic and believable.

Overall Redline is an experience that I feel everyone should enjoy. It's a like a rush of energy that's exhilarating, fast-paced and unforgettable. Takeshi Koike, Redline's director should feel very happy about the film that he has crafted and considering his previous work before coming onto this project I'm not surprised that this film turned out to be a success. Again I feel the need to mention Madhouse's insane skills as an animation studio as they have created a film full of action, charisma and style unlike any other film. There are so many individual things about the film that's weird and wonderful and completely unexpected, but overall I say watch this film and experience the epicness that is Redline!

Someone showed the Japan­ese ‘Wacky Races’. They were not impressed. “They call this ‘wacky’?”, they said. “We’ll show them wacky”.

You have never seen an anime like this before.

Red­line is an experience.

The story is about some punk-ass racing driver JP. He’s got­ten him­self into some match-fixing scan­dals but, due to some unfore­see­able coin­cid­ences, he wound up qual­i­fy­ing for Red­line, the worlds biggest racing event. The only rule is your vehicle must use wheels. Plus, to make things inter­est­ing, they decided to hold the race on Roboplanet, home to a war­ring civil­isa­tion who vow to kill any racers who dare enter their planet. Why hold the race ... there? So the TV rat­ings for the galaxy air­ing of Red­line shoot through the roof and so the anim­at­ors have plenty of oppor­tun­it­ies to anim­ate pretty explosions.

Not that any of this really mat­ters. The plot is a tedi­ous frivolity that’s just there to jus­tify the crazy sequences they put these char­ac­ters through. You couldn’t even hear the expos­i­tion and explan­at­ory dia­logue over the explo­sions, rev­ving engines and thump­ing soundtrack, to the point that sub­titles would often appear on the screen when I couldn’t hear any­one actu­ally say­ing any­thing. The real sign of this is the final scene, which I won’t spoil, but acts as a sign by the cre­at­ors that you weren’t meant to be tak­ing this ser­i­ously in any way, shape or form. It’s such a bril­liantly corny way to end the movie that you can’t help but applaud the auda­city of it all.

Red­line is all about the visual exper­i­ence. As little import­ance as they might have had, it’s really a shame I had to pay some degree of atten­tion to the sub­titles because I prob­ably missed so many little details. Each scene is full of little eye­c­atches to com­pli­ment the over­all pic­ture. From the Red­line cham­pion Iron­head, a 3 metre tall fella with a head of, sur­prise sur­prise, iron, strok­ing his teeny tiny dog dur­ing an inter­view, or the hero in JP’s dream snog­ging two girls at once, the movie is full of these little amus­ing details that act as winks to the audi­ence. I’d almost say it didn’t have enough of these, which is kinda like say­ing Death Note needed more Latin chant­ing, but I could have done with a few less explo­sions and a few more cars fly­ing through the air with their wind­screen wipers on. There’s only so many ways you can make an explo­sion look inter­est­ing. I’m pretty sure Red­line used up every single method, and made up a few of it’s own, but the eccent­ri­cit­ies with anim­at­ing other incid­ents is what made me love this movie.

Red­line is aim­ing to have as much fun as pos­sible. That’s how the brain behind the series works and drives what the movie does next. Com­pare this to Panty and Stock­ing for a second. P&S uses the auda­city of it’s anim­a­tion tech­niques to pro­voke shocked responses of “OMG did they just do that!?!”. Red­line uses it’s anim­a­tion for the power of fun. You can tell how much the cre­at­ors enjoyed work­ing on this. If any­thing, it looks like they might have had too much fun and were forced to cut out parts of the movie to make it more man­age­able. There cer­tainly appeared to be a chunk of the final race miss­ing as it leaped from mid­way point to the fin­ish line. All things con­sidered, they prob­ably made the right choice if they cut out some scenes from there. The movie was just the right length, any­more might have killed the fun just that little bit, but it did leave the final race feel­ing a little bit disjointed.

Ulti­mately, because of the dis­reg­ard for nar­rat­ive, the movie doesn’t hold much weight. Hence I don’t think it will make quite the splash some of the early reviews pre­dicted it would make. But Red­line is such an incred­ibly fun film that I find it hard to see how people won’t get sucked in by it’s atmo­sphere and inten­tions, grin­ning like a maniac right the way through the film. Are you not enter­tained? Is this not why you are here?

::Edit:: I've seen this movie 3 times now and decided to hike the score up from an 8 to a 9. If anything, it gets more fun with each rewatch

If Redline was to be described in one word, 'explosive' would be it. This off-the-wall animated racing movie is overflowing with zany antics, over-the-top characters, and logic-defying awesomeness. It doesn't have a complex story, and offers next to nothing for the thinking viewer, but that is obviously not its aim. Redline is a stunning display of visual brilliance, a reminder that the reason we love animation is that it can pull off things that are too ridiculous and outrageous to be accomplished in live action. It is the pinnacle of style over substance.

Redline took over 7 years to make, reportedly used 100,000 hand-made drawings, and ... was released later than its originally intended release date. Needless to say, this was a monumental effort by the animators; something you can feel while watching this movie. Every single shot in the movie is amazingly well detailed, brimming with attitude and audacity. There isn't a moment in the movie that doesn't demand your attention, there is just so much to look at: there are strange looking aliens, outlandishly awesome vehicles, their equally as awesome operators, fantastical spaceships, legions of killer robots, crazy bounty hunters, insane speed-freaks, biologically created weapons of mass destruction, scantily clad and topless women, and thousands upon thousands of explosions. The animators took every crazy idea that popped into their heads and brought them to life in stunning detail, all for the sole purpose of making your eyes explode from the sheer awesomeness of what you are watching.

The artwork itself is something unique. Heavily lined, highly defined, and more reminiscent to western comic-books or adult aimed animation than traditional anime. It is nothing like the bishounen/bishoujo look that dominates modern anime; it doesn't have a hint of that sort of 'attractiveness'. Instead, part of the appeal of Redline's art style is how freakishly outlandish the characters can look; one of the main characters looks like a goblin with a pink streak going across his face from ear to ear, in a suit. He looks relatively normal in comparison to many side characters. Even the human (or human-like) characters have strange or exaggerated features. The animation is smooth, and under first time director Takeshi Koike, infused with frenetic energy. The dynamism of the animation perfectly compliments the unique art style; making for an insane visual thrill ride.

Redline's soundtrack is also very strong. Composed of mostly high energy electronic beats and guitar riffs with equally as enthusiastic vocals, there is nary a quiet moment in Redline's soundtrack, which is entirely fitting for the movie. The music is perfect for the movie's purposes; its crazy, often funny, and pumps up the adrenaline for the bombastic action set-pieces. In addition, many of the characters have their own themes, all of which are delightful in their own way.

Now for the plot, it's a mess. It's a crazy, fun, and thoroughly entertaining mess albeit, but a mess nonetheless. Granted, this is an animated racing movie, so it is not as if a meaningful plot is expected. Indeed, Redline has all the thematic depth of a dixie cup, but that doesn't mean there is not a lot going on. With the romantic sub-plot between protagonists JP and Sonoshee, the conflict with the militaristic Roboworld, a sub-plot involving JP's friend Frisbee being entangled with the mafia, and all the rivalries between the racers; there might actually be a bit too much going on. Of course, all if this is building up to the spectacle of the big race, however, that doesn't make this cluster of plot-lines any less convoluted. The pay-off of these plot-lines alto varies; in the worst cases they're just dropped or forgotten about, in the best cases they're resolved with explosions and violence. While this isn't a bad thing, since it means more great animated action sequences, it does show that while the animation is stellar, the writing is severely lacking.

Something the writing does succeed at is the humor. This is an outrageously funny movie, tossing jokes and silly antics left and right, and mostly hitting the mark. A lot of the humor comes from the ridiculous, exaggerated personalities of the characters. The cast is essentially a collection of caricatures, yet all are colorful and memorable. There is the egotistic cyborg who is the longstanding Redline champion, and claims to be in a league of his own because he is literally one with his ride. Lynchman and JohnnyBoya, a pair of bounty hunters who look and act like superhero parodies. The Super Boins are a hyper sexualized pop duo with a vehicle that transforms into a woman-shaped robot that has their cockpits as its boobs. The segments in the middle of the movie that introduce these characters are hysterical. Then there is all the weird situations and circumstances characters find themselves in. Not everything is comedic gold, but even when the jokes don't completely work, they are entertaining enough in their weirdness. It is all very tongue-in-cheek and in-your-face ridiculous, and that is what makes it so much fun.

Redline is a movie that thrives more on pure entertainment value than a strong plot and cast of characters. It runs on adrenaline and showmanship rather than a well crafted narrative or complex themes. While this does prove to be the movie's biggest shortcoming, it is also the best thing it has going for it. Though the plot falls flat on many aspects, the movie itself never fails to entertain. Admittedly, you might have to turn your brain off and stretch your suspension of disbelief to fully enjoy Redline. However, if exciting pop-corn munching material with a ton of passion is what you are craving, then Redline is just the thing for you.

Way back at the turn of the century a short OVA series was released that went by the name “Trava”. It was a quirky series that was noted mostly for its visual style. The think bold shadows and lines were very much not unlike those of a comic book and it sported some very interesting and experimental animation. It was co-directed by Takeshi Koike, who instead of going on to direct some more anime seemingly stuck in the background and directed bits and pieces of animation here and there. More specifically, he was also behind the Afro Samurai promo, a section of the Animatrix and ... Iron Man’s pilot. All of them had the same style as Trava, thick and bold shadows and incredibly stylistic animation. While it appeared that Koike wasn’t heavily involved in the industry, in reality Madhouse had went ahead and turned his work on the second set of Trava OVAs into a full feature length film. And so Redline came into existence, complete with different main characters and plot, however taking place in the same continuity as Trava.

Redline’s story won’t raise any eyebrows. What will raise eyebrows is how it’s told. Redline doesn’t aim to woo the audience with its writing; however it does use its visuals to make the plot sincere and engaging. The plot is also pretty retro and it’s a callback to anime in the late 80s and 90s with its sci-fi setting and crazy character designs. This is reflected in every aspect of the movie, from its themes to romance and even the fanservice. This isn’t by sheer coincidence either, the old-school style is there to remind people of a time when anime was built solely on the sweat and tears of the animators and staff, when anime was just taking off and was a lot less commercial than it is now. Although Redline does nod its head to its predecessors, it never completely wallows in nostalgia either. It boldly stands on the shoulders of giants saluting the past yet painting the way forward for the medium, taking risks and daring steps forward. It may not amount to anything more than a pipe dream in the end but its stride is more than enough to inspire complete and utter glee from the audience.

The single most important factor and noticeable aspect of Redline is without a doubt its animation. Anybody can tell you that after watching 20 seconds of footage. So what exactly makes Redline’s animation so special? Well for one, it’s nearly animated entirely on 1s i.e about 24 drawings/frames every second. You don’t see this in many anime movies let alone TV anime, the animation itself is on the same level as Akira, Satoshi Kon flicks and Studio Ghibli movies. However unlike these movies, the animation is VERY stylized almost to the point where the subjects can look horrendously off-model but all of it has a point. The name of Redline’s game is speed, and that’s something it portrays very well, better than any live-action movie, better than any book and better than any video game. Redline is a revelation, it shows us why 2D animation isn’t obsolete compared to its 3D counterpart and most of all; it’s a towering triumph for animation as a form of storytelling. The animation tells the story in Redline, from the visceral car/mecha porn fights to the more subtle moments of romance and characterization. This movie doesn’t achieve all of this through exposition nor monologues and not even the cast. And yes, plenty of anime have done this before but Redline really drives home the power of animation and how it can be used to really enhance the experience. More importantly, could Redline be possible as a live action work? No, it only works in the medium it was created for. It’s not really possible to brush aside the visuals for this movie nor is it possible to say its all style and no substance. The style is the substance in this case; Redline is all about the visuals as a vehicle for storytelling and in that sense you can’t really talk about Redline’s story without also addressing the animation, mainly because they are so tightly knit together. There a certain art to delivering cheesy popcorn entertainment to the audience and Redline does it the same way many landmark works before did it, by showing the audience instead of telling them, by raw energy instead of robotic puppeteering. I can’t stress the importance of what Redline is trying to do and how it’s trying to do it. It’s a visionary piece of work that restates the strengths of 2D animation and plays exclusively to its tune. It’s uniformly the Akira of this generation in terms of influence it’ll propagate over the industry. The only real difference is the environment in which both movies were released and Redline comes at a time where its presence stands out all the stronger compared to all of its peers. The audio design is fantastic as well, the cars themselves on nitro often sound like jets, which really goes a long way into convincing the audience of the speed and momentum each vehicle has. The crashes and explosions are gratuitous and glorious and the soundtrack is techno. Not the hipster kind but the UNTZ kind, the music is tailor-made to pump up the audience and like the animation, is there to enhance the experience.

The technicalities of the animation are also very impressive. The movie was 7 years in production, 2-3 in pre-production (storyboards and planning) and 4 of actual animation. The amount of care and effort into this project is plainly obvious upon viewing the final product, the complexity of the storyboard, the rich and detailed animation and the energetic audio design. The staff involved is even more impressive, ranging from talent like Gainax’s own Hiroyuki Imashi, all the way to grizzled veterans like Shinya Ohira. The animation in this movie is a culmination of the evolution Japanese animation has undergone over the past few decades and the results are dazzling. This is juxtaposed thematically in the movie as well. In the beginning of the movie, we are told that only “fools” with vanishing spirit continue to race in cars, which is acknowledged as a dying sport because of all the superior technology out there. This is commentary on 2D animation in general and the racers are very much alike to the animators who work in a medium that is becoming less and less appreciated over time. If you want to take it a step further, Sonoshee, the heroine is a symbol of inspiration and chasing dreams while the hero JP is symbolic of the audience themselves, smitten with the wonders of racing (animation) as a youngster and forever chasing a dying ideal out of romanticism and passion. This movie isn’t “deep” by any stretch of the word but if it had a message, I’d say it was simply trying to inspire the audience, daring them to dream for so much more.

Redline isn’t really the product of a bygone era, but more like the product of its immediate surroundings. It can entertain on any level and really, it’s a wonder just to behold it as the visuals and sound completely and utterly assault your every senses while you sit in awe for an hour and forty minutes. Even if you don’t really appreciate animation all that much, you can still take away a lot of enjoyment from the movie because in the end its just one hell of a ride that really needs to be experienced by oneself.

“Life’s overrated” – JP
“Redline’s overrated” – Me
Me : 1
Redline : 0
Oh, and yeah, this is a spoiler free review, not that it means anything because that would imply Redline has something to spoil.
Redline……. is an enigma.
Hailed as a masterpiece by some, it definitely is a deviant piece of work, I’ll give it that. Now, coming to the actual movie itself, it is a movie about …. about some cars in a race crashing into each other while vying for the top finish for …. eh, it really doesn’t matter. Because Redline is not the kind of movie you watch for the plot, and Redline is ... aware of that. It doesn’t really expect anybody to watch it for the plot, instead relying on its visuals to seal the deal for it, and I’m pretty cool with that. Redline wasn’t meant to be a plot heavy show after all, it was supposed to be a beacon of inspiration for Studio Trigger.
Seriously, if somebody was to describe ‘over the top’ in the most ‘over the top’ fashion, they would have to but come up with a single word : Redline.
And is that a good thing, well, its debatable. You see, Redline is too flashy for its own good, there is only so much things flying into each other I can take without getting a headache. And not only with the visuals, but the actual storyline is a mess as well. And no, the storyline is not ‘just’ complicated, it is balls out stupid, unnecessary, and just there for the sake of it, I kid you not when I say it beats Your Name for the flimsiest storyline ever. But as I’ve already mentioned, Redline is not meant to be taken seriously, but that does not excuse it for its sorry ass excuse of a story.
Mafia subplot? Check
Fanservice? Check
Exxxxplosioons!!!! Check
Jiggle physics? Check
Mechas disguised as cars? Check
Authoritative regime? Check
Neeeed for speeeed? Check
“Friendship” and Betrayal? Check
Trippy Visuals? Check
Cohesive story line? Nah, who cares.

Its almost as if a bunch of animators were locked in a room with a bottle of liquor and some drugs and told to draw cars flying around and Voila! Redline.
Coming to the characters, none of them matter or stick out, except the main characters JP, his gal (she has little personality otherwise) and maybe his (sorta?) friend, Frisbee, who is only memorable because of his FANTASTIC English VA (yeah, I watched it dubbed).
Now coming to the part which Redline IS about, Visuals… Now, I am aware Redline is universally acclaimed for its animation, and the animation is good, but its nothing spectacular. I guess the art style doesn’t really appeal to me much.
Sound: This is one area where Redline knocks the ball out of the fucking park. This has to be one of the most impressive OSTs I have heard. The sounds got me hyped everytime, and although there wasn’t any tension in the anime, the sound created them when needed. All the English VAs were fantastic and top notch. It has an amazing dub and it fit well with the characters themselves.
Overall: It would be incorrect to say Redline is a ‘bad’ movie, because it is not. Most of the strengths of the movie, like the psychedelic visuals, just didn’t appeal to me, I guess. An incoherent storyline doesn’t help, I guess. I would also like to say that if you are interested in this movie then go ahead and give it a watch, because this is unlike anything you have (probably) seen, and this is an experience difficult to explain. Just don’t go in with high expectations, and I’m sure you will be delighted.
Enjoyment Level: Mildly Disappointed, but its okay as a whole I guess.
Oh, and I forgot to mention this is only my 8113rd review and English is my 427th language so please ignore all mistakes, grammatical or factual.
[spoiler]In case you didn’t get it, I’m kidding. Yes I know, my humour sucks, thank you.[/spoiler]

Redline is the pinnacle of what every racing movie inspires to be, fast paced, high octane, absolutely insane, and stunningly beautiful. It does this while all being set to one of my favorite anime soundtracks, so good that it rivals those of FLCL, Cowboy Bebop, Madoka, Attack on Titan, Kill la Killa, and the Monogatari Series (as well as anything else that I missed).

Before you watch Redline, there are a few things that you must know, chief of which is that this movie is not being made for the intellectual. The story is simple and understated, but never aspires to be anything compelling on its ... own.

So why watch it? Despite Redline's lackluster story, it excels is practically every other area to the point of perfection, far over shadowing any of its lacking elements. Chief among these perfections are Redline's visuals. Made with over 10,000 hand drawn key-frames, and an absolutely unique style to boot, Redline is the single most visually stunning thing I've ever seen in all of anime. Of course that's simply my opinion, and while it might not be your favorite looking anime (assuming that you, the reader, have seen it), it is undoubtedly a visual masterpiece.

As I mentioned before, Redline also boasts an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. The different character themes are unique and catchy, and the movie's title tracks, Yellow Line and Redline, offer up wonderful techno beats that perfectly accompany any fast paced ride. Great to listen to in the car, though you may wind up speeding for some unknown reason.

The final thing that Redline does well is its world building. Redline takes the "show don't tell" approach to world building and it really does show just how effective that strategy is when it's done right. It's so chalk full of interesting planets and people and sceneries that you can't really process it all in one viewing. I notice new things about the world every time I rewatch the movie. I actually feel like the many vibrant side characters in Redline help to add to the world. Between the different species, personalities, attitudes, and appearances, these characters do a lot to flesh out the rich universe that Redline inhabits. The world is full, yet Redline never feels the need to explain to you how awesome it is, it simply shows you how awesome it is.

I gave Redline a 10, not because it is a perfect movie, but because it does so many things so well that it doesn't deserve anything less. Redline is just pure fun, shooting into your heart on a gold-nitro blast of awesome. Don't miss out on this fantastic movie.

Ah, Redline, the industry’s loudest bomb. A bomb so explosive, so meticulously crafted and vibrant that its aftershocks can still be felt today from all sides of the spectrum, from the painful lack of risks maligned in today’s time, to the cult following that spawned from the ashes. A decade later, and the film’s still one of the biggest spectacles in the business, so it may have just won in the end.

Before I gush about the obvious, how ‘bout we get the specs on the writing, or rather the mainframe holding this bad boy together. Protagonist JP is one of the freshest mother fuckers in ... the business, with enough style and charm to rival the likes of Char from Gundam and Lupin from the III. His crew’s pretty alright and Frisbee’s subplot ends in the coolest way you can think for that kind of rigged mafia sports story, but apart from JP and the galaxy he races in, the real stars are the competitors: the racers and the Fun Nazis that run Roboworld. Nothing’s deep about them other than the fun ways the film lets us in on their pasts, but the likes of Sonoshi and Metalhead are captivating love interests and rivals respectively, and Johnny, Lynchman, Shinkai, and Todoroki make for gloriously badass comedic relief. Tying them into their pasts and how well they're presented, Travistila and Dezuya’s rivalry following the former’s fallout with the former over at the military was brutal and magnificent to see. Seeing this absurd yet damn well-constructed galaxy thrash about as the Roboworld Fun Nazis fuck themselves and everything with them up is a sight that you can’t possibly hold, realizing just how damn tight the method to this film’s madness is, even if the ending leaves a few loose threads hanging

The madness doesn’t stop there, as when you can see it, you can hear the adrenaline. Heart-pumping tunes such as “Yellow Line” and one of the many examples of leitmotif on display: “Redline” drill into your ears as your heart prepares to explode! Matching and even surpassing the ear-candy tunes by James Shimoji is the dub. Recognizable A-list VAs such as Michelle Ruff, Doug Erholtz, Keith Silverstein, James K. Price, and our main protagonist Patrick MoFUCKING Seitz give it their all to bring all the style to each bombastic character, in a damn valiant effort to match the flowing, flashin’ attitude of this stellar rush of awe. Not a single performance falls short --not even those of lesser-known VAs such as Joey Morris and Laura Post-- allowing this dub to go down as an underappreciated beast worthy of the godlike warhead of a film it’s attached to.

As this lavish atom bomb blew, onlookers were greeted to one of the most monumental spectacles in animation and film in general. Forget eye-candy, this is a king’s feast for the eyes! Through the fiery hells of a 7-year production line at Madhouse, animator superstars and madmen of the industry such as Hiroyuki Imaishi and Hiroshi Hamasaki, and madman director Takeshi Koike to create an unstoppable juggernaut of some of the most fluid, bombastic, and detailed sakuga in the market. Every second of every race, every shoot-out, fight-scene, and scene in general is crafted to utter perfection, as to squeeze the life out of your red, blazing eyes as they somehow manage to perfectly parse all the earth-shattering action going on. The wonderfully vibrant colors, car designs, mech designs, and especially character designs Katsuhiko Ishii, and every aforementioned and unrecognized name crafted are as gorgeous, expressive, and or unique as it can possibly get in such a small yet galactic showcase. Each setting is as majestic and even destructible as the last too, and my god, even gushing can’t do it justice! JUST LOOK AT THIS SHIT! FUCKING LOOK AT IT, AND TELL ME THIS ISN’T ONE OF THE BEST-LOOKING THINGS YOU’VE EVER SEEN!!!

It left me feeling like a kid riding a roller-coaster and going down a waterslide while on a sugar rush. My holy-shit quotient broke by the middle of the final race, reducing me to a gibbering mess of hype trying to feast on the visual splendor at hand. The raw style and energy is borderline unmatched in this industry, as something like this has never been attempted since its painful crash in '09. Amidst the fires still stood a proud work of boisterous art, an exhilarating monument to the sheer passion plugged into this industry, and the joy its patrons express! And some bastards say some risks never pay off! Fuck ’em, now what about you? Think you can handle a little test drive?

Written and edited by: CodeBlazeFate
Proofread by: Peregrine

"Redline" is a film of style. It is a simple story that doesn't take itself too seriously. But this piece is truly art, you could watch it for that reason alone.
It's reminiscent of something Gainax would produce, but with a little extra kick of spice added.

The story of a racer who just can't turn down any race, along with everyone else in this film.
This film makes me think of a film version of an uncensored F-Zero.

For the art department. This movie should win an award. This is seriously the reason to watch this film. The execution, character design, machines, action, SPEED! Everything is done with ... excellent detail, and you really feel like you're apart of these races. Just beautiful.
Takeshi Koike should direct more anime features.

As for characters, most are very obvious. Mainly all characters are adrenaline junkies who want more speed and want to WIN!
Many plot points are quite obvious and cliche, and you will know all of them as soon as you watch the film. Does this take away from the experience? Not. At. ALL!

JP is an old fashioned racer, with the help of his mechanic, an old friend Frisbee, he can win. If it were not for Frisbee fixing the races because of his deals with the mafia.

Sonoshee is one sexy babe, and she's the :Spoiler: love interest for JP in this picture (It's no spoiler). Her dream is to win the Redline.

There are many other quirky supporting characters that enter races, qualify for the Redline, and get in JP's way.
But, it's all in the execution.

The sound department in this production. The SFX should get an award as well, especially with the well executed explosions and vehicle sounds.
All the seiyuu are excellent.
The music is very good as well, it reminds me even more of F-Zero.

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If you are interested in any way in speed, animation, execution, and style, you're at the right place.
This is quite a beautiful film!

This film deserves my 10, because it does what it is trying to do perfectly.
Beautiful art, fast paced story with some well executed down time, and a perfect experience!
Another great Madhouse production has hit streets.

As I said before, Takeshi Koike should direct more anime features!

Let me be frank: No automotive film will ever surpass the experience you will have while watching this. Not even if Top Gear released a movie (although it'd be funnier).

While the story may be very dull, again lets be frank; you don't watch the F1 Grand Prix in Monaco for the commentary therefore this area of the film is unimportant.

The artwork is quite stylised and very retro Japan animation looking which suits the completely over-the-top mood the film has. It's like Speed Racer meets Gurren Lagann. The colours are bright, lines are thick and shadows are black giving it very punchy visuals.

The soundtrack is excellent ... - all arguments are redundant
Very heavily overdriven guitarwork coupled with nightclub beats for the main part. Then there are the softer more melodic pieces for those wonderful character development scenes that relate to the average plot.

Characters, are very interesting as in completely ridiculous and hilarious but they have no depth to them. JP the main character has the classic Japanese gangster hairstyle, the 'Japanese' team in the race look like otaku and every other male are heavily muscled. The girls are of course sexualised beyond what any ecchi anime could achieve.

As you can tell, this is a 90% positive review so of course its enjoyable and this wont be just my opinion. It's like the movie generates kinetic energy on-screen and shoots it straight at your eyeballs electrifying your whole body keeping you on edge throughout the film.

Overall, if you can (and you will) overlook the story, you'll find that this masterpiece of animation will lock you mind and body and take you on a very wild ride across the racetrack. As Wiki nicely puts it: "Speed racer on crack" and he'll be giving you some too.

I'll give credit to Redline that it made for quite the impressive achievement in animation as it was completely animated by hand, which is unheard of these days with computers essentially being used to create all of the animation used for modern anime titles. The movie was brimming with plenty of detail and depth in depicting the violent races that took place in the movie and showing off the scenery of Roboworld as the racers prepared and raced on the planet's surface. The animation depth was slick enough to create the illusion of speedy movement depicted with the racers and any collateral damage coming from ... the manic action that took place in the movie. Character designs are definitely out of the norm for an anime title as well where many of the aliens and robots seen in this movie are made to be quite bizarre and out-of-the-ordinary, with only JP and Sonoshee appearing to be designed like typical human anime characters.

In terms of plot, Redline is quite simple focused mostly on JP's efforts in trying to win the Redline race and the militaristic robot armies of Roboworld trying to sabotage the race. It is mostly dependent in depicting Redline's manic races and over-the-top characters who are either trying to win the race or wipe out the racers thus feeling mostly stylish in its premise. Those who look more for style over substance in their anime movies will get a definite kick out of how crazy the racing and characters are in Redline while those wanting a bit more depth to their anime will find this movie to feel like a novelty. Sadly though, I have to go along with the latter opinion as Redline relies entirely on its gritty premise and presentation to hook in viewers and it doesn't have much else memorable for me to want to come back for more viewing.

While definitely a great visual treat and a decent manic romp while it lasts, I feel quite indifferent towards Redline as it oozes mostly in style and doesn't have any worthwhile substance to make me dive in for seconds with the movie. I guess your mileage will vary on whether or not the movie wows you more than my experience with it.

I am not a fan of racing. Things like Nascar bore me to death. I find it to be one of the worst video game ideas. And, when it comes to anime, even things like Initial D and Speed Racer aren't able to jump start my interest in racing. When I first got the intention of watching Redline, I hadn't a clue it was about racing. I was actually watching a conversation where people were discussing the animation on an anime forum and I decided that all the positive things they were saying about it was an excellent reason to watch it.

Again, I hate racing, ... so you should take me seriously when I say that I find Redline to be a masterpiece. A futuristic race involving people across numerous alien species taking place on a hostile planet? From that concept alone, one would probably think of the Pod Races in Star Wars. But, trust me when I say that Redline is actually far better than that mediocrity.

As I initially said, it was the discussion of Redline's animation that drew me to watch it, and I was far from being disappointed. Redline exhibited some of the best visuals I've ever seen from an anime. Never before have I seen an anime I felt could be comparable to the Kara no Kyoukai series (which I've felt has been a pinnacle of animation for a very long time) in terms of animation, if it didn't outright blow it away. The very opening of this anime of nut shells hitting the floor set the entire stage for the animation quality; showing amazing quality and details that few animes have ever actually put the time and effort into showing.

The sound is perfect. I know that it seems like it'd be difficult to screw up the sound on an anime, but Redline put almost every anime to shame when it comes to sound. Perfect voice acting, perfect soundtrack and perfect sound effects; just an overall perfect performance from the sound.

Often times when watching anime, I have this complaint that the characters aren't real. That they don't seem like a realistic archetype of what humans actually are, which is typically followed by not making very realistic choices, which then end up placing the characters into a flop of a plot because of their terrible choices. The characters in Redline are beyond believable, but their personalities and background information help you better understand them as a person. I can claim that I've known many people in my life who would do the same choices and paths as the main protagonist, JP. Although, romance seems to spark up a tad easily between him and a special girl I'm not revealing the name of, it's still fairly acceptable, for it does nothing to break the plot and helps you understand the characters even better. This is one of the few instances of perfection out of characters I have ever seen come out of animation.

The story of Redline is fairly simplistic at it's core. JP is in the biggest race in history, but his buddy is constantly selling him out to lose for the mafia for tons of money, so JP has to learn how to outdo racers with weapons and his buddy selling him out. But, on top of this, they're racing on a planet that's filled with a hostile race that doesn't want their military compounds being filmed for the universe to see and uses military and doomsday-like weapons as a means to bring down the racers. To top it all off, the people in charge of and racing in the race (called 'Redline,' so you know) are all even more pumped into racing with these added hostile odds, which all leads to huge, dramatic scenes of clusterfucks of weaponry and destruction. The plot is fairly solid, despite being filled with clusterfucks of weaponry and destruction.

As I said in the beginning, Redline is a masterpiece. I was entertained 100% of the time, and to be honest, what more do you need from an anime?

"Redline supposedly took 7 years and ~100,000 individual drawings to create, all hand-drawn, limited computer work, and it shows." which results in Brilliant Masterpiece.

Plot- Redline is about the biggest and most deadly racing tournament in the universe. Only held once every five years, everyone wants to stake their claim to fame, including JP, a reckless dare-devil driver oblivious to speed limits with his ultra-customized car—all the while, organized crime and militaristic governments want to leverage the race to their own ends. Amongst the other elite rival drivers in the tournament, JP falls for the alluring Sonoshee McLaren.

- This movie is a gem 1 hour 40 ... minutes long. I enjoyed every second of it, even the credits because of the beautiful song in the end. I never felt this good watching a racing movie, since "speed racer" times. This movie has everything, what I wanted in a racing movie "Osts, Pump up moments, romance, beautiful explosive artwork, no CGI shit everything is hand drawn". It is a futuristic sci-fci racing movie, it might remind you of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace racing scene.

Genres- Action, Cars, Sci-Fi, Sports, Romance

Story- 9.5/10 (Not a unique story, if you have seen Speed Racer everything seems bit predictable but I still enjoyed it a lot. Every other character perfectly blends into the story. Since, it's just a movie, I won't spoil anything else)

Characters- 10/10 (JPXMcLaren is what steals the show, they both have this unique chemistry from the start, that reveals in the near end)

Artwork- 10/10 (2nd best thing about the movie, everything is beautiful. The colorful artwork,Cars and Characters looks so damn good and we are talking about Madhouse here and make sure you watch this movie in 720p nothing below that. It will just destroy the beauty of it with pixels)

Sound- 10/10 (The music that starts right at the pump up moments, feels the best not just that, character's voices are so good. You can feel the effort, I highly recommend you to watch it in Jap Dub and English Sub!)

Enjoyment- Over 9000 (This movie sure made my Sunday. If only this movie had a sequel or 12 episodes long T.V series. I would have enjoyed it a lot more than with more character's development)

Like many others said, you don't watch Redline to be captivated by some intriguing plot. You watch Redline to see some kick-ass animation, and as long as you keep that in your mind it's a very enjoyable movie.
Within the first 5 minutes of the movie I was wowed by how impressive the animation, art, and backgrounds were. Right off the bat I was reminded of works like Afro Samurai or Tekkonkinkreet, both "animation porn", if you will. Redline isn't trying to be a deep or intelligent movie, no, it's supposed to amaze you visually and it does that perfectly.
... Redline has lush backgrounds, fantastic race animations, and an awesome art style akin to anime from the 80's or 90's. It's soundtrack isn't anything fantastic but it does just what it needs to do in being fast paced and exciting.
The only true flaw the movie has is it's lack of strong character development. Though it doesn't affect how much I enjoyed the movie, the characters were weak and almost cliche, with JP being the generic gangster and Crab being the typical pretty girl with a passion for something. Personally this didn't affect me but I could definitely see how someone could be bothered by it.
In the end it all comes down to personal preference, Redline isn't a thought provoking movie, but it's definitely a landmark movie in Japanese animation in regards to it's style and aesthetic. If your a big fan of anime or just animation in general Redline is a must see.

Redline: A Personal Statement

A common criticism of Takeshi Koike’s Redline is that it chooses style over substance, to a fault. In principle, I should be against the concept of style over substance. I hold various pretentious ideas in my head about the role of art in the human experience and what meaningful purpose it might serve to God. The idea of tossing out metaphysical or introspective meaning for greater aesthetic value sounds unpleasantly nihilistic (Jesus, what thesaurus did I fall asleep on last night?) One need only play through something as mainstream as Persona 5 to encounter artists’ idolatry of aesthetic value devolving into a ... dangerously amoral philosophy. The art takes the place of God; morality is replaced by whatever *feels* right—or in Persona’s terms, whatever your “aesthetic” is. Ideas like this laid the intellectual foundation for the great despots of the 20th century.

Now in practice, that’s all horseshit. My favorite film of the decade is John Wick; the absurdly brutal, morally empty action flick with the most incredible cinematography, editing, and choreography to be found in Hollywood today. I thoroughly enjoy records from Black Sabbath to Opeth that contain literally Satanic lyrics but have damn good guitar riffs. I adore the landscape paintings of Romanticists and Impressionists, both pretentious crackpots who painted with the belief that reality was true only to each individual’s conception of it. However, they produced profoundly beautiful art. Sometimes, that’s just fine.

In Redline, aesthetic clearly reigns supreme. I avoided it for years, having heard the writing was weak. If only I could remember who I heard that from so I could, to quote a great man, sock them in the goddam face and they’d stay plastered. A Public Service Announcement to all who are still wary of watching Redline; watch it. You might even end up as one of these chumps on the MAL reviews who rated it a 6 or something because you wanted more plot; still, watch it. Even these bastards probably don’t regret a second of watching the non-stop frame-by-frame bombardment of animated beauty. We have to accept that not everything has to be a brilliant parable or an in-depth analysis of the human experience. Is it a problem that great stories are overshadowed by mindless eye-candy in the current film market? Probably. Is there welcome room for mindless eye-candy, though? Definitely, especially when it's executed as well as Redline is. Take the product on its own terms; that is, meticulously hand-drawn animation throughout an absurdist high-octane thrill ride. If it's not for you, leave it for the rest of us to adore. And boy do I adore it.

Thank God someone had the balls to say “Hey, everyone pretty much fucking knows hand-drawn animation is where the great beauties of anime film are—maybe there’s still a market for it.” Thank God they had the balls to stick it through to the end. Listen, I don’t even like racing movies. I don’t like racing videogames, I don’t like racing cartoons, I don’t like the actual racing sport, I’m not even interested in brands of cars. None of that matters when something is as engaging and animated to such glorious perfection as Redline. I imagine Koike and his team could have made a film about croquet and, with the same amount of time, budget, effort, and passion, it would have been just as much of a masterpiece. Hmm… now there’s an idea.

The moral of the Redline experience is that amoral art can be pretty fucking cool. The incomprehensible amount of skill and effort that went into the intricacies of every frame of Redline is more than enough to make worthy art. I have a little analogy to explain this: I have little respect for ancient Japan's samurai code of honor that was simply a guise for tribal warfare, but I have a deep fascination with samurai stories for the extreme self-mastery it takes to follow the “way of the sword.” As I don't care for the narrative of bushido in ancient Japan, I could not give a fuck about JP’s motivation for competitive racing or the insane intergalactic politics of the Redline universe. The narrative of the samurai code is not what is special about the samurai, just as Redline's narrative is not what is special about the film. The samurai earn my admiration for their miraculous austerity, while Redline earns my admiration for its miraculous mastery of design and animation. All praise due to Takeshi Koike.

Redline feels a lot like a rollercoaster ride – you wait around, bored out of your mind, for an hour to get a few minutes of exhilaration, and when it comes, it’s a bit disorienting and a lot worse than you were expecting, and then it’s over. Basically, Redline’s got a lot of waiting for not much payoff, and I personally prefer my motion pictures to be good in their entirety, rather than have a single good scene.

One thing that immediately comes to mind as soon as you begin viewing is the unusual visual style, with its very sharp colours, which is a love it ... or hate it ordeal, and I happen to hate it, and this art style is accentuated by the fact that just about every conceivable object in this universe seems like it was intentionally designed to look as bizzare as they could make it, rather than construct a fictional universe in which things seem to function normally, and as a byproduct, some will look different to the way they do in this universe. Take, as the most prominent example, the various species of alien present within, a hundred different species that all look like the genetic product of crustaceans and Decepticons, but, they don’t really matter a whole lot, practically the only characters that matter happen to be human, which is a bit strange to me, if they’re going to go through all this effort designing these bizzare creatures, you’d think they’d give them some sort of screentime, but they’re extras, and nothing but. Call it Chekhov’s Laser Gun, if you will, if you’re going to make something look or work differently to how it does on this planet, then some sort of reasoning should be given, or else it’s not of much purpose at all. Usually, I’m of the belief that so long as it looks neato, then it’s not entirely necessary, but the problem is, it doesn’t, it is disorienting, more than anything else, at any given moment, there are at least ten different things that are completely unrecognisable to me, and I’m just kind of meant to accept that.

If you aren’t paying attention, you might not actually notice, but Redline has a story, that story being that people in cars, some of which look like actual old-timey racecars, others looking like morbidly obese metallic lobsters, have a race called the Redline every 5 years, and our protagonist, generic punk dude with a pompadour and leather jacket with spikes in it, is preparing himself for that race. And, generic really doesn’t quite cut it, he is as fucking hollow a character you can get, if 0 dimensional characters exist, he’s a prime example, he wants to win the race, and he likes some girl, that’s all I can say about him, the girl, well, she also wants to win the race, and she likes him. And, the others might have actual character, barely, 1 dimensional isn’t much better than 0 in the grand scheme of things, they are most certainly not interesting at all, and the problem with this racing anime is that their focus is not on the racing, you get that only at the very beginning and the very end, but rather, this story that nobody gives a shit about, I do not believe it is possible to, the entire thing is malignantly useless. Also something about some space empire trying to colonise one particular planet who didn’t want them to, but I wasn’t very enthralled by that, and you won’t be either, and for the record, they throw in a huge number of characters and plot points, but basically the protagonist and his girlfriend are the only ones who get a conclusion of any sort, 90% of it is filler, holds no purpose, and goes nowhere.
The race itself isn’t awful, it’s a little disorienting because I’m more used to races being grounded, on the ground, being informed that cars are capable of flight, and then flotation about a minute apart isn’t how I’d go about things, but, it’s fine, I guess, same deal with the soundtrack, a few decent tracks in there, but a strong reliance on Engrish theme songs, or that type, which I’ve never been immensely impressed by, but the songs aren’t bad so it’s acceptable enough.

Really, the problem with Redline is it’s focusing on the wrong thing, it’s about a race, yet they hardly ever race, and instead have to go for some profoundly boring story for the overwhelming majority of its duration, they have absolutely nothing to interest the viewer. Redline, more like flatline.

*This is my first review, I'm trying a structured format, please do not hesitate to give me feedback by profile comment (or PM)*

After having watched Redline for the 3rd time, I've decided to write a review of it. To me it is unusual to rewatch something 3 times, and it wasn't out of pure love for it that I did an exception for this movie. I think you can blame it at least partly on my mindset watching it. Do not expect it to be complex yet do not "turn your brain off". My opinion of the movie changed between each watching, from mindless stylish ... racing, to cheesy overdone rule of cool to simply a movie about aspirations and racing. This movie is highly regarded and I'll try to explain in detail why.

The story of Redline is located in this crazy scifi universe full of different people, from small aliens to anthropomorphic animals, among which evolve our two human-looking protagonists, JP and Sonoshee. Every 5 years, after enough racers are picked with preliminaries, is held on a random planet a grand race called Redline (wow it's the title). The movie is mainly about the desire to win, but also about the shared love for racing. This dream of winning is what made JP and his friend, Frisbee, invest themselves into this world of cars. Introduced as a small flashback, it starts it all, it sets our protagonist on his goal to become a racer as cool as the one he envisions: A stylish man with a nice car and chicks, all tainted in a golden light. The love for racing is maybe a bit harder to perceive, but the final sequence confirmed my doubts. More than being a movie about racers who want to reach an orgasmic win, it is a movie about people who hold true love for cars and their lust for triumph. It explores minorly some other themes and still is pretty weak as a whole but that's fine and all because it is just a feelsgood race movie. Still, better could have been done while keeping the same context, it is very forgettable storywise.

The narrative is fine and is able to give a certain legitimacy to this over-the-top movie. There are 3 subplot, the romance, the empire and the mafia. The middle chunk of the movie, by that I mean like literally between the Yellowline qualification (10 first minutes) and the Redline race (30 last minutes mixed with plotline) fucks up the pace of the movie, but has a goal: it gives good expectations of what is coming next and develops stakes. It makes the viewer wait and look forward to the climax of the movie. I personally was annoyed by it and the mini action bits during this middle chunk weren't very emphased giving them no value. The main plotline serves as a foil to all those subplots to be introduced and developped during this big chunk but keep it pretty straight-forward and easy to understand. The dialogue in this movie was actually pretty well written, having no padding but just a lot of smooth exposition to this crazy world in which JP lives, also progressing the narrative and giving background and characterization to the different figures preparing for the ultimate race. I think giving more attention to those on my 3rd watch permitted me to appreciate more the movie and to me it really is crazy how much detail is given through these dialogues without it being given through long boring exposition, keeping its extreme style.

All 3 subplots are pretty simple:

- The mafia already worked with Frisbee/JP and expects them to still fake the races, JP tells Frisbee he really wants to win the Redline and Frisbee finally joins his interest because "muh brotherhood" but they still have to deal with the mafia boss.

- The Empire hosts the Redline against their will, and tries to stop the racers enforcing their laws, lest their mass destruction weapon (that is against a war convention) is discovered and shown on broadcast to the whole world. During the preparations, the immigrant population that was taken by the kingdom tries to revolt against it leading to problems prior to the race. There are some ties between a racer and the army to add better background to the movie's world.

- The romance is the better subplot, having great chemistry between JP and Sonoshee and a nice follow-up, even though it is predictable. She is the one giving a reason for JP to race, yet she doesn't know it. Both characters have similar goals, but the fact that JP used to fake the races makes Sonoshee doubt. But no, love and passion still triumphs!

They are all pretty simple and easy to follow, and have puny depth, though there is rich attention to detail which gives Redline's setting an unexpected complexity. This whole movie seems like a glimpse into a still unexplored world (at least by the viewer's eye) and it feels enthralling to learn about it. The interspersed pieces of plot all lead to the race making you anticipate the event all the more, the Redline gives conclusion to all threads leading to it in a satisfying way altough I'd only qualify the romance subplot cathartic as the others are barely represented; they are barely memorable.

The visuals are probably what hooked us all to first watch this movie, and with reason. This movie took 7 years to make, and a 100 thousands frames. It has an over the top style that was achieved through 7 years of hard work and it really pays off. The movie does not reach Katsuhiro Otomo's level of detail on his Akira movie but it is very worth mentionning the animation is fluid, and every frame is full of little things giving enough life to this movie to totally immerse the viewer.The artstyle relies on flashy colors in a pretty vast range, contrasted by excessively used black shading. The movie is very pleasing to look at despite the weird/cool character designs. Like I already mentionned, a scifi world of new creatures is created, mixing cyborgs, fantasy creatures and animals to live in it. He designs feel very adequate and original, but I don't think there is much to say about them, I wouldn't consider myself qualified to talk charadesign anyway. Personally, the highest quality I can attribute this movie is its great presentation; it depicts exactly what I mean about its narrative structure. Redline switches between high adrenaline moments to calm moments in quick bursts instigating a thrilling sense in the viewer, leaving him wanting more. The action sequences are executed with a lot of panache, successing in a fast pace shots of character reactions/facial expressions, small movements, explosions/collisions but most importantly cars going fast. Hypothetically, I don't know if the cars are fast because they don't show the km/h of the cars, but here's the thing: when the cars are going at full speed, the screen starts shaking uncontrollably. You just feel the speed. Add with great sound editing and you have one of the most immersive anime out here if only from an audiovisual perspective.

The sound effects in Redline shine in racing scenes because of their overdose-inducing use, yet all of them feel so abrupt. They are filled with cars going at full speed, motors rumbling, wheels skidding, vehicles crashing, weapons shooting, competitors grunting and the roaring sound of fire explosions. Those overdose are shortly lived, as the movie likes to switch to almost silent moments usually only having characters talking with background music/noises. Again, there is an important contrast between hype moments and calmer moments (exposition/plot progression). Musicwise, it isn't very outstanding, the pechugonas' theme song is pretty catchy and the only character theme song I remember. The only track that distincts itself from the rest is "Yellow Line", a high octane rythm played during races. A total banger, its cadence doesn't even need the movie to get you hyped up. I'd like to highlight it uses a lot of instruments to mix things up and easily incorporates itself in the movie, always changing depending on the situation our competitors are in. For the sake of this review, I have watched Redline english dubbed, and, even though usually not being a big fan of those, I think the dub did a good job. I'd still give an edge over to the original version, both are able to express character in a light and calm mood very well, which surprisingly includes most of the movie, but the more emotional moments of the movie are better expressed by the japanese voices.

The least defining aspect of Redline is definitively its figures, far from being a character study, Redline has a big cast all defined by very simple archetypic traits and excentric mannerisms. They all look weird, act wacky and generally ooze cool. Very superficial, yet entertaining. Weak details of every racer are given, which I think is a positive, as during the final race, everyone was someone you could root for and appreciate when they were put on the spotlight. They are pretty shallow, is the point I'm trying to get across, but there is merit to their presence alone as they each have a role in their world which we don't see the big picture of, but get a better glimpse at thanks to their incorporation. The little scenes concerning the supporting cast make the Redline world whole. The main cast is given a clearer purpose, in that both JP and Sonoshee have an objective (winning the race) and they are the one we follow. Well of course, they are the main characters. Some little elements of personal drama are included so this alliance they share is more genuine and the catharsis they experience together is more impactful. Actually, I'd say it is primordial. To see 2 nobodies win the race, with the cool JP getting to kiss the cute Sonoshee, that would be forgettable as hell. And maybe you'll still find it forgettable, but this romanticized goal they both have, they both achieve together feels so satisfying. It is a movie that leaves you with a grin.

Overall it was a good movie. At first, I thought it was just a cool racers doing cool races (CRDCR, here you go anime make a genre with this) anime in an over the top fashion, but it has some other strong points which makes this very worth watching. Redline relies heavily on its presentation, which usually shouldn't be a good thing, content is importanter, but the lack of it also stops it from being flawed at its gist + they went all in on the spectacle so really, they knew what they were doing. If you aren't convinced by this review to watch it I'd recommend you to at least give its opening sequence a shot (findable on YT), it's a great showcase of the movie's style. Redline's rewatch value is mediocre though, the 1st race still feels very intense and the middle part stays decently engaging, but can be redundant as it is a build-up to a race you've already seen; The stakes do not serve any purpose anymore. That's how I felt the 3rd time watching it which made the Redline and the whole middle segment less fun to watch.

Some other anime that I'd recommend watching if you liked Redline are:

Sword of the Stranger, both it and Redline have amazingly animated action scenes. Redline has racing while Sword of the Stranger has swordfighting. Both movies have very different moods, yet it really made me think about Redline in its sheer "coolness". Both have an epic ending altough I personally wasn't very invested in SotS.

Gurren Lagann, another over the top action show that has a hyper soundtrack than Redline and a lot of shiny colors too. Again, greatly animated action and a story I would consider way more meaningful, touching minorly some similar themes.

Trava: Fist Planet, It came out in 2002 as an appetizer to the up and coming Redline movie. A witty comical adventure that sets itself in the same universe and borrows 2 of its characters, Trava & Shinkai. A little bonus if you like Redline's scifi world. A 2nd entry was in production but it seems to have been cancelled. A last note, Trava: FP and Redline are different in content but similar in style.

I already mentionned it, but Redline took 7 years to make and a 100 000 frames. The movie almost made Madhouse go bankrupt and Takeshi Koike got fired, I ambiguously quote what he said when he was asked about the time it took to make the movie: "Worth it." and it honestly was, this isn't the best movie out there but it is a fun ride and a memorable experience.


Thanks for reading :) !

Hey, you want to know an anime taking place throughout the far reaches of space that I recently returned to? Redline. I’ve been pruning down my favorites anime list recently, taking out things to ensure that only the best of the best stayed on, and I was curious about whether I’d still enjoy Madhouse’s visual popcorn masterpiece – as oxymoronic as that may sound. So I popped in my Blu-ray a few days ago and here we are.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, Redline is the result of Madhouse founder Masao Maruyama practically bankrupting his former studio before his move to Mappa and ... the result was a visually spectacular anime remake of Wacky Races that astounded many anime fans with its “UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ” soundtrack. When I foolishly blind-bought the DVD rather than pay for the blu-ray at half the price online and watched it on my brother’s PS3, I was spellbound by just how much of an “experience” the thing was. It was like nothing I had ever seen before in anime or animation in general with anime tropes having their own alien species and sexiness leaking through every tense well-animated second of it. But most of all, those racing scenes man. I’m not a fan of racing in real-life or in video games, but watching it through an anime filter cranked up to the max was something else.

That said, the story is pretty popcorn, even in comparison to some other “style as substance” movies I can name (Drive, Jackie Chan movies, and even the live-action Speed Racer), and rewatching the film again made that fact clearer than a sculpture at Seattle’s Chihuly Garden and Glass. It’s about this guy with a giant pompadour named JP who was inspired by a young girl to take up racing, but in order to secure good parts, he and a friend got involved with an alien mafia and ended up having to participate in fixed games in order to clear their debts. Unfortunately, JP really wants to win the Redline tournament as well as impress fellow female racer, Sonoshee, so you get a bit of classic Hollywood romance thrown into the mix along with the fact that said race is apparently run by an organization that makes FIFA go “you’re fucked up, dude”.

Why? Because the race is willingly held on an alien planet run by a bunch of military nuts who make no effort to hide the fact that they are opposed to the tournament’s existence, and not just because they’re crafting secret weapons underground, although that doesn’t help. I know racing in general is a dangerous sport, but there’s a difference between evolution and holding the Olympics in Nazi Germany…oh wait. So in addition to the alien mafia stuff, JP’s two main driving (harhar) motivations for the story, and objectifying women at levels that Fast and Furious wouldn’t touch, you’ve got a potential military force planning to commit Galaxy War II and the only thing threatening them is a race hosted on their planet. Bit overstuffed for a simplistic narrative that isn’t even two hours long, isn’t it?

Said overstuffing became more of a problem for me than it did in my previous years. I found myself nodding off whenever that alien military stuff reared its ugly head because it was barely connected to the story or any of the characters that mattered, and it got in the way of their development to the point that JP’s underdog story wasn’t all that engaging. It’s a pretty simple narrative sure, but it could have been bolstered with strong character interactions rather than the serviceable Hollywood-style ones we ended up getting. The only time I ever felt the story became more than it usually would be under normal circumstances was in the last ten or so minutes when JP and Sonoshee were neck-in-neck with some giant metal jackass towards the finish line, with the determining factor for who wins coming down to an explosion and ending with a hyper version of the “romantic hand-holding whilst flying in the sky” scene that most people associate with Eureka Seven. And by hyper version, I mean there’s some actual tongue used.

So whilst I can still enjoy Redline for the visual execution alone, it’s not up there in terms of the best Hollywood blockbusters, or even the live-action Speed Racer, and I don’t particularly feel the need to watch it ever again, bar maybe those last ten or so minutes which I wish we got more of through the film. What can I say? I’m a romantic guy at heart, and whilst the main couple in Redline isn’t particularly great, it’s better than any of the romance in Knights of Sidonia. But that’s not saying much, because a romance between an ugly small person with herpes and Miley Cyrus would be more tolerable to watch than Sidonia’s

Strap your ass in: Redline is the most pulse-racing, ridiculous anime in years. It’s basically Japan’s version of the Wacky Races, only more mature, pumped full of adrenaline and style, and wrapped up in the prettiest package imaginable. The film’s tagline is “Witness the future of animation,” and as pompous as it might sound, it’s no exaggeration. Seven years and hundreds of thousands of hand-drawn frames later, Madhouse has produced its masterpiece. Lush, imaginative worlds combine with a staggering attention to detail, gorgeous, bold character designs, and flawless animation to create a work that is as good as if not better looking than anything else ... out there. This visual orgasm is set to an impressive electronic/techno soundtrack that’s equal parts pulsating bass and dreamy synth, and outstanding voice casts. All of this comes together to make Redline an experience unlike any other.

The story is more of a mixed bag. It’s absurd, all over the place, and devoid of substance, but it’s also fun, well-paced, and it gets the job done. You can’t honestly expect much out of a film whose main plot is about an illegal race on a planet ruled by killer cyborgs, and as long as you go into it with the right mindset, you’ll probably enjoy it. The highlights are definitely the action-packed races, which will have you glued to the screen, but the various subplots are pretty interesting too and give the story some complexity. The characters are on the whole great, but the cast is large and only a few get any meaningful attention − JP, Sonoshee, and Frisbee. While a couple of the racers stand out (the Superboins and Machine Head with his hilarious tiny dog), the rest are completely forgettable despite the attention they’re given. Redline‘s true weakness is not that its story or characters lack much substance, but that it tries to do too much at once and so doesn’t do much in the end. With so many pieces flying around, the only thing you can do is embrace the madness, and if you’re hoping for a strong plot you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Whatever criticisms it may deserve, Redline is still a must-see film. As of now, it’s the pinnacle of animation. Add in the kick ass soundtrack and an exhilarating racing plot, and it’s easy to see why it’s such a big deal. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.