Iron Man: Rise of Technovore

Yes, it’s MARVEL anime time again and believe that the stakes (or the anticipation of it) are somewhat high or low considering as I said before, no one has that much positivity for the Marvel/Madhouse anime, and yet I’m one of those people (at least the one who reviewed two of them so far) and now here comes another one of these collaborations and if you think it’s going to be their last one, I wouldn’t kid around that since I heard there might be more of these coming. Let’s hope this one is a step-up, if not, they need to go back to the drawing board.

In his Iron Man armor, billionaire Tony Stark prevents an attack from a mysterious new foe. Unfortunately, innocent bystanders are killed, including his best friend War Machine, Lt. Colonel James Rhodes. Detained for questioning by S.H.I.E.L.D., Iron Man escapes, determined to find the mastermind behind the attack. Pursued by Black Widow and Hawkeye, Iron Man enlists the help of ruthless vigilante The Punisher. But can the Armored Avenger handle what he finds when he catches the person responsible and is forced to face his deadliest weapon, a biotechnology called Technovore that could wipe out all life on the planet?

I would say that it was a bit of a step up from the TV series but they would be 1/50 true as I watched the whole thing, some parts of it felt like it was trying to be philosophical and deep but it ends up being a riddled mess but not with bland or boring expectations, just the really dumb ones that doesn’t answer any questions. I get most fans would upset with this due to their connection or attachment to the comic book but for me, I’m neither attached to those but as an anime film on its own merits, it’s slightly less infuriating but nevertheless amnesiac. For instance, Tony Stark didn’t know the one after him was Ezekiel Stane, the son of Obadiah Stane, his former boss whom he had to kill during the first live-action film and it never occurred to Tony that his son might want revenge but then they said that the son died in a plane crash when he was 16. Yeah, that left me with confusion.

Aside from Iron Man returning (which is obvious, no shit there), also appearing is Nick Fury, Iron Patriot (Rhodey), Black Widow, Hawkeye, Maria Hill, Pepper Potts and of course, The Punisher, who was hyped up during the film’s promo if he played a big part of this but he’s only there for 10 minutes, possibly they’re going to make an anime spinoff of that, who knows? It was all a big dick tease.

Animation for this is fairly so-so from Madhouse, as the colors are very dark-toned and muted; even if some parts that almost seem black and white. Some character designs are often off but not much to put me off of it. The action scenes are pretty standard to weak and forgettable, albeit the weakest ones being the chase from Pepper’s vacation home and that chase with the Punisher. Music is also standard here but I never came across with that as it feels like there isn’t any at all.

Now, I did watch this in the English dub as always but since that episode of Remote Viewing where Cyrus and Brian Salisbury recommended, it is a good thing that I did because I was watching the English dub with subtitles and the subs was just clumsy, making the Japanese version effortless and all for naught. I will say that I prefer Matthew Mercer as Iron Man rather than Adrian Pasdar as I thought he was more convincing in there, even if the charm and charisma of Tony Stark is gone in there. Now here’s the part that doesn’t settle with me, and that is giving Norman Reedus as the Punisher top billing, even though it was only there for 10 minutes. I know the reason why they did it because he’s a well-known name since The Walking Dead but that’s just going to rub fans the wrong way; tricking them to thinking The Punisher is having a big role in there.

FINAL VERDICT: Yeah, this was also underwhelming and just sloppy in execution. You know, if Marvel is keeping going to make these collaborations with Madhouse, they should at least focus on the writing more and avoid the basic anime tropes that put on there. I don’t hate it as much (it’s still bland) but I felt like I wasted my time with this and that I’m not going to watch it again.

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The movie started so amazingly well, with the characters, art and all.

But the end? The last third of the movie was a mess. Things weren't explained, at all, and it felt like they decided incoherent was better than giving the movie another half an hour to properly execute the final scenes. I'm so disappointed they would let a perfectly good film go to waste like that.

All in all, I enjoyed Iron Man and War Machine, Black Widow and Hawkeye teaming up to take down Iron Man, and even the Punisher, although I only know the guy by name.

With a little (or, a lot) of polishing in the end, this would have been a fantastic animated film. As it is, the grand finish was as flat as a pancake, and not nearly as satisfying.

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Madhouse is a studio with varying levels of quality to their anime. I've talked about their work with Marvel in particular before with Blade being the only passable one and both Iron Man & X-men being bad. Well, they also did an Iron Man OVA and that's what we're looking at today. Why? Because I'm a comic nerd and even if Madhouse absolutely fucks it again I'll have plenty to say about it.

Story:

The narrative starts simply enough. Iron Man is planning to launch a satellite that can be used to monitor the entire planet, but totally won't be used to watch you pleasure yourself, as a crime prevention tool. The launch is attacked by a group of terrorists and War Machine is seemingly killed in an explosion. Though the satellite is launched. The apparent death of his close friend has Tony determined to track down the teenager responsible but Nick Fury doesn't want him going out on his own because... Metroid Dread is getting released soon. Naturally, Tony doesn't have time for Nick's shit and leaves any way.

There are a lot of narrative problems in this OVA. The first big one is that the whole conflict between Tony and SHIELD is very flimsy. It actually reminds me of Civil War when SHIELD decides to arrest Captain America because he says he won't help them round up his friends. Why do terrible comic writers always force conflicts between heroes by having someone over-react for no reason? It's like their main plot didn't have anything to it so they threw in Tony bickering with Nick just to fill time. Seriously, just because Hawkeye and Black Widow started as Iron Man villains that doesn't mean they need to be pitted against him for no reason.

The antagonist's plan is also a huge nonsensical mess. We find out in the second half that he needs Iron Man's satellite for his plan but he tries to stop its launch because... Gail Simone made Catman a respectable character. To make things worse, most of the screen time with this guy is him rambling about either "the evils of technology" or how everyone else is an inferior relic of the pat because his technology makes him superior. Yeah, those two topics totally go together.

There's also some continuity problems. There's an injured character who we see with shrapnel literally embedded in his skin and, minutes later, he returns to the fray with no injuries whatsoever. The ending is also kind of shit. I don't want to delve too deeply into spoiler territory, but there's an event which should cause one of the major characters to either die or be severely injured but he ends up without a scratch because... Doctor Doom had a secret jetpack belt. The "romance" between Tony and Pepper also bothers me. And it's not just because the comics rejected a possible romance between them and had her get involved with Happy Hogan. It's that he's her boss and the power difference makes it creepy. Even the way they "flirt" with each other is awkward and super uncomfortable. There's a point where she talks to him like he's a child and another where he suggests a romantic trip and she asks if it's "an order." The whole thing is just very skeevy.

Characters:

The characterisation is really bad. We have Nick Fury deciding to keep Tony a prisoner aboard SHIELD's helicarrier for no reason. Tony acts like a smug moron. James makes an offhanded joke about Tony being up late drinking. And if you're not familiar with the comics and don't know why that's a dick move I'll explain. Tony Stark is a recovering alcoholic. James knows this fact and should be more sensitive to the situation than that since Tony is supposed to be his close friend. Hawkeye, the Black Widow and the Punisher are just boring in this. The antagonist is very inconsistently written with shifting motivations that don't make sense.

Art:

The art is one aspect that I can largely praise. There are some really nice action sequences in this. The characters look good. My only minor issue is that the costumes they have for Nick Fury and Hawkeye suck. Nick Fury traded in his signature blue and white outfit for a black trench coat. Yeah, that's a more interesting look. Hawkeye has a similar bland downgrade. Instead of the classic purple and blue, he's sporting a boring black costume with a few red stripes. Now, I've said this before when talking about comic adaptations that change the costumes, but it bears repeating. Don't change a classic costume that looks good for something boring. Just use the iconic costumes.

Sound:

The acting isn't that bad. Fujiwara Keiji, Tezuka Hideaki, Yasumoto Hiroki, Sawashiro Miyuki and the others do fine. Especially when you factor in how bad the character writing is. The music is whatever. It was done by Takahashi Tetsuya, who also did the music for the other Marvel anime. And all of them have had boring music.

Ho-yay:

There is none.

Areas of Improvement:

1. Get an editor who actually cares to check your continuity and make sure it's all consistent.

2. If you're going to have heroes fight against each other, you actually need a good reason. Not something incredibly flimsy like in this.

3. Actually read the comics. I have some Iron Man issues from the 70s and 80s that you can borrow to figure out what these characters should be acting like.

Final Thoughts:

This OVA is pretty horrendous. The characterisation is poorly done. The entire plot is a mess. The villain's motivations are stupid and inconsistent. The writing in general is just a train wreck. If you don't care about writing and just want to see some cool action scenes, you might enjoy watching it. Otherwise, I can't recommend it. I'm giving it a 2/10.

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