Freedom

2041, Earth. After being pulled into the planet's atmosphere, the fall of the Freeport Space Station has led to the "Great Cataclysm"—an event that devastated the Earth's environment. Left as a polluted wasteland, survivors go to war with their fellows to guarantee themselves resources; in the end, these scrimmages have erased the whole existence of humanity. Coincidentally, life still exists on a moon base. Although it is supposedly meant as an immigration outpost for the mission to explore Mars, it is soon turned into a city, both regulating and allowing its citizens to flourish. The lunar base, officially named "The City of Eden," holds the hope of fully colonizing the moon.

Takeru, one of many citizens of Eden in the year 2267, participates in "Tube Races" between gangs and groups using hovercraft-like vehicles. Due to causing an accident in one of his races, Takeru is sentenced to complete volunteer work outside the city. While clearing his punishment, Takeru stumbles upon remains that may unravel the truth about Earth and Eden's genesis.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Takeru Main

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Bismark Main

Yamaguchi, Kappei Japanese

Ao Main

Kobayashi, Sanae Japanese

Taira Main

Kirimoto, Takuya Japanese

Kazuma Main

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Alan Supporting

Katou, Seizou Japanese

Ricky Supporting

Kobayashi, Yumiko Japanese

Mukaichi, Motoki Producer

Tsuchiya, Yoshimasa Producer

Yokoyama, Shinjirou Producer

Morita, Shuuhei Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Dec 3, 2008

Arcanus

Recommended

You have probably already seen or, at least, heard about Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira. The movie was beautifully drawn, with complex characters and admired for its illustrations of technology. So, when Bandai Entertainment announced that Otomo was working on a new anime series, his fans were naturally excited.
Disappointment came in when I learned that Otomo was only designing the characters and the technological look of the series rather than writing the stories. However, after watching this OVA series with 7 episodes, I can now say I was impressed, although it could have been so much better plot-wise.

Freedom is set in 2267 in the moon colony Eden, ... after the Earth has been left uninhabitable due to an ecological disaster.
The world of the series really is impressive. There are no giant mechas or spaceships travelling at the speed of light. Instead of relying on useless fantasies, Freedom goes beyond your average anime series and presents us with a more realistic world, where people work and live in. And besides, you never see anything happening on the moon so that is definitely a plus.

The biggest fault in Freedom lies, without a doubt, in the plot.
Screaming Akira, this series follows a group of teenagers, led by Takeru, who spend their time racing and working on their “vehicle”, a three-wheeled motorcycle. Whenever they get in trouble, they are assigned to community service, or “volunteer work”, as the CAC calls it, which basically consists of walking along a tube on the lunar surface to check for leaks. It is during this tedious duty that Takeru witnesses a satellite smash into the Moon’s surface nearby and within discovers a photograph of a woman standing over a group of children on what looks like Earth. We will basically follow Takeru in his search for this woman.
It takes two episodes (out of only 7) for the story to take that important twist that moves things forward and, even after that, things seem to progress rather slowly. There is, in fact, too much talk and not enough plot.
Another negative aspect is that there was too much Cup Noodle product placement. Although Freedom was originally made as an advertising campaign, it doesn’t look good. If this was a TV-series, it would be alright, but not as an OVA.

The artwork and animation are two of the strongest points of Freedom.
The artwork is like an evolved form of Akira, since the style is basically the same.
Animation is amazing, but it might require getting used to. Freedom is one of the very few anime (that I know of) to be made totally in 3D cell-shaded CG. Most people will probably need to get used to the style, but once you can look beyond this, you’ll be rewarded by a great series.
The quality of art and motions is really well done. Their awkward motions are vividly portrayed. The racing scenes look like an upgraded version of the bike-chasing scenes in Akira, and they are also excellent.
The opening is fantastic. I specially like how they associate things, like the vehicle with a kid’s tricycle. And the race sequence is like a manga brought to life and evolves as important events take place along the series. Truly amazing.

If you’ve seen Ergo Proxy, you’ll probably detect resemblances in the soundtrack. Yes, the author is the same (Ike Yoshihiro) and the music style is also similar. I shouldn’t need to say anything else. The soundtrack is spectacular.
The opening was one of the best ones I’ve seen. The song matches perfectly with the animated sequences. The singer’s name also speaks for itself (Utada Hikaru). As for the ending, despite being just instrumental, it strengthens the powerful climaxes on the first three episodes.
As for the voice cast, it's not outstanding, but gets the job done (except maybe Sanae Kobayashi, who had a rather mediocre performance as Ao).

The characters are the biggest strength of this series, although they’re just a group of hot-headed teenagers. Freedom is what a shounen anime should be. Shounen animes often forget that every teenage boy is an idiot. Freedom portrays that in a pretty realistic way, as their personality is consistent throughout, as opposed to the regular shounen with random idiotic "filler" scenes that are used not as part of the character, but simply as comedic relief. This is much better than your regular lead who just wants to become the best in the world, which just leads them to brainless directions without any real goal in mind… not really that interesting for me.
Flaws in the character department mostly appear in the last episode because the creators decided to be too epic for their own good, and some characters become a bit unrealistic for the sake of a more "epic" ending.

The enjoyment department is incredibly subjective but, personally, Freedom has its moments. Those moments are usually action scenes and the climaxes of the episode, which are, without a doubt, breath taking. Past those parts, most of it is average.

Overall, Freedom is a very good sci-fi anime with great characters, a nice OST and a powerful animation and it's definitely a must watch for fans of the genre.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 16, 2014

geneonline

Recommended

this series has that akira animation look to it which drew me into watching this. I saw the first episode which then i was hooked from the street racing punks of the future. The story line was a little rushed with only being a few episodes. The main character driven by love that turn everything into an epic adventure and changing the world/moon. I really enjoyed FREEDOM and I'm sure everyone else will. Made my heart get all warm and fuzzy at the end. It is a good watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jun 8, 2022

Badid55

Mixed Feelings

Freedom is really a bizarre project: it's an advertisement for the "Noodles Cup" (that you'll see quite often on the show) that became an OVA.
It even goes stronger and deeper, as it was really big at that time in Japan, because the characters were drawn by the man itself, Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira, you know..), and Shuhei Morita was lead to the direction, with the touch of Yoshihiro Ike for the music.
It was SO big, that the promotion and the success for this OVA and Nissin noodles was already made way before its release!

Besides, the fact it was made in 3D cell-shaded CG, was a ... huge thing at that moment, as only few anime were already made using thins technology.
What an invest and a project it was for just a publicity!

But let's get straight to the point, and talk about the anime itself.

Story (4/10):
The story is really basic, and was probably made to be in similarity with previous Otomo works.
It's about ppl leaving in a moon colony, in 2.267, while they left earth years ago, because nobody could leave there anymore.
I have to admit that this story is really tied and focused about "reality", and how we could handle and leave in this king of world, and it works well at first. But that's it. The main plot is just about kids having dreams, and that suddenly wanted to go on earth to see a girl a character just fell in love about, after seeing a picture of her (yes).
It could have been way deeper, and centered on the protagonists in a different way, but they didn't. That is obviously because of the 7 only episodes they had (even if the 7th last 40min), so they could not focus more on the universe, which is a bit of a shame (and i'm talking a lot about the moon, or even earth itself)

There are many many scriptwriting facilities, that I will not tell to not spoil anything, but they are just wasting the taste of it's anime, making every challenges tasteless, and not even a doubt about the conclusion or what could happen to the characters.
You already know everything, because it's poorly written.

Even if I like the fact that it's just an "easy" script, about dreams, hopes and everything that you need in your real life, we're talking about an anime here. It was way too easy, and shows how easily they made the scripts and the plot of this story. You'l never see something as deeper as Akira, for instance, in this OAV.
However, it still has this "real' nice feeling while watching it, that's why I gave it a 4 instead of less.


Art (06/10):
Art is great in this movie. The 3D is really awesome for that time, and it's easy to go into it. Nevertheless, thet could have make way much more about the moon,earth, and even ships. I don't know, it just let a strange feeling while watching it, you know that they could have done way better!
But it's still pretty decent, even nowadays


Sound (08/10):
The opening and ending are trully awesome, they fill nicely with the OAV, and the sound in general is really well written and transcribed in this serie. Even if we could have a best impression of space sometimes, I admit it's a nice OST. Well done Ike!


Characters (05/10):
Well, another weakness of this OVA. They obviously wrote them in like 5min, as they are easily recognisable from every character from every anime.
Same kids as always, same bad guys, and same type of ennemy that became friends.
Moreover, the "hero" is just a stupid kid that has big dreams,it works well here, for sure, but come oooooon... We're not kids anymore, you could've just go a bit deeper, and try, at least?
He just found a picture of a girl, leaving in earth, and suddenly decides he needs to go there to find her. I know, it's anime. But who does that?
Even if it works well in this anime, it's hard to like a character, and devote to one of them, as they are all blank and without any imagination.
You'll just follow them, without getting really into it. While they could just add a background for them, a story, for instance...

Overall (05/10):
At first, it was not easy to watch, as it starts with the classic scene of the race in an apo-world, and then the discover of a new civilisation... As always...
But at the end, it was kinda ok to watch.
The incursion of the noodles everywhere, for the adv, is not that annoying (even if they are forcing a bit with it). And at the end, I like the moral of the story.
But it could have been way more than this, even with only 7 episodes.At the end, it just stays questions, and a bit of frustration, about how easily they just use the deus ex-machina mechanics, and plots eases.

Nonetheless, I will highly recommend this to a child, or newcomer in anime, as it will be entertaining when you're not that much into it.
But, objectively, this show deserves a 5. It's not bad, but it's not great either. Depends on how you'll like it, you could give it a 6, or a 4 if you were really not into it, but you have to admit that this show has good points, but also bad ones.
Which makes it an easy watch, but a forgettable one.

At the end, freedom is just an awesome advertisement, but an average OVA.
I still recommend you to watch it, to have your own opinion about it!

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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	Poll: Freedom Episode 6 Discussion Jacut - May 28, 2008	12 replies	by RubanS »» May 4, 12:13 AM
	Poll: Freedom Episode 1 Discussion ryukyu808 - Oct 7, 2007	14 replies	by InfinityDude88 »» Dec 25, 2023 10:38 PM
	Poll: Freedom Episode 7 Discussion Jacut - Jul 11, 2008	22 replies	by SlammyHammy »» Jun 5, 2023 7:21 PM
	Poll: Freedom Episode 5 Discussion 8GaugeBrett - Mar 19, 2008	10 replies	by jakov »» Sep 12, 2015 5:24 AM
	Poll: Freedom Episode 4 Discussion Dima - Oct 17, 2007	14 replies	by jakov »» Sep 12, 2015 4:32 AM

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