Appleseed Alpha

Set in a different series of events, this story does not follow the previous Appleseed movie canon (despite being directed by the same director of the previous movies); it is an alternate story to their beginnings. Briareos is already a cyborg and did not become separated from Deunan to be later reunited in Olympus to join ESWAT.

Appleseed Alpha depicts the early days of Deunan Knute and Briareos in the 22nd century, as they embark on a journey throughout dystopic ruins of New York in search of the city of Olympus. They are hired by Two Horns, the warlord of the ruined city, to eliminate bipedal combat machines. During the fight, they encounter Iris and Olson, both on a mission. Deunan and Briareos befriend them and decide to join their mission.

Iris is tasked with preventing the malevolent cyborg Talos from capturing a secret weapon humans were building. Talos uses Iris to activate the gigantic war machine.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Knute, Deunan Main

Komatsu, Yuka Japanese

Hecantochires, Briareos Main

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Hitomi Supporting

Two Horns Supporting

Genda, Tesshou Japanese

Iris Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Talos Supporting

Touchi, Hiroki Japanese

Nyx Supporting

Nazuka, Kaori Japanese

Matthews Supporting

Hori, Katsunosuke Japanese

Olson Supporting

Takahashi, Hiroki Japanese

Chou, Joseph Producer

Aramaki, Shinji Director

Krawczyk, Marianne Script

Shirow, Masamune Original Creator

Reviews

Oct 21, 2014

PeaceRaptor

Recommended

It's breddy gud /10


Story is kinda cliché, but hey... If it's not broken don't fix it.

Art is really the strong point. The CG is amazing and everything looks great.

Sound is also great, adds a lot to the experience.

Characters are pretty good, if a little cliché, I don't have any experience with the rest of Appleseed so I won't complain much.
...
Overall, I like it, looks great, feels great.

Yeah, it's breddy gud.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 6, 2015

Alex_Machi

Mixed Feelings

I found about this franchise with the trailer of Appleseed Alfa post by IGN, “from the creator of Ghost in the Shell”, but is not recommendable to compare because after watching the four movies all i can thing of is “Transformers”, mediocre and disposable entertainment made for a wider audience. Don’t get wrong, the movies are not bad… just mediocre.
Have you ever see a movie and something stupid happed; something that doesn’t make sense, you ask yourself why it happens and answer is “well, y it’s a movie”. You haven realize (or don’t want to accept it) but suspension of disbelief has die ... in front of your eyes, in that moment, the 30-40 minutes that the movie has left will be a tedious job ratter that an entertainment. Things like “my plan depend of this bottom, when I push it I win and you lose and … oh you fire at the bottom, now a will not be able to push it, now we will go with plan b that is the real climax of the movie”. This happens in the first movie (Appleseed 2004), without spoilers i will say that i didn’t care in what follow that scene. Every cliché of sci-fi, cyberpunk and action movies will be developed during the entire series.
The original OVA of 1988 its the best movie, its mediocre, but mediocre 30 years ago, its a masterpiece, (adding that i watch this one in third place), Deunan doesn’t fight between being a badass and a damsel in distress for Briareos, they’re just a team , there is a debate of Olympus as a necessary evil ratter OUR ONLY HOPE, even the death of nameless characters matters more, because are presented as uncontrollable casualties, and not the “people dying, shit gets serious” way.
I guess I should talk about Alfa. It’s Metal Gear (Revengeance to be specific) direct by Michael Bay, its one hour dubstep video with a couple of cool designed characters (designed, not develop), and you can’t complain about dubstep, the soundtrack of all four movies is nothing more that whatever people was hearing a that time (like I say entertainment for a wider audience). Appleseed isn’t bad, none of the for movie are bad, but don’t compare it with Ghost in the Shell, don’t compare the bioroids with the ones in Blade Runner (this ones are flat and un-dimensional, their emotions have being restricted so they have an excuse), don’t compare soundtrack, visuals, story, nothing with the big names of this genre, Appleseed will always lose, its not bad … Just Mediocre.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 23, 2024

ChrisDC

Not Recommended

Yikes is the best word to sum up Appleseed Alpha.

This alternative story takes place in what looks to be the most cliché post-apocalyptic world with a cast that is equally cliché in every way possible, from the misunderstood pretentious villain who wants to "control" the world through destruction by justifying pseudo-philosophical beliefs that don't even apply; to the damsel in Distress troupe and most annoyingly the main cast have so much plot armour that it would make a Battle Shonen protagonist envious.

Most combat encounters are also ridiculously scripted, and nothing feels natural. No amount of battle tactics or thought matters because almost every ... combat scenario has some sort of "coincidence" that occurs to either get the main cast out safely or to further push the narrative with villains who apparently can teleport and kidnap characters off-screen.
Typically, animes attempt to hide where the narrative is going to keep viewers excited and on their toes; Appleseed Alpha, however, does the opposite but tries to play off story elements as if they're surprises. This is called bad writing.

Additionally, the main issue with the story and combat scenarios is that many events throughout this movie could easily have been avoided if the characters hadn't been intentionally made dumb, blind, or conveniently deaf to make the plot work.

Honestly, the only good part of Appleseed Alpha is that it is beautiful for its time. It looks like a video game, and its art style is quite unique, but sadly, that is not enough to save the anime from a low score as the music wasn't very good; as we know, music is vital to give scenes emotional weight. Instead, the selection of soundtracks often ruined the suspense of some of the darker scenes and made battle sequences feel dissonant to what was really happening on screen. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have dubstep play during serious and dialogue-heavy scenes needs to reconsider their creative career, as it made their movie a worse product and took away from those scenes; it's a shame.

Conclusion:
While the Appleseed series isn't the best in the story department and is often littered with a ridiculous amount of coincidences and clichés, this one takes the cake. In simple terms, Appleseed Alpha is a bad anime and is easily the worst movie in the Appleseed series. I wouldn't even recommend this anime movie to hardcore Appleseed fans, as it's that bad.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Well that was disappointing. ZoneHunter - Jul 13, 2014	7 replies	by xONLYINHUMANx »» Aug 27, 2023 4:26 AM
	Poll: Appleseed Alpha Episode 1 Discussion cyruz - Jul 19, 2014	24 replies	by St0rmblade »» Mar 1, 2023 1:26 PM
	question about story and timeline taintedher0 - Aug 19, 2014	1 replies	by laughterjones »» Oct 4, 2017 4:41 PM
	Another new interpretation!? SparrowSabre7 - Mar 3, 2014	4 replies	by TheBigGuy »» May 22, 2016 11:59 AM
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