Appleseed

I haven't seen this since I was a teenager in the '90s, and I remember being pretty underwhelmed after all of the hype surrounding it back in those early days. Having revisited it, my feelings haven't changed. This is only the second film animated by Gainax, and when compared to their first, Royal Space Force Honneamise, it's pretty obvious where all the money went. Appleseed looks like amateur hour, with a lot of stilted animation and just an overall bland look, which considering this is based on a manga by Masamune Shirow, is a massive problem. All of the characters are weakly defined, and it ... also has some of the most inappropriate music as well, which manages to lull one to sleep rather than excite. Every other Appleseed adaptation is far superior in literally every aspect, and when taking into account I am a much bigger fan of hand-drawn animation over CG (which is how every other adaptation is animated), that is saying a whole heck of a lot about how weak this is.

I don't feel like saying to much about this, and that's about how much this anime did for me. The premise sounded cool enough, plus I don't mind older animes although I haven't seen that many, but this felt super bland.

I struggled to sit through the whole thing because it simply did not keep me interested.

TL;DR watch if you really like the premise and older anime hits your sweet spot, you should be entertained enough by something, if you want a decent story that keeps you engaged, don't bother.

Story: 4/10

I liked the premise, which was what got me interested, although the villain(s) were revealed quite ... early on which felt too quick and left the middle to the end rather dull and little suspense. It got dull, which felt disappointing. The ending also felt a bit random but that may have been due to the fact I wasn't really paying attention after like 20 minutes in lol.

Art: 6/10
The animation is rough, but its also old so that's to be expected. I don't mind the roughness because of that, although if you don't really like the look of it going in the sometimes jumpy and awkward animations it won't do much for you.

Sound: 4/10

I'm no sound expert but it felt like the same basic "80's style action synthesizer" played multiple times during any sort of suspense or action scene...didn't really add to the experience for me.

Character: 4/10

Some characters seemed interesting although never got fleshed out(and I know that is also because this is an OVA). A couple things were brought up that felt like never got addressed later or made an impact on the story(like Hitomi the Biodroid girl was shown to be a drunk I think?? But I also never understood WHY she was so important outside of the exposition by the government lady whatsherface...Athena.

Enjoyment: 3/10

I started to get bored at about 20 minutes in, not due to the pacing that generally seems to be slower for older animes but rather how nothing interesting was happening. It was just dull.

Overall:
Good premise but ended up rather dull...watch something else with a vaguely similar premise and there's a good chance you won't regret it.