Neo Tokyo opens with Rintaro's (Shigeyuki Hayashi) Labyrinth Labyrinthos. As of writing, I haven't seen anything else he's directed so I don't know what his usual style is, but this piece is a near dialogue-free psychedelic trip that stars a little girl who chases her cat into a grandfather clock that functions as a portal into a strange world. This entire short segment is simply the little girl running through the strange and morphing land. With the "young girl chasing her cat into a surreal magical world" set-up this is very obviously inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but that book was carried by Lewis Carroll's acerbic wit as he justified all the eccentricities around Alice as natural. Labyrinth Labyrinthos is almost entirely a visual/auditory experience so it doesn't have that. What this means is the world loses its magic because there's no rhyme or reason holding all of its strange sights together. It's just a random display of sudden sights and transitions and is unimpressive because anyone could've come up with them. The skill comes in implying there actually is a direction behind the madness because it takes effort to find a pattern in something that's initially not recognizable. Perhaps another word for that is "inspiration". Labyrinth Labyrinthos looks magical but it doesn't feel magical. It's boring and not intriguing. The segment does feature some great character designs and coloring, but they end up amounting to almost nothing. The most clever thing about this segment is how it's set up as the framework for the other two.
Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Running Man follows. It suits his common serious "no humor" approach. In a bleak-looking futuristic world a reporter is hired to interview Zack Hugh, the continuous champion of a dangerous racing circuit known as the Death Circus. The reporter makes a shocking discovery about Hugh and bears witness to his bizarre final race that will never be forgotten. Running Man is the best of Neo Tokyo's segments, though it'd be more precise to say it's the one least lacking something. Again, almost no dialogue is here and the story is told visually yet is simple to infer. The high-speed racing thrills and technologically advanced backgrounds do the most justice to the movie's budget, and the western art style influence makes it a little more memorable as well. The race itself isn't very exciting to watch, but rather the strange things that happen during . Running Man has nothing mindblowing and it could be summed up in three sentences, but from a movie full of very simple stories it's the most satisfying to watch and suffers nothing from its brevity.
Last is Katsuhiro Otomo's Construction Cancellation Order. Otomo is the director of Akira, and it's very obvious through the art style. Though not set in a dystopian environment, the machinery and humans are clearly drawn by the same man who did Akira. Tsutomu Sugioka is an employee sent to the jungles of South America to order the halt of the company's construction project. Contact has been lost with the previous foreman, and upon arriving Sugioka realizes the lead robot is malfunctioning. The remaining running time is simply Sugioka's frustration with attempting to get the lead robot to listen to him. It's dull and makes Sugioka look like an idiot for not being able to fix his problem sooner in a number of possible ways. The segment has an ironic ending that feels completely out of place and undeserved. Though by far the most plot-heavy of the segments, Construction Cancellation Order's storyline has been done countless times before and there's nothing special about it in any way. The only reason it isn't the worst segment is because it at least has a hook and natural progression unlike Labyrinth Labyrinthos.
Neo Tokyo closes on the conclusion of Labyrinth Labyrinthos. A clown the little girl meets dances around and summons a bunch of friendly monsters. The girl, her cat, the clown, and the monsters all party while countless fireworks go off. This is by far better than the first half of this segment because it'll actually make you feel a tiny bit good. Then it's over.
And that last line kind of sums up Neo Tokyo as a whole. It's mildly weird and pretty enough to be worth 50 minutes, but it lacks the detailed storylines and superior animation of something like Memories. The most I'll take from the movie is its main theme song, which is actually kind of beautiful. Neo Tokyo actually feels like a compilation movie in a bad way. It's a set of three unfulfilling snacks that are supposed to amount to a whole meal, whereas Memories had three well-rounded meals that amounted to something more when had in progression. I've seen much more uninteresting anime but I don't think Neo Tokyo is something I'll recommend anyone.
