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.
