Interest Stacks

Exceptionally for this Stack I won't be starting with a short at all. Memories is a collection of three adaptations of stories written by the master Katsuhiro Otomo that by their length should classified as featurette. Beautiful art, animation and soundtrack, a really must watch for Sci-Fi fans!
- Magnetic Rose is about a space crew landing on a mysterious station. It was adapted by Satoshi Kon and directed by Koji Morimoto, two other absolute masters of mature animations, and it's a whole Kubrick fueled mystery horror thriller. This is easily my favorite anime ever.
- Stink Bomb is an absurd comedy about a lab accident that becomes a nation wide tragedy directed by Tensai Okamura. I dare to say it's very kafkaesque - but perhaps with a reversed role.
- Cannon Fodder is directed by Otomo himself, and it's a bleak militaristic dystopia about a walled city in perpetual war against an enemy you only hear about through the State media... well, now I have to say it's Orwellian...

Another collection, but this time truly short stories, it's the best entry of The Matrix universe after the original movie (well, I'd put the short story Goliath written by Neil Gaiman for The Matrix Comics Series up there too). It's really hard to pick favorites, but among the guys working here there are Shinichiro Watanabe, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Koji Morimoto and Mahiro Maeda, all big names on mature and Sci-Fi anime.

Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe with awesome art and animation, on point with the biggest cyberpunk classic's atmosphere Blade Runner, this is a very good prequel explaining events prior to the movie Blade Runner 2049.

Continuing on big cyberpunk franchises, Let You Down is an incredible music video by Ilya Kuvshinov for Dawid Podsiadło, it's a short story prequel to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

This is already part of my "Introduction to short animations" but gonna repeat it here because it's that good. By Hiroyasu Ishida, a tad melancholic but still pretty cute, a little girl finds a friend while exploring a rainy and monochromatic town.

This is actually a TV commercial for an Irish beer. After Mamoru Oshii's groundbreaking movie they wanted something with a Ghost in the Shell flavor and I.G got them a stellar team of veteran animators that worked in everything from Akira, to Ghost in the Shell and Jin-Roh. Directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo, this 1min long animation gives you an amazing mix of a futuristic cyberpunk megalopolis and samurai era Japan with a comedy twist.

A beautiful and moody short surreal piece with a relaxing soundtrack directed by Koji Morimoto.

By Toshihisa Yokoshima another nice and moody animation in a futuristic setting about a girl and her robot.

Koji Morimoto again (you will see a lot of him), another great animation with cyberpunkish theme, this time for the song 4-Day weekend by the British indie rock band The Bluetones.

This is a pilot for a Gainax series that never took off, with the character designer from Neon Genesis Evangelion Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and based on his one-shot manga Route 20, directed by Mahiro Maeda. Glass domed metal cities, authoritarian government, rebellious juvenile biker gangs, you know, the whole deal.

Another pilot that didn't take off, Mamoru Oshii testing CGI technology and concepts for his third Ghost in the Shell installment.

Well, since we are on pilots that didn't take off, this is another Mamoru Oshii project and CGI technology showcase, that despite being pretty raw it was also pretty impressive for 1996 considering most scenes are not even using textures - the ending clip has more polished scenes. Although I said it didn't take off it is just as an animation, 18 years later it became the live action movie Garm War.

Directed Noriyuki Abe, I don't really know if it is a pilot or a promotional video for the one-shot manga of the same name by Seiji Ebina. The title gives a tip of where it takes place. It really could have been a movie.

Last pilot here, by Ushio Tazawa, a lot of world building is revealed in this 7min animation that was supposed to turn into a full length. Robots are chasing our hero until he finds a girl that decides to travel with him. Very sad this wasn't continued.

Back at Koji Morimoto in another fantastic cyberpunk fueled music video, this time for the techno track Extra by Ken Ishii.

Directed by Akihiko Orikasa, a nicely done piece with great colors mixing Sci-Fi and Supernatural.

This and the following two entries are animations done by Ghibli directed by Yoshiyuki Momose for the electro/EDM band Capsule. Very spacey and futuristic and some nice tracks with Ghibli quality.

The sequel to Portable Kuukou.

The sequel to Space Station No.9 and final part of Ghibli animated Capsule songs.

Man in the Tunnel Alley is a greatly animated and very trippy black and white surreal piece by Kenji Iwaisawa.

Directed by Naoko Kusumi for the Mylène Farmer's song Peut-etre Toi, another nicely animated cyberpunkish story.

Neo-Tokyo, perhaps this is too low on this list, it's a very well received anime movie among non-anime fans, a collection of three shorts, the first one by Rintaro is more of a surreal fantasy piece so I will let it out.
- The Running Man by Yoshiaki Kawajiri is about a journalist making a piece about a reigning champion of a deadly automobile race and observing man and machine being pushed to the limit.
- Construction Cancellation Order by Katsuhiro Otomo, a salary man is sent to the middle of the jungle to stop a fully automated construction after the disappearance of the previous foreman.

This is the first anime Sci-Fi anthology ever made, a collection of nine stories by several directors and a mixed bag of action, comedy and drama, my highlights are the intro and ending by Katsuhiro Otomo with a very Monty Pythesque humor, and Presence by Yasuomi Umetsu.

These collections were long, so let's have a quick one with this nice trippy spacey video by Koji Fujita for the song 1989 by the alternative rock band The Pillows.

Back at Koji Morimoto again, also part of my "Introduction to short animations" and repeating because it is this good, a crazy fantasy adventure with beautiful colors, animation and scenarios. Noiseman Sound Insect is an eyegasm.

Directed by Junpei Mizasaki, is an animated part of a five stories movie called Zoo. Poetry of Sunshine is about a man that creates a robot, more of the creator and the world is revealed as the story progress.

Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe for the Flying Lotus song More, a hip-hop track on a trippy post-apocalyptic scenario.

By Michio Mihara, 2005 Space Odyssey is a surreal journey through evolution, or just a crazy comedy piece in the bathroom.

A crazy and perhaps cyberpunkish vignette by Katsuhiro Otomo, I remember when MAL used to call these dementia.

A very nice fan-made animation by Rabbit Machine homaging this great Sci-Fi gaming franchise.

A repick from my other stack "Short animations going dark" a quite funny piece by Jun Aoki, but also represents true psychological horror and existential dread... and maybe technology anxiety too.

This one a repick from "Short animations getting artsy", some nice surreal short by Tetsuro Kodama, very short, just enjoy the clip.

A collection of five short stories, I really really recommend the crazy and surreal Tojin Kit by Tatsuyuki Tanaka and Dimension Bomb by Koji Morimoto, really beautifully animated pieces. Moondrive by Kazuto Nakazawa is also quite nice.

An awesome anthology of 35 shorts of all genres and one of my favorite collections ever, for this Stack I recommend Power Plant no.33 by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, Three Fallen Witnesses by Satoru Utsunomiya, I can Friday by day! by Kazuya Tsurumaki, Iconic Field by Ikuto Yamashita, On a Gloomy Night by Tadashi Hiramatsu, Rapid Rouge by Daisuke Onizuka, Bureau of Proto Society by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, Robot on the Road by Hiroyuki Okiura, Cassette Girl by Hiroyasu Kobayashi, and finally Mobile Police Patlabor Reboot by Yasuhiro Yoshiura again.

A collection of five shorts, for this stack my recommendations are End of the World by Osamu Kobayashi, Beyond by Yasushi Muraki, and Junk Town by Nobutaka Ito.

Amazing Nuts is a collection of four stories that are kind of music videos. Honestly the only good one is the first one Global Astroliner Gou, that is really cool both art and music.

Award winning animation by Tomoya Takashima. In the future AI control our reproduction.

Another repick from the Stack "An introduction to short animations" because it's that cool, again Koji Morimoto and a very nice opening for this collection of four stories, this time I'm posting Farewell to Arms (the others are in the aforementioned Stack).

Based on Katsuhiro Otomo and directed by Hajime Katoki, a very nicely done animation about a team of soldiers fighting a robot tank on a devastated city. By length this is actually a featurette.

Another featurette and another work by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, future archeologists will be researching the digital data we left behind. History is lost, we live in a seemingly endless structure, and we are losing interest in uncovering the past. A very interesting story and character with an unexpected revelation.

Another Future is a featurette (if you count total run time) by Kenji Kamiyama and is a story about time traveling... although no direct time travel actually happens, it's about how our actions are constantly changing the future - but knowing the future could change our actions.

By mebae, Tailenders is a very nicely done action featurette with awesome visuals, colors and world building about a futuristic racing sport.

Going back to big franchise short anthologies, this is at the bottom because I think it's overall not that great, but Homecoming by Koji Sawai is quite nice.

And the biggest of the biggest Sci-Fi franchises ever, Star Wars: Visions is at the bottom for the same reason, but it's production is way superior to Halo Legends. My pick here is The Duel by Takanobu Mizuno, a really nice piece.

Blame! is the craziest cyberpunk post-apocalyptic manga out there, with an incomparable bleak atmosphere and truly avant-garde storytelling done more through the masterful Tsutomu Nihei's illustrations than his of words, the movie they made does it no justice at all. But then there is this 6 animated shorts of small pieces of chapters directed by Shintaro Inokawa that are equally abstract and experimental BUT you are not going to understand a thing and I highly doubt going to appreciate it if you didn't read the manga. If you did and liked it, check them out.

These last three shorts at the bottom are all by Kurumi Hakamata and I'm very ambiguous about them, wasn't sure if I should add but I still find them very interesting although very lacking.
A Banal Man is about a woman that create robots and see them as their children, revolted by how they are brutally discarded and destroyed she develops a plan to kill the man that pulls the switch.
This critic here applies for the other two works. Hakamata clearly has good influences and want to explore interesting concepts in the genre, but her script feels flat, unpolished, kinda generic, and there is also a big issue with poor voice acting.

Jodie is about a woman that repair and erase the memories of abused robots and send them back to their masters. Direction and scene composition is fine, but again script feels amateurish and it also suffers from poor voice acting.

The Sci-Fi part here is just a background, this is more a drama about man dealing with guilt about how he reacted after a friend told him about being raped. Again, although a nice concept, the script feels flat, and the delivery would have been way more powerful with a better voice acting, but the theme is very sensible, may hit too close home to a lot of people. I know a gender swap would attract way more sympathy, but I feel like this was a conscious choice by the director to expand the viewers horizon too.