#191: Blue Remains (2001)

 

Directors: Hisaya Takabayashi and Toshifumi Takizawa

Screenplay: Hisaya Takebayashi, Masatoshi Kimura and Toshifumi Takizawa

Voice Cast: Kazue Fukiishi as Amamiku; Kazuya Ichijou as Reyju; Masane Tsukayama as Glptofane Sex; Hiroko Suzuki as Adenine Unum; Houchu Ohtsuka as Cytosine Tria; Junko Sakuma as Yuri; Kappei Yamaguchi as Mireo; Masashi Sugawara as Ryu; Norio Wakatsuki as Irigaru; Rica Matsumoto as Sari; Takehito Koyasu as Malloz; Tesshō Genda as Thymine Duo; Tomoko Kaneda as Amamiku (child); Yoshiko Sakakibara as Mayzamik

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Early into the DVD era in Britain, a now defunct label, Art Magic's sub label Eastern Cult Cinema, released three very early attempts at three dimensional animation, that wordiness aware that computers were assisting anime production from the late 90s onwards anyway. They were A.LI.C.E. (1999), the first theatrical film in this form, crude but fascinating as a forgotten historical footnote; Malice@Doll (2001), an OVA worthy for rediscovery as a dark work whose only real issue is its art style, even if the production worked around the restrictions; and Blue Remains, a post-apocalyptic nautical film with an environmental message.

Here, humanity has blown itself up with nuclear bombs, which has always been the way, all watched on from a spaceship helmed by a married pair of ecological scientists with their infant daughter Amamiku. Heading back down to Earth, tragically the couples' bodies are too irradiated to go through with their goal, to plant special seeds which can reawakening the ecosystem, so they place Amamiku in cryogenic sleep with them, and the ship's computer for comfort and guidance, to carry out the goal when they are gone. At the age of fourteen, but ninety plus years later, she has to carry on with the goal to help the Earth.

The film has, from then on, to struggle with the form of its then-new animation style. The film, when Amamiku wakes up, is effectively a sci-fi submarine tale, having to work around its limitations by being almost entirely set underwater or in small environments like submarine cockpits. Amamiku finds herself between those, human and otherwise, wishing to help her in restoring the Earth's vibrancy with the seeds, and an entity known as Glptofane Sex, who believes the absolute law of life should means killing off the rest of humanity to save the planet, against all the philosophical arguments and pleas of his lookalike brethren otherwise.

The film, openly, is a lot of action scenes, of Glptofane's forces of ball-like drones (with buzz saw tummies) and a giant biomechanical squid he is housed in, trying to get Amamiku and the few humans left asked to assist her goal. The film's look is equivalent of a Playstation One era cut scene for a lower budgeted game, but I will not be mean at the film for this, more that much of Blue Remains without the style of another animated format to bring a greater energy feels stiff as a result. That it is a lot of action and dynamic scenes instead of world building neither helps, especially because of the limits of the computer animation which prevent the action from being that dynamic, of 3D animated futuristic submarines floating in a void of dark blue with little background detail baring some ruined underwater buildings and an occasional aquatic life form.

The production does feel it is straining at a budget, where even the lead voice actress Kazue Fukiishi as Amamiku, in her only ever role, plays the character with a curious reflection in lines readings you normally do not get. If we go back to those three films mentioned in the first paragraph together, Malice@Doll out of the three was the most interesting of the trio; it is still strange, struggles against its form, especially as by that point Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) despite being a box office disaster effectively killed off these early productions at the same time, but it was able to get to something profound with being a surreal and disturbing work with a style and interesting Chiaki J. Konaka screenplay. Blue Remains in contrast is pretty conventional, not elaborate in terms of depth or ideas. Environmental concerns, and villains wanting to commit genocide for environmental preservation, is common in the medium, even if it is fascinating to see the villain's own argue against him and this tale being the lone figure that is misguided. Even that, whilst barely fleshed out, no one is safe barring a couple of figures from death is interesting too.

In fact, the one aspect of Blue Remains which is rewarding is the touches of eccentricity and invention it does have. The villain, and those trying to convince him against his idea, are literally brains with eyes and nervous systems attached, a grotesque aesthetic choice which stands out more because the film looks as crude as it does, fitting a more horror based narrative and the one aspect of this production likely to catch people's attention if you ever come across it (even an old DVD copy). More touches like this, like the submarines having fins to "swim" through layers of the water, or a dolphin which is actually meant to be a robot, are more interesting aspects that could have been ran with. When the film gets more New Age in tone, it is more worthwhile as it comes more to the foreground with the supernatural involved with those seeds Amamiku protects. It is not a spoiler to say a giant life giving tree, with human foetuses growing from it for new life, is part of the conclusion, because that in itself is an abrupt tangent for the film to get to considering its average tone. The end credits, set over real footage of the barrier reefs, is a cheesy and heavy handed environmental song about the life force of the sea and needing to protect it, whose earnestness is misguided but in itself cannot help but be charming. More like this, and Blue Remains would have won me over. Even if it fought against its archaic format, a more overtly surreal or inventive aesthetic, like an old weird video game from this era, would have gained it a cult audience if anything.