#248: 009 Re: Cyborg (2012)

 

Director: Kenji Kamiyama

Screenplay: Kenji Kamiyama

Based on the characters by Shotaro Ishinomori

Voice Cast: Chiwa Saito as Cyborg 003 / Françoise Arnoul; Daisuke Ono as Cyborg 002 / Jet Link; Hiroyuki Yoshino as Cyborg 007 / Great Britain; Mamoru Miyano as Cyborg 009 / Joe Shimamura; Noriaki Sugiyama as Cyborg 008 / Pyunma; Sakiko Tamagawa as Cyborg 001 / Ivan Whisky; Tarou Masuoka as Cyborg 006 / Chang Changku; Teruyuki Tanzawa as Cyborg 005 / Geronimo Jr; Toru Ohkawa as Cyborg 004 / Albert Heinrich; Nobuyuki Katsube as Professor Isaac Gilmore

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitle

 

Major Spoilers Throughout

This was the least desired way to have experienced the 009 Cyborg franchise for the first time. Thankfully this was not the first time I experienced a work adapted from Shotaro Ishinomori, one of the most prolific and well regarded manga authors of his era, as I had seen 009-1 (2006) in my early years into anime, a television adaptation of his female cyborg spy character which got released from ADV Films only to disappear as a license when the company did. 009 Re: Cyborg promised an enticing work on paper, part of a push to reinterpret these legendary characters of Ishinomori, a band of people (and one Russian baby) turned into superpower cyborgs, for a grand scale computer animated film which even joined the bandwagon for three dimensional effects films in the late 2000s and early 2010s were trying for. At the time someone like Kenji Kamiyama directing and writing the script was enticing, having gotten attention for his work on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002-3), the TV series, and Eden of the East (2009). It was clearly intended as a big event feature, and it is the first time 009 Cyborg had been brought to the UK officially too, as we never got the 2001-2 television series, nor any of the other animated adaptations since Shotaro Ishinomori first started the manga in 1964, so a good adaptation could have made any of the other titles in the franchise of interest for release.

Sadly it becomes obvious what this is, a folly in terms of a crowd pleasing theatrical animation with cutting edge graphics. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) is evoked, and that is not a good sign. It is a chimera which cannot survive beyond its ill advised creation, a 3D animated spectacle which however has one foot in Mamoru Oshii’s more esoteric work, including lengthy discussions in bars and churches as much as action. I like esoteric Mamoru Oshii, even his live action work, but 009 Re: Cyborg even without taking this superhero team, from around the same time as the X-Men in the USA, into this tone is also an atrocious and vague mess. There is no clearness to what it was after, with a plot way too serious and ill defined for its subject, and with a questionable “have you cake and eat it” tone with the premise, which is religious and ends up being about God, but goes about it in a vague hard sci-fi tone it does not clear up.

It begins with the leader of the team from the source text, teenager Joe Shimamura (“009”) who has superhuman speed, brainwashed. In a world where skyscrapers are being destroyed by people who are brainwashed by “His Voice”, evoking a religious terrorist group at first, Joe is pulled from following the culprits blowing up a tower in Tokyo, pulling the team along into this plot. One immediate concern is that, for a reintroduction to these characters, this team consisting of nine figures does not get enough time between them for fans or for new people. One, Pyunma, has no real contributions beyond a subplot about angel skeletons, others only have cameos, and that for the plot only two have any real dynamic between them, Joe himself and Jet Link, cyborg 002 and the North American member who joined back with the American government when this film begins. For the one female member of the team, Françoise Arnoul, this film is really egregious for this, only really here to wake up Joe by jumping out of a helicopter, expecting him to save her, for a sex scene with him off-screen, and for sex appeal, least in terms of how painstakingly depicting her stockings are. This is not a good thing to raise, and even as someone who defends Rintaro’s 1996 adaptation of X, attempting an unfinished CLAMP manga into ninety minutes even if that is a lot of characters who appear and then get killed off, there was at least an animated spectacle to it like a visual dream. This is however a film which gets bogged down into an esoteric narrative it never really wants to take a risk with but is too esoteric for a mainstream audience, and also having little time to make proper use of this cast.

By halfway through, it is literally God or what is presumed it behind these bombings, never pictured and merely an abstract construct rationalized. Even in a lengthy philosophical discussion on evolution and religion in a church, “they” are only viewed as on the rational side of mankind’s thought patterns being God and now seemingly deciding to turn people to blow up society for reasons. “Reasons” is apt as eventually you are in the supernatural, in spite of the fact this should have focused on its cyborg heroes first even with a spiritual plot, made worse by the fact that this does not want to stray into the spiritual. A strange tale could be envisioned from this, a Noah’s Ark scenario with a nuclear submarine with a nuclear payload instead of the flood. Dubai is totaled in a cataclysm in the biggest set piece, but this film never wants to get into this subject in any real detail to bring real causality to even that disaster. When those brainwashed envision a young blonde girl with angel wings, and there is an angel skeleton, not of the Simpsons variety but eventually finding itself on the moon after the end credits, this is a story whose plot should have fully committed to this religious existentialism fully, but is confused and not pulling punches in any direction. It is literally the heroes versus God, but God is depicted as a vague function within the brain, so this cannot get spiritual even if a character is riding a nuclear missile in space and crying out to His Voice humanity is capable of good, nor that the ending involves a heavenly world that is never really given space to even be purely surrealistic. It is paradoxical, and this is without the fact key characters never get a lot to go with, or that this is still structured around action set pieces

Neither helping is that, in terms of animation, this is flawed to. Cel shaded three dimensional figures, it could have looked good but, with its realistic character designs, it feels restricted in what can be animated. You even see an unfortunate choice of action scene which completely undercuts a big theatrical production, showing it had compromised itself with its animation, in which Joe runs on missiles. Unfortunately there is an iconic scene from an older anime, 009 Re: Cyborg placing itself in comparison with Project A-Ko (1986), a beloved film length tale where its lead runs on missiles in the air for one of its best known set pieces. Considering A-Ko, a great work even in terms of animation and one shown theatrically, was originally meant to be an episode in an erotic series, only to be given the love and weight to stand out in that sequence of its own as great animation, it really makes 009 Re: Cyborg look worse as it really is not a good looking production at all. The one thing which is arguably great, and he is always reliable, is the composer Kenji Kawai, always reliable as Mamoru Oshii’s regular composure that can always produce great music. The resulting film however is an actual disaster, including the knowledge Production I.G., who developed this, are an acclaimed anime studio, looking even worse as a film which really does not achieve anything. I had come to this with prior warning over years for its huge flaws, but if there is a really scathing comment I can make to kick it whilst it was down, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was at least a fascinating misfire from its era, whilst this was not a good idea in any of its content, and is dour and obvious to be appreciated unintentionally either.