Customer Reviews

Memories

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm still pretty new to this wide new world of anime, so I can't really compare Memories to other works in the genre. I can say that it is a most interesting and impressive production made up of three very different short films from some of the leading names in anime. I don't think the visuals are quite as dazzling as that of more recent anime films, but the artistry of these three episodes certainly does help define the very different worlds in which the action takes place and demonstrates the compelling, visceral powers of anime. We have the celebrated Katsuhiro Otomo to thank for this project; each of the three films, if I'm not mistaken, was adapted from a short manga piece in Otomo's graphic novel Memories.

Episode One is Magnetic Rose, directed by Koji Morimoto of Animatrix fame. This is a beautiful, haunting tale of a most unusual space rescue mission. The crew of a space garbage collection ship responds to a distress signal from a dead part of space. Two crew members board the debris-shrouded vessel and enter a completely different world, one fueled by the memories of a beautiful young opera singer who apparently retreated to the isolation of space following a tragedy in her life. I won't pretend to have understood every thing about this story, but it is wholly captivating. The men encounter lavish rooms including opera houses and living quarters fit for a princess, holograms and other visual artifacts of "the young Madam" Eva entertaining guests and audiences, and decayed artifacts that sometimes come to life in front of their eyes. Each man is soon drawn into the vivid, colorful world of Eva's memories, but only one recognizes the unreality behind the vivid scenes he encounters - in his case, though, memories of his own wife and child serve as fuel for the increasingly realistic episodes he experiences. Much of the story takes place to a soundtrack of beautiful opera music such as that of Puccini, and the combination of such grand music and the amazing visual miracles that define anime of the highest caliber make this a most powerful film indeed.

Episode Two, Stink Bomb from director Tensai Okamura, goes in a completely different direction. Existing in some nebulous space between dark comedy and grim political satire, Stink Bomb is certainly entertaining but much less powerful than the other two films. In this story, a young scientific researcher takes an experimental fever pill that turns out to be something else entirely. He awakes to find everyone in the building comatose or dead (it's never really clear to me), and panicked company executives order him to find the pills and the secret documentation related to them so that he can bring everything to them in Tokyo immediately. He does just that, but he comes across death and destruction everywhere he goes. He does not understand that he has become a biological weapon emanating deadly gas from within his own body. It's almost comical to see the military firepower brought to bear - quite fruitlessly - against him as the military seeks to stop the spread of the noxious gas. The ending is also somewhat comical, on a dark level.

The last and shortest of the films comes from Katsuhiro Otomo himself. Cannon Fodder is an extremely dark film that vividly portrays a day in the life of a militaristic society along the lines of a post-modern day Prussia (i.e., pointy helmets are big in this world) dedicated solely and completely to the continued firing of gigantic cannons against some nebulous enemy. The obvious interpretation is one of the insanity of warfare, and the dark tones and grimly drawn characters bring the message home in a powerful fashion. Interestingly, the entire action seems to consist of one continuous shot that moves fluidly from one scene to another.

Memories dates back to 1995, but it is certainly an impressive example of anime's unique strengths and possibilities. The music, I should mention, plays an integral role in each film, especially Magnetic Rose - I think this DVD is worth owning just for this first amazing film alone. Otomo, Morimoto, and Okamuro are the same masters of anime who gave the world such wonders as Akira, Animatrix, and Ghost in the Shell, so anime newbies can rest assured that Memories will not disappoint.

Of the three works in "Memories", each is extremely different and contribute to a very entertaining and thought-provoking work as a whole.
"Magnetic Rose" combines beatiful artistry and harrowing audio and visual effects to create an ambience like something from a work by M. Night Shaymalan. The masterful audio score by the musical genius Yoko Kanno contributes greatly to the short. Both chilling and provocative, "Magnetic Rose" is the overall best from the three works in "Memories"
"Stink Bomb" is purely entertaining. Right from the start, we as viewers connect with the poor pharmaceutical researcher we see before us and his plight throughout this very comical and incredulous short. The music as well helps keep a "groove" as the movie flows smoothly throughout.
"Cannon Fodder" is easily the most under-appreciated work of the three. Much reminiscient of the WWII "Maus" comic written by a Jew after his experiences in Nazi-occupied Germany, "Cannon Fodder" takes us to a world that is not full of ghosts and spaceships, nor unbelievable biochem weapons, but a world not too much unlike our own- where people are vulnerable and controlled by unseen forces. It is the most thought provoking, and its style is completely apart from popular animation styles of today. The most intersting part is that the movie is one cut- meaning the backrground flows entirely throughout the movie without the scene in front us chaging suddenly.
As a whole, "Memories" offers something for everybody- from the scary moviegoer to the saturday night funny flick watcher to the ponderous artist- definitely worth 2 hours of your time.

I think many people have written about the virtues of the films,
I would like to comment on the digital mastering,This has been a favourite movie of mine for some time and I have been waiting for a R1 release the Japanese version was far too expensive.I was expecting a remastering job of the Quality that was done on Akira,
and I expected the result to be breathtaking,(especially on Magnetic Rose)I opened the package put the disc in ,and to my disdain ,the video looks like a rather clean laserdisc print, there is no evidence of 720\480 resolution of dvd it looked more like 352/480
of half d1 resolution.most of the time the lines on the characters facial detail , in mid shots are all smudgy ,overall it has a washed out look ,no deep blacks either,I am appalled ,one of the most beautiful films had to get a shoddy transfer like this.I have seen it on a 36 inch widescreen hdtv in 480p mode through a progressive scan player.this confirms my suspicion that the japanese directors are not approving the final transfers for the r1 discs, A similiar case was the movie Jin-roh, Another case of a beautiful film done to death by a smudgy low res transfer.

I first saw a trailer for "Memories" in 1996 while watching "Sabrina" at a theater in Nagasaki. I thought the bits of animation shown, along with the music were amazing and I was back in a theater when it came out. I've seen it several times since and I still regard it as one of the better anime films out there. Top rate animation, a fantastic score - I highly recommend trying to find the Victor Japan 1 1/2 disc original soundtrack (comprised of one full sized CD and a CD single sized disc 2, in some really cool packaging) - and great stories. The animation style of the three, like the different stories, are all different. Magnetic Rose is my favorite, and some of the imagery, paired with the haunting music (combining electronic music with Puccini arias and choral works), have had a lasting effect. Stink Bomb, touching on biological/chemical warefare as well as the military, is pretty damned funny, and even more relevant in today's current global climate. The final installment, Cannon Fodder, by Otomo-san, is the most original, both in terms of the animation style/character design and in the narrative. There is a weird "child's story" feel mixed with a Pink Floyd's "The Wall" vibe.

I am just really excited that this is finally out on Region 1 DVD. This is a work of anime that is definitely more accessible to mainstream audiences (especially those who dislike the big, "saucer-eyed" style of anime). I am glad that I resisted buying the much more expensive Region 2 set. And did I mention how great the music is?

Utte kimasu!

i first saw 'memories' in 1996 and i am still blown away by it everytime i watch it. and i watch it a lot. my fansub copy from way back when should soon be replaced by this dvd edition.

the first segment, 'magnetic rose' is my favorite anime of all time. how could it not be? although the story is based on the manga by Katsuhiro Otomo, 'magnetic rose' was directed by my all time favorite anime director Koji Morimoto. Not only that, but it was created and produced at one of my favorite anime studios of all time, Studio 4C. on a side note, my 2nd favorite anime is 'Porco Rosso' by Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli.

'magnetic rose' features lush visuals, high quality animation, top notch production and art design, and an intruiging story concept. very atmospheric and lyrical, the film is set to snippets of puccini's 'madame butterfly'. Characters moving in weightlessness are animated more convincingly than Gundam 0083 (ok, so it's a tv series, but it's still done pretty well), and concept design for space vehicles and ships are both functional and believable. backgrounds are beautifully painted as well. what many people may not realize is that quite a bit of cg is used in this film also. from the spaceships and flying pods to the rose itself, it is so well done that one may not quite realize it until a second viewing. the worlds of reality and illusion are cleverly blended in this film, and will keep you watching until the breathtakingly poetic ending.

if i was stranded on a desert island, all i would need would be wi-fi access to the net and this film.

the other two films in this series bear mentioning too.
'stink bomb' is entertaining in its outrageous situations. if you like a lot of explosions in your anime, this is it. although i am not too fond of the character designs, the production values are still pretty good. while 'magnetic rose' could look like it was made yesterday, 'stink bomb' seems to show it's age in terms of art, line quality and design.

'canon fodder' reminds me very much of the films that came out of eastern europe during the height of their oppression. overall, much darker than the previous two films, 'cannon fodder' is a very interesting exercise in sweeping camera views and warped perspective background layouts. a bit of 3d cg is also used in this film and the character and concept designs are quite interesting. i highly recommend it for animation buffs.

now keep in mind that this anthology of films was released in 1996. now watch it, be blown away, then watch it again. now go out and buy the 'art of' book, "the memory of memories" and be blown away yet again.

and if you are interested in seeing more, i highly recommend looking up "koji morimoto" on the net and checking out his other works. one of his more recent being "beyond" on the 'animatrix' dvd (many of the better shorts in 'animatrix' were produced by studio 4C). i highly recommend his music videos as well, 'survival' and '4 day weekend' come to mind. and if you're looking for something really bizarre, don't pass up 'noiseman insect'

there are only 2 names you need to remember from this review: Koji Morimoto & Studio 4C.
Now, go out and buy it!

From Katsuhiro Otomo (and others) comes three completely different stories. Each of them interesting and original in itself.
MAGNETIC ROSE is about a couple of astronauts who investigate an old space station. It has the atmospheric mood of a traditional ghost story but is set in a science fiction like reality. This one immeadiately became one of my favorite pieces of animation that I have ever seen. Glorious hand drawn traditional animation with minimal but beatifully incorporated cgi elements where necesary.
STINK BOMB is more of a funny story but definately a good one. A boy accidentaly swallows a pill that turns him into a biochemical weapon. As he unwillingly and unknowingly goes on a path of destruction through Tokyo the army deplores increasingly aggresive and desperate means to stop him, and as the story gradually grows in scope the viewer doesn't know wether to laugh at the silliness of it all or shudder at the realistic horror of biochemical warfare and it's consequences.

CANNON FODDER the final entry is probably my least favorite, although it does have a unique look and a refreshingly original story flow as the entire movie unfolds with very few and almost seemless cuts. The camera simply travels around from place to place never stopping, as we follow the lives of a family in a weird alternative reality (or possibly a grim future) where the inhabitans of a city full of giant cannons spend their entire existance firing shells at an unseen enemy.
These are sort of like the short animations from projects such as "Animatrix" and "Heavy Metal" from the 80'ies only better. Each of them adds something new and brings a fresh idea forwards and it is a gem in any collection of anime. Here's hoping more projects like this one will see the light of day in the near future.

I watched Memories back in the 90s when it was still hard to come by here in the US. Arriving in the US nearly 10 years after it was made, the film stands among the best of the current crop of anime, as it should being produced by some of Japan's masters. And while the animators are different on each of these pieces, the constant is Otomo, providing the stories for all three and himself directing the final segment.

The first segment is the beautiful and somewhat horrific Magnetic Rose, where a ship's crew stumbles upon a world produced by a girl's memories. Imagination in designed is paired with a beautiful soundtrack, heavily based on Madame Butterfly. Despite the scifi aspect commonly found in anime, this piece has a certain elloquence and beauty to it that just doesn't find its way into modern anime. I love the way the girl's memories start preying on the ship's crew with some of their own.


The second piece, entitled Stink Bomb is right at home on Otomo's Resume. Produced by Madhouse studios, the story revolves around a man who contracts a certain odor from a lab that kills whoever smells it. With tongue firmly in cheek, the story follows the government's folly of trying to contain it. It reminds me a lot of Otomo's own Roujin Z. It's the lightest segment on Memories, preparing the viewer for the conclusion.

Otomo directs the final segment, Canon Fodder, which shows a dark dystopic world where the inhabitants fire canons at each other all day. While some of the artwork seems almost comic, the mood of the story is not. Otomo again provides a satire criticizing the very thought of going to war and the sometimes ambiguous reasons for fighting.

After watching Memories, I couldn't help but feel that Otomo has positioned himself as something of a satirist in the world of manga and anime. He did it with Akira, though quite subtly, and moreso with Roujin Z and even in Steamboy. It's nice to see one of the masters still at the top of his game, producing meaningful works high above the sex and violence fare of lesser anime titles.

The movie is really three different short works. The first is "Magnetic Rose" where the crew of a space garbage collection ship answers a distress call. The two men who go into the wreckage to find the beacon get separated and confused by holographic programs, automated systems, and an AI of the original owner of the ship -- who believes she is alive. In "Stink Bomb" a young man gets a flu shot and goes to work where he takes a dose of an experimental drug rather the cold medicine he thought he was taking. The mix of drugs in his system has an strange and catastrophic effect on those around him. Then there is "Cannon Fodder" where we spend a day with a family who live in a city fighting a war. A war that they've fought so long that no one remembers who they are fighting anymore or even why.

All of these are beautifully rendered and each has their own unique look and mood from the dark, dreamy, chaotic feel of "Magnetic Rose", to the buccolic "Stink Bomb", and the urbanized, regementation of "Cannon Fodder". Each of the three pieces in some way hinge on memory -- to one degree or another -- but that link it sort of up to the viewer to make as they process the film after viewing.

Like most anime, you're dropped into the story and must make your own leaps of logic to pull it together and add the meaning to what is going on. They don't spoon feed you the 'message' of the film, it's for you to determine what it is.

"Memories" is a 3-part science fiction/anime collection marketed as one film.

The first episode, Magnetic Rose", is an emotional but stirring SF story of love and regret; the second, "Stink Bomb", is a humorous look at environmental disaster; the third, "Cannon Fodder", examines warfare and the dehumanization that goes with it.

Each film has a definite stylistic individuality. "Magnetic Rose" reminds me of parts of The Animatrix; "Stink Bomb" looks like it could have come from the artists who created the original, classic Heavy Metal movie; and, best (and undoubtedly strangest) of all, "Cannon Fodder" bears more than passing resemblance to the surreal animation of Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Don't let the jarring differences put you off from seeing this film. Each has its own merits, with few drawbacks.

The one disadvantage I encountered when viewing this DVD was the lack of an English soundtrack; I don't speak Japanese, and the subs whiz by so fast (keeping up with the speech rate of the characters) that if I want to read them, I must frequently pause the film to read it.

Other than that teeny nit, this is a definite PLUS in my collection.

Another favorite of mine is Memories, a lavish omnibus written by Katsuhiro Otomo creator of Akira.

The first, and longest of the shorts is Magnetic Rose, directed by Koji Morimoto.

An old tank roams deep space in search of Junk. The Corona is home to a four-piece salvage crew; a grizzled pilot named Ivanov; his wisecracking assistant, Aoshima; an irrepressible skirt-chaser, Miguel; and an estranged family man named Heinz. The ship's alarm is triggered by Puccini's Madam Butterfly and a SOS from an asteroid of swirling debris in Sargasso, the graveyard of space.

Heinz and Miguel are dispatched from Corona in a key-shaped pod and maneuver through the orbiting field of debris. There's a spectacular shot of the pod free falling. Huge doors usher Miguel and Heinz into a massive French ballroom. A cherub statue quickly whisks away after greeting them. They explore the rooms of the palace and discover a shrine, dedicated to opera diva, Eva Friedel. In another room, Heinz's flashlight spots a little girl at the edge of a table. The statue tips and shatters on the floor before he can reach it. In a darkened corridor, his flashlight glimpses a familiar child tumbling out of the ceiling. Heinz enters a room and finds himself center-stage with a beautiful woman. When her knife plunges into his chest, painful memories in his past are awakened.


Miguel has memories of his own. Everything he touches is destroyed. Fine silk dresses become dust. Vibrant roses blacken and shrivel at the slightest contact. Miguel tumbles down broken steps into a lake of oil. There's a decaying pavilion and a piano beneath it. He touches one of its badly broken keys and, in an instant, everything becomes new. The beautiful, French singer whose images adorn every wall of the palace falls into his arms.

Magnetic Rose is the tale of an egotistical diva, her glory, and her undying love. This anime is probably the standout of the three, although by a very narrow margin. The technical side of Magnetic Rose is staggering. Shipmates float around each other in zero-g. The Corona is a cylindrical vessel with detailed underbelly propulsion systems, rear solar panels, airlock hatches and cameras. Reconnaissance pods have reversible cockpits and mechanical arms. Small robots transport pods and payload along truss-like structures. The spacesuits (Loaders) resemble tanks with arms.

The palace depicted in Magnetic Rose mirrors the baroque excesses of its queen. Classical columns line vast rotundas, bronze and marble balustrades compliment monumental staircases. Grand arches frame every door. Cherubs and allegorical figures embellish every vase and plinth, tray, bowl and candleholder. Ornamentation accents every window. Pillars frame a huge, jeweled entablature with Eva's portrait. Corridors are lined in rich, red carpet. There is no surface of the palaces' interior that is not decorated and though only snippets of her life are recalled, the sheer scope and flamboyance of the palace seem to imply a very sad woman. Magnetic Rose is a bittersweet tragedy set in the isolation and darkness of deep space.

The second tale of this trilogy is Stink Bomb, directed by Tensai Okamura.

The tale is set in the prefecture of Yamanashi Japan, home of Mount Fuji. It begins inside of a crowded clinic. Nobuo Tanaka has a serious nose-drip. The doctor gives him a shot, a prescription and sends him on his way. In the following scene a bus drops him at the bottom of a hill. Recognized by a security guard, Nobuo slugs up the hill to his job, Nishibashi Pharmaceutical company.

Nobuo can't stop sneezing. Wads of tissue and empty medicine bottles overflow his wastebasket. A concerned co-worker recommends the new fever medicine the company recently developed; it hasn't been diluted for sale to the public yet. And they're on the chief's desk. The blue capsules in the red case.

The Chief is out of his office. Of the two bottles on his desk, Nobuo recalled what his co-worker said and took the blue case with the red capsules. The Chief is livid when her returns and discovers that the pills on his desk have been bothered. Reluctantly, the co-worker that told Nobuo about the fever medicine steps forward. What's the big deal over a little fever medicine? The Chief is furious.

Meanwhile a strange, curious smell permeates the facility: was it something someone ate? Perfume? Rats scramble in their cages. Nobuo wakes up in the lounge. Those fever pills were strong. He checks his watch. A day had passed! Why didn't someone wake him? The halls are empty. The receptionist is slumped over at her desk. Every room's a state of helter-skelter, his co-workers, the lab animals in all of their cages, all lay out. Nobuo grabs the phone and dials the ambulance. The Chief's office is ransacked. Boxes that had covered the wall were scattered around the Chief. His outstretched finger is frozen over the BIOCOM alarm, a control panel the boxes concealed. Nobuo depresses the button. The console pops from the wall, warning lights flash, sirens wail, heavy steel doors fall down separating the compartments of the facility. Monitors light up the wall. Kyoichi Nirasaki of the New Medicine Development glares down at Nobuo. Nobuo explains that he woke from a nap and found everyone unconscious. Nirasaki's scowl softens. He leans to the camera with instructions that Nobuo bring certain papers and medicine to him personally, at Tokyo Headquarters. The medicine is actually a biological weapon the pharmaceutical lab was developing for the military. Ingested, it transforms the ordinary soldier into a toxic weapon, harmless only to himself. Nirasaki orders Nobuo to bring the medicine and all related research to him immediately.

Nobuo sets off on his bicycle with the bundle containing the medicine and research. The ambulance he called is gathered in a smoldering pile of wrecked vehicles. Birds fall out of the sky. Sunflowers and Cherry Blossoms bloom together.

A secret meeting of military leaders is hastily convened in the SITUATION ROOM beneath Tokyo headquarters. Bright maps line a massive rotunda. Tiers of computers fluoresce. On a plateau, Generals gather around a map of Japan. Mr. Narasaki, head of Nishibashi Pharmaceuticals and Nirasaki of Development brief them of the situation, that an employee named Nobuo Tanaka is bringing the drug and all related materials to the Headquarters. He is the only survivor of the pharmaceutical company. The Japanese General scolds Mr. Narasaki loudly. Nobuo Tanaka is the lone survivor and he is bringing the samples directly to Headquarters?

All westbound traffic on Chuoh Freeway has been cut off. Eastbound traffic is at a standstill. And sensors in the disaster area have indicated that the center of the disaster is moving towards the heart of Tokyo. To make matters worse, all the chaos and death is making Nobuo nervous and the drug he took reacts to his metabolism; the more afraid he gets, the more dangerous he becomes. No matter what, he must be made as calm as possible, which is not an easy thing to do with the Japanese Forces bearing down. They must stop the cloud of stench from reaching Tokyo at all costs.

Of the three episodes on Memories, Stink Bomb is the lightest in terms of execution and mood, a black comedy in the tradition of DR. STRANGELOVE. Here the `Doomsday Device' is a young chemist with lethal B.O. Stink Bomb seizes on the Anthrax scare by creating the ultimate biological weapon, a scared human.

Stink Bomb is unabashedly stereotypical. The Japanese General is short and feisty while the U.S. General is a cool and constructed on a massive scale. The Japanese would like to destroy the weapon's courier, America would prefer to capture the subject. Ground zero is the WAR ROOM, not map coordinates or the general populace.

There is an awesome display of detail in the movie's military hardware. There are tanks identical to the Type 90 MBT (main battle tank) of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. A scene on national route 20 shows a convoy of these machines; steel sprockets rotate caterpillar tracks. When the commander in one of the tanks spots Nobuo, the turret rotates in the center of the hull and the main gun pivots on the target. This sequence affords a 3D view of the tank's armature: the 120mm main gun; grenade dischargers mounted on the sides of the turrets; co-axial machine guns mounted above and behind the main gun and overhead views of the hatches, periscopes and cupolas. A scene inside one of the tanks shows the commander and gunner in the front section of the hull, on either side of the Main Gun's enormous breech. Profiles show the steel `skirts' overlapping the caterpillar tracks.

And jets are also on display including the F15J, the Japanese variant of the U.S Air Force's F15C. The engines are shown starting up, turbine vanes rotate, nozzles expand and afterburners feed white-hot exhaust blasting out the back. In flight there's a panoramic view of other jets, the sky and clouds. A transparent display (HUD) grid is projected on the cockpit window. The pilot pulls and pushes the center-mounted joystick and adjusts the throttle with the left joystick. Rudders tilt in opposite directions and the wings become vertical offering a view of the plane's underside. Radar pods are mounted near the inlets and sidewinder missiles are clustered against its plate-welded belly. Flaps on the vertical and horizontal portions of the tail pitch the nose in every direction.

The American spacesuit in Stink Bomb is modeled after AX-5, a NASA prototype. It is similar to NASA's current EMU except that the limbs and torso are `hard' spheres articulated by basketball-sized joints (bearings) to allow free movement.

Astronauts are transported by Naval helicopter to the Takao Mountains where the Japanese army has Nobuo trapped in a partially collapsed tunnel. The U.S. officer gloats that the astronauts' suits are impregnable from all types of radiation. In this scene every feature of a real space suit is duplicated. Oxygen hisses out of elbow ducts. They have sleeve-mounted keypads. High-pressure hoses slither out of their bodies into huge backpacks equipped with helmet lights. Their hinged, iron feet plant solidly with each step and a metallic tint crackles over their visors as they enter the tunnel.

The final episode of Memories is a very brief tale called Cannon Fodder, written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo.

A canon on a medieval castle shatters a kingdom, the broken pieces come together and the process is restarted. The camera pulls back from the clock shaped headboard. An iron-colored boy throws the covers back.

The child hops up, slips into a green army jacket and a red helmet. In the hall he pauses to gaze up at an enormous portrait, that of a Prussian commander posing beside a cannon. The interior of the home is a riveted, airtight cave. Pipes run parallel, branching, knotting and twisting, dividing and subdividing from floor to ceiling. Hot steam is sneezed out of safety valves. The family-- father, son and mother are almost invisible. Their complexions are as dull as the solder linking the pipes around them. Mom hands them both steel lunchboxes. Dad dons his helmet and pulls on his pale-blue tunic. The open frame of the elevator shaft provides a citywide view. Every steel and stone building is scorched, every rooftop near and far has a cannon.

A haze of acrid smoke dissipates, consecutive doors on a giant train pop open. Gray men dismount and trudge down the pier in double file behind sections of propaganda. The slogan: NO CONQUEST WITHOUT LABOR is plastered on every surface with the `s' spelled with Waffen double lightning bolts. They clock in one by one and pull on respirators.

In another scene, children in pickelhaubes listen vaguely as the teacher lectures them on cannon shooting. The son gazes out the window, longingly at a small, gray planet. It is, in fact, the domed turret of cannon number 17. The long barrel extended through the turret slot where inside it is mounted to an enormous edifice. The workers on it are specks. A hasty gun-loading drill is called. An army of laborers scramble to their tasks. An elephant-sized bullet is rolled out. A crane hoists it to the platform where it is carefully lined up and rammed into the breech. A rail platform rolls out with the charge canister. The crane hoists it to the platform and rams it in behind the projectile. The temperature of the charge is checked, also the air temperature and wind currents. A circular platform rotates the enormous carriage as the barrel is elevated.

The loaders hustle off the floor and gather at the observation window. A round, dignified officer appears from one of the tunnels. His chest is decorated with medals. His pickelhaube is golden and his red cape is flowing behind him.

He stops beside the cannon and a lift rises out of the floor and sets him up on the cannon's platform. He strides past the breech and up to the plateau along the shaft, up to a small pedestal labeled 17. A panoramic scene shows the dome's interior walls, the laborers at the observation window and the turret slit, down the cannon and back to the shooter. The long muzzle aimed at the empty sky. The shooter tosses his cape and snaps on his facemask. He draws the switch and BOOM! A cloud of fire and smoke explodes over the city. Female laborers in military formation salute the cannon from a nearby factory. Acids burn the air.

Another scene shows the father being punished for a mistake on the loading platform. He and his team are ordered to stay out in the shooting area. Again, the shooter appears, indifferent to the laborers lined across the platform. The energy released from the cannon is awesome. A scene falls from the scorched clouds. Down stratified buildings with turrets on every level and cannons aimed in all directions. Along tarnished networks of lead ducts and plumbing to the stiff atmosphere of the world below. The view floats through the window of a family resting from a day's labor. Propaganda blares from the radio. Cannon blasts of the day are tallied. Dad and son are at the kitchen table. Son is applying crayons to a crude drawing of an Imperial Shooter. Dad is engrossed by the small, metal television. Mother, who's at the sink calls out. It'll be lights out soon. The iron-colored boy asks his father one last question: who were they shooting? He'll understand, his father tells him... when he's older.

Cannon Fodder depicts a Reich society where ideologues and machines rule tiny people. War and paranoia occupy every moment. Valves, gauges and primitive machines are aesthetic. Home is a pressurized hull. And rooms are modular units separated by bulkheads.

Life is dull. But each member of the unit has a purpose: mom works in an assembly line in an ordnance factory. Son studies cannon shooting physics in school. And father's job is loading.

Coal and steam pollutes everything. Giant locomotives belch thick, dirty clouds onto crowded platforms. Respirators are fashion accessories. Cobbled streets and stone buildings are smoked with ash. Faces are grim and eyes are stamped with hard rings.

Cannons blossom over the streets daily. From the tallest structure and longest muzzle the scene beyond the kingdom is a pocked wasteland. By the end an air raid siren is completely ignored.

Cannon 17 in Cannon Fodder is a slight exaggeration (very slight) of the `Gustav Geschutz' siege gun that Hitler employed ordnance maker Alfried Krupp to construct. He wanted a `super-gun' that could pierce a meter of steel, seven meters of concrete and thirty meters of compact earth!

Alfried Krupp's company was the epicenter of German rearmament during World War 2. In Essen, an industrial city in northwest Germany, he owned some of the biggest machines in the world. Piercing presses weighing 1,500 tons, 2,500-ton drawbenches, turning lathes, furnaces, in-house electrical and water plants. In 1941 Krupp produced a gun capable of firing 8-ton shells and hitting targets thirty miles away! The tube and breechblock encompassed half a football field. A giant axle gear pivoted the 800mm muzzle, and a carriage, two twenty-axle bogies and two parallel sets of tracks supported a machine weighing 1,350-tons, four stories off the ground.

Hitler's original plans for the gun was to crush the network of bunkers along the German frontier France had built between 1920-1936 following the Versailles Treaty. But Germany's panzer divisions, under General Erich von Manstein, plowed through the harsh Ardennes wilderness and outflanked France.

Crimea, a peninsula south of Ukraine and north of the Black Sea, became a suitable target for the Gustav weapon. Hitler used it to destroy Russian fortifications at Sebastopol and Kerch. A spur of four semicircular tracks was attached to the Simeropol/Sebastopol Railway. The gun's muzzle was pointed at the line of forts around Sebastopol Bay. When the shelling ended, Sebastopol's population of 80,000 had been decimated to 200 by 30,000 tons of artillery, 50 tons day and night for 25 days. Of this, 300 eight-ton shells came from the Gustav. Sebastopol was obliterated and on July 1 '41 Germany seized this important Russian position.

But in Cannon Fodder an enormous gun fires at an unknown enemy. Fluffed clouds lie like bunkers on the horizon. Cannon Fodder's main gun becomes a giant metaphor for technology and ideology. Its laborers are reduced to gunpowder, a blind, potent, unthinking force.

In Cannon Fodder war is God. A boy stands beneath the portrait of a Prussian Commander, profiled heroically beside a cannon. Bare metal walls are devoid of color and art. War movies play inside of rifled gun tubes. Workers march in file. Giant guns are worshipped with straight-arm salutes. Music is dangerous. In one scene, a small boy is punished and taken away for having a music helmet. War slogans `no conquest without labor' and `KO to the enemy' plaster public buildings. All schooling and labor is centered on the war effort.

Cannon Fodder is an analogue of Nazi Germany. Stairs running parallel zigzag at wide angles like those in Ludwig's villa. A cobblestone circle is almost identical to Karlsplatz Square and there's a junction that is very similar to the East-West axis Hitler planned for Berlin.

The Neoclassical style of architecture was used in Cannon Fodder. Hitler was fond of this style for public buildings and commissioned architect Albert Speer to design them on Roman models of permanency, of granite and marble and scaled to monumental proportions. Throughout Cannon Fodder people are juxtaposed with mountain-sized buildings and machines and showed from distances to give the impression of insignificance in relation to the whole as Hitler intended for German citizenry. The philosophy of both Nazi and Roman architecture was to use size to overawe and intimidate. In Cannon Fodder the facade of a train platform becomes a Roman Temple.

SA eagle motifs are squeezed inside montages interlacing each scene. There's a scene where architecture from each period of history is stacked like a pyramid. The apex is represented by bulky, squared-off structures of steel. Further down, widening angles are sewed together with pipes, conveyors and ducts. Metal gradually becomes stone. Roman pavilions and medieval castles extend across the base with cannons aimed in every direction. At the very bottom, wheezing in the shadows, humans suffocate in airtight homes.

Cannon Fodder is brief, running only ten minutes. Layers of insight and artistic skill make it the heaviest of the three segments. Not so much about Reich Germany as it is about the culture of fear. Nazi motifs are used to amplify the extreme state of jingoism. The enemy isn't Russia or France. Throughout the fable there's never any indication that the city is even being threatened, just senseless shooting. And individuality is outlawed in several instances. No one knows who the enemy is yet daily the senses are assailed from all directions by every medium. Even the scene near the end with all the buildings piled together is ambiguous. Sometimes it looks like a pyramid or Babel, or even components of a battleship thrown together. Cannon Fodder is a great little Anime... and a warning disguised as low-calorie entertainment.