Customer Reviews

Roujin Z

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The premise is simple: to ease the caring for the elderly, the government decides to experiment with automating said care, until the robot caretaker decides to take its charge on a trip to the beach! The result is both humorous and a biting commentary on how we view our elders. Roujin Z is a fun down-to-earth story with a doozy of an ending. I'd recommend it to newcomers to the anime genre - even above other classics like "Akira" - because the story is so much more human and focused. Just don't expect an action-fest.

The DVD itself is quite sparse with only a language choice and chapter select. The only annoyance I had was the movie starts without going through the menu first. But the excellent story makes this one worth owning regardless.

How far do we let technology take us? Should we consign our old people to an uncaring "home", or cherish their hard earned wisdom? This film brings up many questions that are hard to answer, and makes you think about old people and what they want and need. Oh, its funny too, and you have to love the ending (did you like Short Circuit 1 and 2?)

Friday, July 15, 2005 / 4 of 5 / Entertaining, light early 90's chase anime
While at once amusing and alarming prescience, this early 90's anime tells a tale of the aging of Japan and the issues the elderly will impose upon the care giving industry. Not the typical anime subject matter, but things kick into gear as a veiled group introduces a super-mecha bed that will tend to the needs of the elderly, bathing, feeding, taking care of their waste, etc. all controlled via a super computer and nuclear furnace. The bed has some hidden capabilities however, and the first test case, an old man, is taken along for a wild ride. The man's human nurse and her friends give chase along with the bed's company when it takes on the personality of the man's deceased wife. What ensues is a chase as the bed tries to take the man to the beach. Must be seen to be believed. Funny and breezy, it's highly recommended.

INTRO: To start, I was kinda' dissapointed when I figured out this wasn't the DVD release with the extras on it. But then I found out that the "movie" itself wasn't too bad either. :)

DVD: The DVD basically was easy enough to get to the movie so I can't say anything bad about the menus or anything. The basic - Jap/Eng audios are available, which is always a must for anime or foreign films.

EXTRAS: There are none on this version of the DVD so I can't complain too much since its my own fault...by the Special Edition for extras.

STORY/PLOT: This movie is very good. It almost (but not quite) beats Akira (also by Katsuhiro Otomo) in the fact that it mixes a lot of aspects from Akira and incorporates it into a PG-13 (at most) rated movie. Even though they say this movie is about PG-13, I could show this to a kid with no worries really. But then again, that's just me...The movie explains about taking care of the elderly and manages to mix in some great action as well. Its too strange to explain, so just see it to believe me.

OVERALL: Overall, I really liked this movie/dvd. I recommend it to anyone that likes Anime, AKira, or works by Katsuhiro Otomo. I will still get the Special Edition for the extras, but this version (the one that started it for me) will always remain in my DVD library.

It's an unspoken rule in film production that any movie with an all star cast or crew is going to be terrible, take the recent movie "A.I." for example. Roujin Z manages to break the mold. The film was designed by Katsuhiro Otomo, (famous for his previous work AKIRA)directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo (worked on Patlabor-The Movie with Mamoru Oshii) and animated by Fumio Iiada (Wings of Honneamise). The visual style is an interresting blend between Iiada's and Otomo's artwork, the animation is very high quality (though somewhat outdated), and the character designs and motion capturing are some of the best I've ever seen. The story takes place in Japan, where the government is having difficulting dealing with it's aging population. The solution? The new Z-001, a robotic bed to cover a patients every need. Elderly invalid Takazawa is volunteered by his family to test the new bed, and is thus stripped from his volunteer nurse, Haruko. When Takazawa's bed sends out a distress signal Haruko and her friends race to the rescue, but the bed has become more than just a simple care unit. Now the bed has become an unstoppable robot, imbued with the personality of Takazawa's deceased wife and hell bent on visiting the beach! It should be noted that this film was published in the US by USMANGA Corps, the sorriest bunch of adled sods that have ever disgraced the animation industry (disney aside). The dubbing is, of course, horrible beyond belief, so stick to the subtitles.

This DVD contains a bad video transfer. No anamorphic video either. It says "Special Widescreen Edition" on the front, the video is presented letterboxed.

While definitely watchable, there was some combing (artefacts on moving edges) which suggests problems (or just laziness) while digitalizing the movie.

I'd say wait for another release but who knows when this will be.

Roujin Z was one of the first anime I ever saw, and if I'm right it's also one of the first brought over to American shores and given the full treatment. It's funny watching this movie ten years later, because Americanized anime back then wasn't treated the same as anime today. Instead of letting the Japanese culture shine through, they force the American way into the scenes. One primary example is where they displace Japanese government and police agencies for our own, that being the Pentagon and FBI. It's a history lesson in anime as well as a fun anime movie from the past era of re-versioned anime.

The story is about an old man who's gotten to the point where he can no longer care fore himself without help, and a young nurse named Haruko has taken it upon herself to care for this man. But, without her knowledge, a family member of the old man has volunteered him to be the guinea pig in the experimentation of a cutting edge bed, made for caring for the old. But the bed is designed too well, and grows a mind of its own, taking on the personality of the old man's late wife. Thus, the bed changes into a giant robot with all intentions of getting the old man to the beach. In its path are government officials and military versions of the bed, but the bed itself has its own help in a group of old hackers and young nurses, as well as Haruko.

The story takes on an Akira-like moment when the machines start to mutate, taking in anything and everything it touches, but it doesn't exactly take away from the anime, even though it's an obvious copy of the cult classic. The gold in this anime is the message it delivers, and that message is how we treat those of a later generation, or the old, to be blunt. And it proves that age is no barrier, nor is it a weakness, but a state of mind.

For anyone seeking to learn what Americanized anime was like ten years ago, or if you're a collector, check this out. Roujin Z is a solid anime very similar to Akira in design, but not in mood; this anime in no way takes itself seriously. It's funny at times, and touching at other times, but never dark or overly violent.

I bought this movie on a whim, what i got was worth the money, but jus barely. the story in general was very funny, well planned and really makes you think about how we treat our elders (Not as people but as burdens) and the characters were very fun and you could easly relate to them however, there is little action and the animation is somewhat poor. I would recomend this movie to people who understand wit, sarcasm, and social satire. In other words, any one who thought that dumb and dumber was an excelent flim will hate this movie.

i watched this years ago and thought it was ridiculous and dismissed it as a stupid movie. but awhile afterwards i realized i shouldn't have taken it seriously and that is why i didn't like it. it is ridiculous and that is what makes it great. sometimes a movie like this is perfect to watch after seeing too many serious movies. it is what it is and i loved it.

An anime story about a nurse and his 70 year old patient. I liked this movie but for me it has lost some of it's freshness over the years. Still it's worth seeing to see Haruko Mishashi and Mr. Takazawa and also the bad guys Terada and Hasegawa.

rating 13 up: minor nudity and sexual jokes