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[Prospero]

I flew back to NJ from FL today, and a nearby passenger was watching what looked like an interesting anime on his laptop. Didn't get a chance to ask him what it was, though.

Looked entirely CG, but "cel-shaded," in that Tales of Symphonia sort of way. Set in the future. Backgrounds (esp. the cityscapes) looked really elaborate, but characters were relatively rudimentary: their movements seemed pretty stiff, which made me think it was a series and not a feature film. Protagonists seemed to be large-eyed teenagers, but there were some non-large-eyed adults, including an old guy who flew around in a levitating wheelchair. Terms mentioned in the subtitles I saw were "E. S. W. A. T.", "Gaia", and "Bio-something": Bio-form? Bio-force?

Only saw about twenty seconds worth, though--sounds as if I've described every single anime that is.

 

[KickyFast]

Appleseed

 

[calder]

ESWAT reminds me of appleseed, but the rest I dunno. It's pretty old, but you make it sound fairly modern in animation quality.

 

[Stryder]

Hey is Appleseed decent? It seems to have this 'tailored to the west' feel to it, as if it isn't originally for and from Japan.

Or I could be thinking of another movie/series.

 

[Hitokage]

Celshading and "ESWAT" gives it away: the 2004 movie version of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed.

...and it's not that good overall. Plot and characters you can't care about(Deunan is a soldier, headshots a bad guy, and disables a tank... everything else is unnecessary), and the celshading is spotty(although the backdrops are largely well done and when the celshading does work it looks great).

 

[Prospero]

It sounds like Appleseed, based on the description of the plot at Amazon.com. But the film they have listed has a release date of 1988, and this thing I saw was definitely made much later.

But one of the reader reviews of the 1988 disc says:

"Appleseed is worth at least a rental, and I can't wait to see what the new gorgeous CG movie does with the same elements."

EDIT: Hitokage beat me to it.

 

[Hitokage]

Yeah, there's an older OVA version.

 

[ChryZ]

http://www.a-seed.jp/en.html

OVA 1988
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094668/

Movie 2004
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401233/

 

[Lyte Edge]

Appleseed would work better as a TV series, not as a movie. I have the new film but haven't watched it yet. It appears to be based on the same story as the 1988 OVA was, which is a little disappointing; why not use a different story...there was what? Five, six voumes of manga that Shirow did?

 

[Uncle Dukey]

The story is rather average and predictable, but the CG is a mix of pleasant and questionable. The action sequences are pretty fun, the audio track is done well [surrounds / music ], but sometimes the "cel shaded" human models look a bit awkward. The novelty of the CG work makes it worth watching in my opinion. But as Hitokage said, the characters are quite shallow and I didn't really care for any of them.