Back in 1988, anime director Katsuhiro Otomo established himself as one of the genre’s primary visualists thanks to the herculean accomplishment that was Akira, a serious contender for being one of the greatest animations ever committed to film. Not only that, but the movie also managed to cement itself as one the most influential visions of the future alongside Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, so you’ll understand when I say that to follow it up would be no small task.
Wisely, Otomo didn’t rush into things when crafting his second feature and it took a staggering ten years and a hefty 2.4 billion yen to produce (the most expensive Japanese film at the time) which is made all the more risky when you realise that it’s also supposed to be a family adventure film.
Shifting from Cyberpunk to Steampunk and delivering a more action/adventure approach to Otomo’s usual themes, can the director manage to deliver another masterpiece that hopefully doesn’t run out of steam.
In 1863 in an alternate nineteenth century, Europe has made some impressive strides in steam powered technology that go far beyond conventional steam engines, but after father and son scientist team Lloyd and Edward Steam (no really) discover a special type of mineral water in Iceland that could offer up an unlimited power source for steam engines, the next phase of the future seems like a reality. However, a schism builds between father and son that ultimately results in a terrible accident that marks a major estrangement between the men leaving Edward’s son, James Ray Steam, to believe his father was killed.
Three years pass and James, a gifted mechanic working as a maintenance boy in Manchester, is sent a mysterious package from his grandfather which turns out to be strange sphere that comes with some simple instructions to guard it with his life. The reasons for this soon become very apparent when thugs show up to collect the thing and all hell immediately breaks loose. Before you know it, these assailants proves themselves to be no ordinary heavies by breaking out some serious steam-tech to chase the boy down.
It turns out that these guys are employees of the O’Hara Foundation, company that specialises in selling weapons of war that want the sphere at all costs, but after trying to get it into the hands of civil engineer, Robert Stevenson, he finds himself captured and brought to London. However, there he finds out that the race to form the future seems to be being entirely run by his family. While his grandfather is obsessed about keeping the sphere out of the hands of those who would use to create weapons of steamy destruction, James’ dad (who isn’t as dead as James first thought) is working with the O’Hara Foundation and is obsessed with pushing the sphere’s limits as far as they can go.
Steam powered chaos naturally ensues.
Otomo has always been a creative force looking to buck trends. When other Manga creators maintained a simpler, less is more approach to their stories, every page of the printed version of Akira was virtually groaning with detail and when Otomo moved on to shifting the legendary story to Anime, he was the first director to insist on accurate lip synching to go alongside animation that’s still pretty much unsurpassed to this day. With Steamboy, that approach certainly hasn’t change because when it comes to detail, his 2004 sci-fi epic makes the Akira Manga look like a Mr. Men book. The format of animation has always allowed the Japanese to indulge in instances of world building that usually surpass anything you’ve ever seen before, but even by the standards of Akira, Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost In The Shell or even Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s underrated Venus Wars, Steamboy possibly contains the most painstakingly detailed and lived in world that the medium has ever seen.
Once you get past the rather strange concept of everyone living in nineteenth century Manchester speaking perfect Japanese (unless you go dubbed of course), you are literally bowled off your feet by the ridiculously sumptuous world that’s laid before you as accurate streets and fashions of the period mix with retro-futuristic inventions that throw in tanks, blimps, tractors and jetpacks as the action slowly starts to grow and every single second of it is an awe inspiring joy to behold. While some Anime purists may turn their nose at 2D, had drawn animation mixing with 3D CG backgrounds, there is simply no way this movie could have been put together and the results are genuinely unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
The action sequences carry a sense of the Spielbergian about them as we’re thrown from a breathless, breakneck chase between James on a gyroscopic bike as he’s persued by a hefty steampowered vehicle, to another frantic setpiece involving a daring blimp/train heist that careens all the way into Victoria station. Everything looks perfect, the steam is perfect, the vehicle designs are perfect, the characters are perfect. However, I will admit that as we head into an absolutely batshit final third that goes ludicrously epic with flying cities and a full on steam war in the streets of London, the movie almost devolves in an orgy of steam powered destructo-porn and endless level pulling and valve closing to prevent a climactic explosion that would reduce the number of standing structures in the capital city to zero. But even then, you can’t help just taking it all in as to stare agog with your jaw hanging looser than an outhouse door on curry night – it’s just something of a shame that some of the movie’s plot that cause to flick to run out of steam.
Otomo has always been fascinated by skewering the perversion of science for anything less than noble causes while casting a similarly stern eye over rampant capitalism in general and he usually does it through the eyes of children willing to step up and make a difference, but here, the need to tell such a story in a slightly more family friendly environment leaves things feeling a little overfamiliar. With his complex family issues and a desire to blow up huge mechanical symbols of oppression, James is a fairly standard antagonist for this kind of adventure and while the sight of him hurtling through the skies on a flying rig barely in control of his own trajectory is incredibly uplifting, but his struggle isn’t that original compared to the Luke Skywalkers and Peter Parkers of the world.
In fact, it’s greatly amusing that while James is torn between the equally fanatics beliefs of his manic grandfather and his semi-robot father, the most entertaining character by far is the incredibly petulant and selfish daughter of the chairman of the O’Hara Foundation, Scarlett O’Hara St Johns who simply cannot understand what all the fuss is about and cannot fathom why no one is putting her needs first. However, while the plot maybe somewhat simplistic, the world building and animation certainly is not and for sheer razzmatazz for the eyeballs, Steamboy is one animated adventure that certainly piles on the pressure.
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