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I like Masamune Shirow. And yet I rented this. It's kinda like liking Frank Miller and then watching The Spirit. See, Ghost in the Shell is awesome (except for the movies that turn it into EXACTLY the sort of dreary dystopian cyberpunk it's cool for not being). Appleseed totally gets a free pass on any problems it may have because the main character had his brain stuck in a robot body, and that robot body is huge and beefy and arbitrarily has big silly bunny ears. Thing is, while he's done some really awesome, well researched, well-thought out sci-fi stories, there's a bunch of other stuff by him where it's just... sexy private paramilitary ladies and robots and detailed guns because Masamune Shirow totally digs drawing those three things.
So yeah, Gundress. I rented this because it is called Gundress. That's hilarious. I don't THINK anyone in it is going to end up wearing, like, a dress made out of guns or anything, so it's not like calling FF10 Beltdress, but I could be wrong. Anyway though, I've been rambling over the movie here. We've got a bad dub. We've got some people fighting on a boat, with an evil cyborg and our elite special forces sorta team here piloting ridiculous suits of power armor (or maybe they're fairly squat mecha) called Landmates. Now here's a conversation between an expy of the monkey looking boss from GitS and a comic relief cop contact. Now here's two of the characters talking about food. Now here's an awesomely weird motorcycle. Now here's their dorky mechanic repairing the mecha and geeking out about the various main characters skills an personalities. Now here's a flashback of the silverhaired bishonen badguy's tragic backstory. Really, this is low budget, totally generic anime, but it's low budget generic anime FROM THE 90'S. That's totally not the same thing as low budget, totally generic anime from NOW. The big differences being that the art here is basically good and hand drawn and has some really nice backgrounds, and it isn't all self-aware about how generic it is.
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OK, our main characters' organization is officially referred to as Angel Arms. Their boss will henceforth be called Charlie by me because, come on! Too easy! Also- This is really starting to come off like an off brand Bubblegum Crisis. Anyway, we've got a whole lot of exposition here, so I'm getting pretty grounded in the plot, but do you really want to hear about the plot or do you want to here me rambling about how that one mech totally has a whale head? That's what I thought! Now here's a shower scene. Do we have nipples drawn on this girl's boobs? Well, if we don't this doesn't count as nudity by the standards of the medium. That would mean I couldn't use the weird catch phrase I've somehow developed with these. Count it up though. There's the visible nipples, so this is officially an instance of our old friend, Boobs By Paragraph 3.
The boobs in questions belong to Bishie's old love interest (or it might have been sister) who was shot by the cops fleeing a crime scene, fell off a building, and should have been dead, but was saved by cybernetics. Presumably, he still thinks she's dead, but she's actually joined up with the main characters' group. I get the feeling she's our Priss. Meanwhile, purple business dress here is our Sylvia, Blond glasses girl is clearly our Nene, I don't remember the other one but we've also got our other blond girl I'm calling Sailor Venus, a younger type in a puffy shirt we'll just call Tomboy, and uh... I haven't quite picked up on the 6th girl's clear resemblance to a more recognizable character. Actually wait, is it too late to call her Priss and Cyber-girl Major? Let's go with that. So yeah, they're getting sent out on some kinda mission. Probably to fight out the badguys wo have stolen some AWESOMELY RIDICULOUS MECHA and are assaulting the cops with'em. Seriously, we have some super awesome mecha designs all over. No two really have the same build, they've got lots of nifty detailed bits, and pretty much all of them are kinda goofy. The badguys have one wih 4 legs that kinda looks like some sort of semi-humanoid grasshopper or something and a pink one with really long forearms. Priss here one that looks like it's a giant robot designed to play giant robot football or something. Major's looks all cool and knightish... and comic relief cop is trying to arrest the mecha by pointing a gun at them... and dear gods, crazy mecha picking up a teddybear. I HAVE to screengrab that.
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Anyway, these two get all damaged, Major stuffs Priss in a locker then fights her... old flame/brother on foot- OK yeah, old flame. Runs up slaps some explosives onto the torso, gets kinda stepped on trying to jump away after, but not killed of course, because oh hey my girlfriend I thought was dead isn't that's worth a life sparing even though clearly we've both moved on so it's not a big dramatic sappy drama thing. Anyway though, back at the base, we're bodyguarding this Sea Captain looking dude. He's just chilling in the bathtub... which is just kinda sitting in the middle of the room. Now he's getting out and really creeping over all weirdly because they've found some plot exposition on the computer. Why the computer is in the same room as the tub I don't get. I mean, it's a laptop, so they could take it into the bathroom, but this so isn't a bathroom. There's a couch and a table and a big picture window. Then just... a bathtub in the corner. And it's not like it's some ultra-efficient room, this is in some big snazzy mansion looking place. Maybe he had it hauled in there.
So anyway, Major's been captured and handcuffed to a chair by Bishie. She thought he was dead too, and he, too, was given the whole cyborg treatment. I uh... guess he was taken to a different hospital. So anyway he's all mwahaha I'm evil but hey let's kiss. Now here's another awesome mech. It's a freaking ghoma. You know, the cyclops spider things from Zelda? Oh dear gods, which of the main characters has a mech with a CLAM FOR A HEAD? That's possibly cooler than the whale one. Anyway, Priss got all hurt, so she's being bandaged up by a totally dorky doctor here. This apparently mainy involves just totally covering her boobs in bandages and nothing else really, I guess she broke some uh... mammary bones or something. Meanwhile Priss escapes her handcuffs because she can just split her hand open to reveal a laser cannon, cyborg and all. So she does that, then quickly hacks the ghoma, which is actually a robot not a mech. It's all, "MY NAME IS CALBAROS. HOW MAY I SERVE YOU MASTER?" Then she rides it to freedom. This thing is awesome, I hope they keep it. It also growls, and the one big eye it goes turns red when it does so. Oh, and that'll get confusing. Tomboy's name actually IS Sylvia. I'm still calling the girl in the suit Sylvia though... and frell! Tomboy is even their leader! You two wanna just kinda switch general appearances real quick and make my life easier?
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OK, seriously, I love that they're called "landmates." That's like... I don't know. Are there seamates? Is it like playmate? If it is like playmate, is that in the Playboy sense, or the sense where they sound like cuddly sidekicks for 5 year olds? Either way it's totally inappropriate. Anyway here's some more mecha. They're like, teenage mutant samurai turtles. Also? Sailor Venus totally wears this tiger striped cat suit when piloting her landmate. Man, look at that last sentence. Doesn't that look like it's some sort of lewd innuendo? Also, random geese in the midle of the road while we're trying to ram Mantis Mech with a... big armored vehicle. It's like some sorta future truck or something. Oh and Nene's the one with the clam head mech. And dude, Football Mech has such an awesome face. It's got this big promenent chin and it's making a face like this- :[ Oh and dang, Sea Captain just fell for the old crying kid trap and got flame thrower'd. Now Knight Mech is all trashed. Now the cops are arriving and saying to surrender, and Bad Guy just goes "What a dick," which is a weird thing to say in that context. Then he runs away. So yeah, I think I've described every mech here so far except for the boring yellow one. I'm not sure who pilots that one and who pilots Whale Head.
Man, this movie has way too many characters! They're all in this room! Also, this room is sick bay again. Sea Captain has bandaged ribs, all proper looking. Major though has the bandaged boob thing going on. Just, tons of bandaging right there, then bare midriff. And why are those bandages so contour hugging? Seriously it's like the slutty halloween variation of bandaged ribs or something. Also, wow. Tomboy SO CAN'T FREAKING DRESS HERSELF. That's like almost Tetsuya Nomura level bad fashion sense. Major's dressin' super awesome now though. Black fur lined jumpsuit with shoulder pads jutting out like a foot straight out from her arms. Anyway, time to assault the main bad guys' fortress. It's essentially a boat, because it's mobile and in the water, but it's like.... a sixty story building, and pretty much looks like an island. So... let's just say it's Metroplex. And YES THEY ARE KEEPING THEIR PET ROBOT GHOMA! It's plodding along behind them like a happy puppy! And yeah, these are totally mecha, it's smaller than they are and someone was riding it's back earlier.
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Oh dude I just noticed the generic samurai turtle bad guy mecha have these little vestigial mini-arms on their chest. Not a pair though, just the one. It's like, I guess if you wanted to do a chest bump that was also a high five, you're all set, but it can't do much else. Maybe use a human sized gun? That's actually probably the idea. Say what you will but Masamune Shirow actually does put thought into this stuff. I'm sure there's a manga version of this with detailed liner notes explaining why Nene specifically chose this clam headed mech and it's all like, complimentary to her skills. And OK, it's Tomboy in the Whale mech, and Sailor Venus in Gold'n'Boring. Oh. But Gold'n'Boring actually does have two little mini-arms in the front and like... tuxedo overcoat tails hanging off the back. And antennae. It's pretty neat up close. Also, knight mech got trashed so Major's just riding on Calbaro's back again. It's like some kinda proto-tachikoma or something... NOOOOOOOOO! Just after I double check his name he dies! Oh wait, good, his eye is salvaged. They can rebuild him.
So now comes the part where Major has to go confront Bishie on foot... in the matrix! Dude you are so walking into a trap here. Also, when you jack into cyberspace, your clothes don't come with you, so she's naked again here. But no, seriously, she's on foot, sneaking around the base looking for him. He's just sitting here in a chair, with his face on a bunch of monitors, and he's all I'm not really here, sit in that chair, jack in, and come find me. You don't do that! You hack his robo-limbs off, yank the plug out of his skull, and haul him into custody. Or just take his head. He's all GitS style full cyborg right? I mean, the body's all robot but there's still a physical brain in it. He's not really IN the computer, right? But anyway, yeah, TOTALLY gratuitous nudity here. I mean, she's even doing arbitrary barrel rolls while flying around looking for him.
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Meanwhile whale and clam mech are off hacking the computer systems properly. Also, LOOK OUT! CYBERSPACE IS FULL OF DEADLY TRIANGLES! No really. It is. Deadly triangles. And meanwhile Football and Goldie aare having the final conflict with Mantis. Seriously though, I so love Whale Mech. It looks totally tough and badass but the head is SO GOOFY. Oh so I guess Monkey Expy isn't their boss, he's just like, some evil conspiracy guy. And oh no! Not just triangles, now there's deadly checker boards! And really we're just arbitrarily showing her doing naked barrel rolls while shee and Bishy talk and have flashbacks to their generic shared crimey backstory. OK, now we at least have two naked people flying through the matrix, gender equity and all. I'm kinda losing the thread of the point here, but.... it's pretty stupid whatever it is. Now everyone's running into the jack-in room where they can watch this scene on the big screen. Can't jack her out though, because that's the rule don'tcha know. Anyway, I guess Bishie doesn't own this fortress, it belongs to the Gov'ment, and it's a repository of military secrets... which he just floated over to and started eating. Just grabbing big handfuls of the big orange sphere of information and stuffing them in his mouth all om nom nom style. That's just tops. Then Monkey Expy starts reformatting the drive though, so he's like... trapped and in pain or something? So Major just goes ahead and jacks out and shoots him in the head. So... I gotta ask. Is this really WRITTEN by Masamune Shirow, or did he just do the design work? He knows better than that level of stupid. Maybe this is the first thing he ever wrote before he started seriously doing the research? I'm sure wikipedia knows, but I'm too tired to check.
So anyway, yeah, the main characters daring escape as the base explodes, as bases tend to once there's no more plot to do in them. Apparentlly they abandoned all their awesome mecha inside though. But they totally saved the "nucleus" of the AWESOME GHOMA ROBOT. Major asks Nene if she can build a new body for him so he can officially join the team. That rocks so hard. I mean, if you put any thought into it it's incredibly stupid but I can't convey how much that thing is made of pure joy. So yeah. That was actually a really fun movie. I mean, it was totally generic and stupid, but it was also just a thin excuse to have incredibly silly mecha shoot at each other for 90 minutes without much exposition and the sort of oldschool anime art style which is pleasing and comforting to my eye. Oh and a lot of rotating nude girl towards the end if you're into that sorta thing... and don't get yanked out of it when the nude guy with the Ken doll crotch shows up too. Also, looking at the sleeve blurb, I guess Bishie and Major were actually COPS before, not criminals. Tomato tomato? Wow... that expression just DOES NOT WORK in text does it.
