Steamboy
Released By: Manga Entertainment
Rating: PG
Running Time: 126 Mins
Audio: Japanese 5.1 & English 5.1
Release Date: Out Now!
Reviewed By: Sandra Scholes
Considered the highest budget spent on an anime in Japan, Steamboy is a steampunk masterpiece set in Victorian England with Ray Steam a teen who likes inventing things just like his family, but his father and his grandfather have been absent for too long. These two are the inventors of the Steam Ball and have since gone missing.
When the Steam Ball comes to Ray via the mail he has to make sure it does not get into the wrong hands as it has an immense amount of energy that could destroy as much as it could be used for good. When a gang locates where the Steam Ball is, and his father, Edward and grandfather aren't what he thought, his father is a different man, a dangerous cyborg who us not satisfied with creating one he wants to create more weapons that wouldn't be out of place in a Bond movie. His grandfather, Lloyd is a mad old man who keeps trying to destroy Steam Castle the place where the inventions occur.
There is a lot of HG Wells in this story, rival inventors, machines that can do much more than humanly thought. The animation gives viewers the greatest impression of size and the thought that progress even at that time is going at a rapid rate where the futuristic setting will take over the rustic.
People's perceptions of what animations are and the age group they are meant for can differ and at times it is an idea to remind parents that Japanese animation unlike Western animation is aimed at a more more mature viewer. Steamboy may be an anime but it has adult elements in it children should be aware of.
Bonus Material:
The Voyage Of Steamboy ( a making of the film with interviews with cast and crew), Re-Voicing Steamboy ( ADR process with Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin and Al Molina), and an interview with director Katsuhiro Otomo in English.
Summary: Steampunk Victoriana done Japanese style - not so much liked as loved!
