A review of MTV Liquid Televisions 1987 anime science fiction anthology 'Neo Tokyo'.
Neo Tokyo is an anthology of 3 short films, the best of which is the middle film called Running Man, which ran years ago on MTV's Liquid Television along with Peter Chung's Aeon Flux.
Neo Tokyo begins with Labyrinth, which features a small girl being lured into a carnival tent where she sees the 2nd and 3rd films, Running Man and The Order To Stop Construction. Running Man, directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, is about a futuristic race and its god, Zack Hugh, who, like most athletes, don't know when it's time to quit. The Order To Stop Construction, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, is set in the Amazon where a construction manager is ordered to halt a construction project gone haywire under its rogue construction manager, which happens to be a robot, a la Frankenstein.
I don't think that telling a story is the real object here as much as it is to showcase the talents of the respective directors, Rin Taro, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, and Katsuhiro Otomo. All of their styles are strong and distinct. You have Taro's surrealistic look, Kawajiri's realistic look, and Otomo's obsession with mechanical details. But of the three, the best imo, is Kawajiri's segment, and career for that matter. Anyway, anyone interested in seeing what real anime is, when it was really good and before it went south trying to please American tastes, check out this collection.
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