Reviewed on May 30th, 2006

Visually

Appleseed is a superb anime visual wise. It's eloquent looks and graphics make it one of the best looking animes around.

Audio

Well for audio it is just fine. The character voicing is well done and nothing to complain about at all.

Storyline

After the Third World War ended, a group called the General Management Control Office formed to help salvage what was left of humanity. Together, the combined governments of the world built an "experimental city" named Olympus and staffed it with half-human, half-robot constructs ("bioroids" in the sub, "biodroids" in the dub) who handle all the administrative work. The inhabitants of Olympus, rescued from the chaotic postwar landscape of "the Badlands," live in beauty and luxury. For some of them, however, it's just not enough. Two of Olympus' more satisfied residents, tough tomboy Duenan Knute and her partner Briareos (who, due to the extensive physical damage he suffered in the Badlands, underwent extensive cybernetic prosthetic work and now looks like a gigantic bipedal robot cyclops-bunny) seem to end up dealing with the disaffected relatively often--as members of the Olympus SWAT team, they're first on the front line when a terrorist attack takes place in a downtown building. Their expertise ends the standoff, but one terrorist, the mysterious cyborg fanatic A.J. Sebastian, escapes and immediately starts planning his next move. Sebastian has an unlikely partner in Calon, a melancholy policeman whose wife--who couldn't handle what she interpreted as the artificial confinement of Olympus--commits suicide in Appleseed's opening scene. Calon believes Olympus murdered his wife, who must be avenged, but Sebastian seems to have loftier goals. He claims that the bioroids comprise 80 percent of the inhabitants of the city, and that they're planning to institute a control system that would keep humanity under control forever. Duenan and Briareos don't really deal with the possible morality or ramifications of Sebastian's claims. They're just cops, and they show a certain bias towards kicking terrorist tush over all else, even if they have to quit the force and chase Sebastian down on their own time. It certainly doesn't help Sebastian's case that the key to his plot is a cute-as-a-bug bioroid named Hitomi--a personal friend to half the city, and the social worker who personally rescued Duenan and Briareos from the Badlands.

DVD

The DVD quality of this anime/manga is great. The quality should be P-E-R-F-E-C-T. If not well then what can I say you probably got ripped off.

Overall

I give Appleseed a 4 out of 5 overall only because in some parts of the anime I totally didn't understand what they were talking about. Otherwise other than that its a perfect anime for any anime lover to check out.

by Aidan