Liam Scanlan “Steamboy” Review 5/13/19
The anime film “Akira”, a cyberpunk epic about a boy named Kaneda trying to save both his best-friend-turned-cyborg Tetsuo and the Neo-Tokyo 2020 Olympics, is highly-regarded as one the greatest animated features of all time. Yet director Katsuhiro Otomo’s other works, including another anime film, “Steamboy”, always get swept under the rug, despite being very good.
“Steamboy”, which is set in London in 1866, centers around a boy prodigy named Ray Steam, who comes from a family of inventors, and who is gifted a so-called “steam ball”, which is an important invention design to help fuel steam-powered machines, from his grandfather Lloyd. He then gets kidnapped by an organization called the “O’Hara Foundation”, who is one of many groups of people who are said ball, and is planning to use it for a terrorist attack against the London Exhibition, and before too long, Ray gets caught in the middle of a lengthy battle between the O’Hara Foundation and the British Empire.
The film’s way of storytelling is very interesting. The film depicts both the O’Hara Foundation and the British Empire as antagonistic forces, which was surprising to me, but not to my twin brother Reilly, who says that Otomo likes to depict all adults as villains and only kids as the heroes. To make the story even more interesting, the film uses actual British historical figures from its 1860’s period setting as characters. For example, the London Exhibition, which I have mentioned in the above synopsis, was a real conference held in London to explore the world’s newest inventions, and Robert Stephenson, the Father of the Railway and a master inventor, himself, is in this as well.
The characters are very interesting as well. For example, the little girl Scarlett O’Hara-St. John’s is so spoiled and so stupid that it’s actually funny. It also combats Ray’s selflessness and intelligence, placing emphasis on his virtuous nature and massive intelligence, while making the latter look cruel and incompetent . Another example would be Lloyd Steam, who tells Ray that not to trust all adults due to their selfishness, and is determined to save Eddy from being oblivious to the O’Hara Foundation’s true intentions, which involve making war, rather than giving steam power, despite what the Foundation says. One final example would be Eddy, who I find to be funny, not only because he looks like a silly-looking cyborg, but also because he shares his name with a character from the funnies cartoon from my childhood, at least in my opinion, “Ed, Edd n Eddy”. I also find his aforementioned obliviousness to the O’Hara Foundation’s evil ways to be so exciting that it helps the film’s story very much.
I find the film’s not-so-subtle “Akira” references to be quite amusing, as well. For example, in the film’s climax, Ray dons an outfit similar to Kaneda’s, and Eddy resembles another one of the film’s characters, Colonel Shikishima.
The film’s animation is very good. In fact, some shots from the film, including a shot showing a parade, remind me not only of the work of Oscar-winning anime director Hayao Miyazaki, but also of a very well-animated, if not well-written, animated feature, “Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland”, which is technically anime considering a Japanese studio, TMS, which was also responsible for animating “Akira” both produced and financed it.
The only problem I have with this film is its climax, which takes so long that it’s practically hard to tell HOW long both it runs. I doubt a great director Otomo would make drag this kind of climax to ridiculously long length, so I think it may be the editor’s fault.
I would recommend this film, not just to fans of “Akira”, but also to those who want to watch a great-but-underrated anime, as well as to those who’d enjoy some great historical fiction.
In conclusion, I give this film a 9.5/10.
The End.
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