Metropolis

S

SIRup

New member
I saw the anime Version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis this weekend and while I have always thought of it as an Art Deco/Surealist movie, I was surprised to see it redone with a steam punk feel in the japanese version, yet with the whole split world the victorian/Steam punk vibe really worked for it.

Now I have a soft spot for a lot of the french comics and animation like blake and mortimer, titin, asterix and lucky luke and I also read a lot of manga ( due in part to my local borders having 2 for 1 offers on these quiet often) Yet I was very surprised to see how much the french and japanese character styles seem to have influenced each other and at the same time compliment each other.

I would recomend that if you haven't seen it go watch it
 
Tezuka's Metropolis has next to NOTHING to do with Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

The only relation between the two was that Tezuka once saw a poster to the silent film, went "that'd be a great idea for a manga", and then built an entire story around that one image.

But, yes, the anime does have a very 1920's film feel to it (especially the scene transitions), and is definitely a classic.
 
In addition to what veemonjosh said, Fritz Lang was Austrian, not French, although I'm not sure if you're talking about French comics or if you thought the original Metropolis was a French movie. Tintin is also Belgian, for what that's worth. However, I believe one character in Tezuka's manga wears a monocle as an homage to Lang, who was known for wearing one as well.

I was not very taken with this anime, I'm afraid. It certainly looked gorgeous, and it got off to a decent start, but I felt went pretty incoherent pretty fast and finished with the kind of "I'm out of time so let's just stop everything, blow it all up, and then roll credits" ending that I've come to expect out of Katsuhiro Otomo. My wife and I found it hilariously funny when the movie starts playing Ray Charles over the blowitup ending, and I'm pretty sure that's not the effect that Rintaro was going for.
 
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