Within any medium of entertainment you will certainly find those examples that display the sterotypes to be filled out by each genre. Anime of course, is no exception. For quite a whiles anime used to be just that, up until the likes of Harmegedon made its way onto the scene. Now thanks to the folks at Central Park Media and U.S Manga Corps I've had the chance to view this piece of anime history, and boy was it a doozy.

Though it seems as if history repeats itself, Harmegedon does hold its signficance within the history of anime. Back in the days of old most anything in anime dealt with the likes of a fantasy story along with the big eyed, perfectly proportional characters we've all come to know of by now. Well, Harmegdon went and broke that mold with something many fans had yet to witness in an anime, realism. Harmegedon is about a young psychic princess named Luna who is given a horrifying vision of an impending invasion upon Earth. Knowing it to be a, well, harmful one she sets off to find the world's most powerful pyschics to aid her in being rid of the intergalactic menace. Thus the events of Harmegedon are put into motion.

Now as I had previously mentioned, Harmegedon broke the then sterotypical fantasy mold (or other exaggerated cliches) by bringing with it a previously unseen sense of realism. It did this by using settings that were available in the real world, as so the audience could actually relate themselves to what they were seeing. Cities, schools, and so on. Furthermore, the characters themselves were very much plain, with nary a gravity defying strand of hair to be found really. No abnormally large breasts or muscular hereos either. Just your average Joe and Jill. Now you may be asking yourself who would be behind such a project, but don't worry because I'm here to answer that question. As one of their most earliest collaborations, Harmegedon was brought to be by the pairing of Rintaro and Katsuhiro Otomo. For those of you wondering they may be, well Rintaro has directed such films as Kimba the White Lion and X: The Movie whilst Otomo himself is best known as the director and author behind Akira (take a look at a character or two in Harmegedon and you'll see an early Tetsou or Kaneda). There you have it (with Otomo as part of the project it's no wonder the story dealt with pyschics).

Well now that I've put that heap of information on the table, there's the matter of the film's literal content itself. Acting for the most part is done well, both in English and the original Japanese spoken format. Something to make note of is that the cyborg was merely given a regularly voice for a Japanese VA, while dubbed that said cyborg is given the typical acoustic 'echo'-esque, monotone voice. On that 'note', the music selection is quite to describe actually. Most of the music fits, and at some points its woven in beautifully to what may be happening on screen, but for the most part the music is pretty much ambient. There are parts in the film where its nothing but simple silence, but those moments do hold their merit. Now that's not to say that ambience is bad, it's just something I'm not used to that's all. That leaves us with the quality of animation. Being that this film is nearly 20 years old it still happens to feature some excellent animation. Some scenes to take notice of are within the tower still under construction and introduction of a certain someone amist the piping hot magma of a volcana near the film's end.

If you want my opinion on the film however (which you just may be looking for, having read this far into the review already) you will find that I simply didn't enjoy it. First off, it runs for 132 minutes. Ten minutes over the two hour mark. For an anime film, that's crazy. At first I was into the film, but because they chose to slowly introduce (and I really mean introduce in the most elongated fashion possible) all the characters I actually had to try and somewhat keep myself awake. Princess Luna receives the most time with the audience (obviously) and because of that the other characters take a back seat to her. That would have been fine and dandy for me, but they actually progress her character less and just concetrate more on Joe (one of the more powerful, if not the most powerful) psychics. Confusing at times to say the least. So the film is basically one large get together to beat up the bad guy romp, with the world kicking the bucket allt he meanwhile; only in this case it was more a less one of its kind back during its own time. A bit of both worlds can be too much though. It's good that they introduce all the characters, but its bad that it takes so long to do so. Oh well.

As you can possibly guess, the picture quality was increased thanks to being digital remastered. So while the animation does come off as being dated (which it is) the picture itself is sharp and crisp. The same goes for the sounds. Honestly I'd tell you more, but truly is the gist of it.

Ah, finally. My favorite part to blabber endless on about, extras. It's sparse, but one extra in particular (which I'll save for last) makes it worth a second of third viewing of the film. First off, there's the interview with Rintaro. I was excited once I started the interview, but then it ended as soon as it had began. Furthemore it's nothing more than Rintaro's stint at this year's Anime Expo in NYC actually. He mentions little of the film, as the interview didn't seem to be exclusive (as in they were not the only ones who wanted to ask a few questions or otherwise). Abrupt and cut off. After that you'll find a biography on the production team (Rintaro and Otomo) and a brief snippet telling you of Harmegedon's role in anime history. Again, it sounds empty, and well it is, but the saving grace is the commentary track by Rintaro. By switching to the third audio track on the CD and turning on the subtitles you can listen up on Rintaro's thoughts as the story progresses. He talks of those moments of silence I mentioned earlier (as an example), problems he had just animating the film (and having the animators at the time disliking the realism to be found in Harmegedon) and other things in regards to his partnership with Otomo. So thankfully you're given that audio commentary to make up for the rather luckluster amount of extras, and for a collector's edition no less. Shame shame.

Well this brings another review to a close. As a Collector's Edition it's not even worthy of that title, and the film itself is just weird, even more so as the story progresses. If you're up for some old school loving (complete with spoken Enlgish end theme song) this is definitely for you. If not, then perhaps you're tolerant enough to look past a tiny stash of extras and 'ambient' storyline. Either way, it is worthy as a rental though. Good luck. May the force be with you. Maybe.

For more information, please visit Central Park Media.