Review: Megazone 23 Trilogy

Through AnimeEigo, I’ve had the opportunity to do a revisit of the Megazone 23 trilogy through their brand-new Blu-ray release. Unlike Riding Bean, which I reviewed via AnimeEigo a couple of months ago as well, this is a work I have seen before and do know a bit about, and I thought it’d be fun to revisit it.

Part I (1985)

Megazone 23 Part I is a work of director Noboru Ishiguro and his studio, Artland, in collaboration with animation design studio ArtMIC, written by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, and with designs by Toshihiro Hirano (Toshiki Hirano). In retrospect, the themes and devices feel somewhat similar to Superdimensional Fortress Macross (1982), Ishiguro’s previous work as director. Whereas Macross follows Hikaru Ichijou who is a civilian pilot turned SDF fighter and transforming mecha pilot, Megazone 23 follows teenage biker Shogo Yahagi as he becomes involved with a super bike-and-transforming mecha being hunted by the government. In the backdrop of both are core characters involved with music as idols, but that’s enough about general comparisons to a completely other work.

Part I’s greatest strength is its artistry, I think. Art director Mitsuki Nakamura and his team from Design Office Mecaman (as well as those from Studio Tao) have painted some gorgeous backgrounds of living interiors, cityscapes, and sci-fi buildings. Of course, the animation—supervised by Hirano, Ichirou Itano, Narumi Kakinouchi, and Haruhiko Mikimoto—is not any less lacking in layout power and force, especially in scenes involving the motorbikes, mecha, and action (the characters are drawn beautifully regardless, don’t get me wrong).

Without going too deep into spoilers, Shogo is crass and blunt, but he’s consistent in his motivations and beliefs. When Yui, the dancer love interest, is about to sleep with a producer who is willing to give her a lead role, he steals her away. She criticizes him because he grabs her like he “owns” her, which is a discussion about her autonomy in a way. Though Shogo is “saving” her, in spite of her consent with the producer, from being merely exploited for sexual favor, he too ends up falling into the trap of otherwise rejecting her choices. This is relevant to the themes of the rest of the work, too: the revelation that society is not “free” and has no autonomy, that they live a fake truth given to them by those in power. When exploited against, or lied to, the freedom of choice supersedes other logic, even if it has to be “forced” into truth.

I think that’s where Megazone 23 ends up being its strongest: Shogo’s character and his motivations. It’s not supremely nuanced, but it’s easy to root for him and to generally ‘align’ with him. The first person he reveals this information to is none other than the love interest, and when he does so, the screen images are of their most intimate moments, so to speak. It’s little things like that that make me appreciate the OVA, and I quite like Part I.

Part II (1986)

Megazone 23 Part II is stylistically strange. Hoshiyama returns as a scriptwriter, but Ishiguro only acts in a supervising role, instead with Ichirou Itano taking over as director in his debut (he was the action director, a storyboard artist, a unit director, and an animation director for Part I). Artland and ArtMIC are both present alongside studio AIC, which is represented by Tooru Miura, the producer of these two parts; and Hirano doesn’t return as character designer. Instead, Yasuomi Umetsu is tasked with the job, his debut as a designer, in which he also acts as the general (chief) animation director with various people helping in assistant roles.

The switch to Umetsu’s designs is the strangest decision. The characters from Part I carry over into Part II, but Umetsu’s style is much more “realistic” than Hirano’s or other staff members like Mikimoto. Umetsu had worked on Part I as a storyboard artist and key animator and was originally just asked to do the biker designs, but after redesigning the main characters for fun and showing Miura and Itano, they opted to use his designs instead. Itano also opts for a different color palette by which the colorful green hair of Yui and other characters are replaced with more “realistic” colors. The change can come across as being difficult to interpret, because it means having to reidentify characters with a new look.

I can see the reason for the change being that the world or audience is now aware of the “truth” of the scenario, or some sort of realism pertaining to that idea, and thus the designs being changed to reflect that idea, but it’s such a drastic change that it’s difficult to appreciate as a creative decision, especially since this work came out only a year after the first part. On a humorous note, Umetsu said that after the design change, he sent an apology to Hirano.

The work is a little bit messy artistically. The backgrounds are wonderfully painted (this time under Kazuhiro Arai’s art direction), and the character art is good, but the animation is more inconsistent and disjointed with a number of noticeable errors especially in movement. Umetsu himself voiced dissatisfaction with his work on the OVA, but I don’t think that should take away from the enjoyment or general artistry otherwise.

This time around, Shogo and a crew of bikers act as rebels against a totalitarian military government and search for the cyber-idol Eve who, in the last part, fled. It’s a direct continuation that picks up more or less where Part I left off which is only slightly confusing due to the art style change and sudden difference of where it picks up. I don’t think it’s as interesting as a scenario, personally, but it’s still something that I think is worth experiencing, both on its own terms and as the debut of Itano and Umetsu as director and character designer, respectively.

Part III (1989)

Megazone 23 Part III is a jump into the future. This OVA loosely follows the events of the prior two. Director Shinji Aramaki is credited with the original work, and he co-directs this with Kenichi Yatagai. Emu Arii is the writer, Hiroyuki Kitazume designed the characters, and AIC takes over as the production studio (with ArtMIC still attached).

This time, we follow a hacker centuries after the end of Part II, but it’s pretty clear early on that it ties into the previous two somehow given the appearance of Eve early on (and it’s not just using concept or namesake). Despite all this, it’s still very loose in its connections, and I don’t think the story or screenplay end up being as interesting. It’s a more straightforward narrative, but I don’t think it quite has the more subtle attempts at depth in its themes, and it feels diluted compared to the others in pure style (considering all of the elements together, not the art style on its own).

Artistically it’s still strong. Aramaki was one of the mechanical designers for parts I and II. I’ve not actually looked into what he specifically designed, but with my knowledge of Aramaki, I would guess that it was some of the more sci-fi elements, and some of his sensibilities still come along even as he’s not responsible for the designs this time around; and there’s a number of big artists who come in to do some great work, namely Nobuyuki Kitajima, Naoyuki Onda, Morifumi Naka, and Masami Obari, so there’s that to look forward to as well.

Part III is enjoyable, but I do think it ends up being the weakest of the set considering both its very loose connection to the prior parts and its weak conclusion.

Extras

This AnimeEigo release has a couple of extras, namely Japanese and American promos and trailers, an art gallery, and some extra dubs (such as a MangaUK dub).

Personally, the most interesting extra is a special commentary track featuring mangaka Gaku Miyao, one of the mechanical designers for Part I who was mainly in charge of designing the “modern” vehicles, and GAINAX Kyoto producer Hiroki Satou (who was, at one point, CEO of GAINAX). Needless to say, I had a good time with it.

All in all, I did have a lot of fun revisiting this series years after I had first seen it. If you’re interested, please check it out.

Side note: AIC (or rather, AIC Rights) is supposedly still trying to plan for a reboot (Megazone 23 SIN and Megazone 23 IX). I’m kind of wary about it since AIC’s production studio has been defunct since 2015, and their recent works have been contracted to other studios. Animatic (or storyboard?) footage released by AIC for SIN showed the logo of Masahiko Komino’s studio Lunch Box, so this seems to be another similar case; but making another work in this franchise with the same energy at all seems like it’d be rather difficult given the state of the industry, so I’m wishing them luck in the endeavor.