Redline

Someone showed the Japan­ese ‘Wacky Races’. They were not impressed. “They call this ‘wacky’?”, they said. “We’ll show them wacky”. You have never seen an anime like this before. Red­line is an experience. The story is about some punk-ass racing driver JP. He’s got­ten him­self into some match-fixing scan­dals but, due to some unfore­see­able coin­cid­ences, he wound up qual­i­fy­ing for Red­line, the worlds biggest racing event. The only rule is your vehicle must use wheels. Plus, to make things inter­est­ing, they decided to hold the race on Roboplanet, home to a war­ring civil­isa­tion who vow to kill any racers who dare enter their planet. Why hold the racethere? So the TV rat­ings for the galaxy air­ing of Red­line shoot through the roof and so the anim­at­ors have plenty of oppor­tun­it­ies to anim­ate pretty explosions. Not that any of this really mat­ters. The plot is a tedi­ous frivolity that’s just there to jus­tify the crazy sequences they put these char­ac­ters through. You couldn’t even hear the expos­i­tion and explan­at­ory dia­logue over the explo­sions, rev­ving engines and thump­ing soundtrack, to the point that sub­titles would often appear on the screen when I couldn’t hear any­one actu­ally say­ing any­thing. The real sign of this is the final scene, which I won’t spoil, but acts as a sign by the cre­at­ors that you weren’t meant to be tak­ing this ser­i­ously in any way, shape or form. It’s such a bril­liantly corny way to end the movie that you can’t help but applaud the auda­city of it all. Red­line is all about the visual exper­i­ence. As little import­ance as they might have had, it’s really a shame I had to pay some degree of atten­tion to the sub­titles because I prob­ably missed so many little details. Each scene is full of little eye­c­atches to com­pli­ment the over­all pic­ture. From the Red­line cham­pion Iron­head, a 3 metre tall fella with a head of, sur­prise sur­prise, iron, strok­ing his teeny tiny dog dur­ing an inter­view, or the hero in JP’s dream snog­ging two girls at once, the movie is full of these little amus­ing details that act as winks to the audi­ence. I’d almost say it didn’t have enough of these, which is kinda like say­ing Death Note needed more Latin chant­ing, but I could have done with a few less explo­sions and a few more cars fly­ing through the air with their wind­screen wipers on. There’s only so many ways you can make an explo­sion look inter­est­ing. I’m pretty sure Red­line used up every single method, and made up a few of it’s own, but the eccent­ri­cit­ies with anim­at­ing other incid­ents is what made me love this movie. Red­line is aim­ing to have as much fun as pos­sible. That’s how the brain behind the series works and drives what the movie does next. Com­pare this to Panty and Stock­ing for a second. P&S uses the auda­city of it’s anim­a­tion tech­niques to pro­voke shocked responses of “OMG did they just do that!?!”. Red­line uses it’s anim­a­tion for the power of fun. You can tell how much the cre­at­ors enjoyed work­ing on this. If any­thing, it looks like they might have had too much fun and were forced to cut out parts of the movie to make it more man­age­able. There cer­tainly appeared to be a chunk of the final race miss­ing as it leaped from mid­way point to the fin­ish line. All things con­sidered, they prob­ably made the right choice if they cut out some scenes from there. The movie was just the right length, any­more might have killed the fun just that little bit, but it did leave the final race feel­ing a little bit disjointed. Ulti­mately, because of the dis­reg­ard for nar­rat­ive, the movie doesn’t hold much weight. Hence I don’t think it will make quite the splash some of the early reviews pre­dicted it would make. But Red­line is such an incred­ibly fun film that I find it hard to see how people won’t get sucked in by it’s atmo­sphere and inten­tions, grin­ning like a maniac right the way through the film. Are you not enter­tained? Is this not why you are here? ::Edit:: I've seen this movie 3 times now and decided to hike the score up from an 8 to a 9. If anything, it gets more fun with each rewatch

If Redline was to be described in one word, 'explosive' would be it. This off-the-wall animated racing movie is overflowing with zany antics, over-the-top characters, and logic-defying awesomeness. It doesn't have a complex story, and offers next to nothing for the thinking viewer, but that is obviously not its aim. Redline is a stunning display of visual brilliance, a reminder that the reason we love animation is that it can pull off things that are too ridiculous and outrageous to be accomplished in live action. It is the pinnacle of style over substance. Redline took over 7 years to make, reportedly used 100,000 hand-made drawings, andwas released later than its originally intended release date. Needless to say, this was a monumental effort by the animators; something you can feel while watching this movie. Every single shot in the movie is amazingly well detailed, brimming with attitude and audacity. There isn't a moment in the movie that doesn't demand your attention, there is just so much to look at: there are strange looking aliens, outlandishly awesome vehicles, their equally as awesome operators, fantastical spaceships, legions of killer robots, crazy bounty hunters, insane speed-freaks, biologically created weapons of mass destruction, scantily clad and topless women, and thousands upon thousands of explosions. The animators took every crazy idea that popped into their heads and brought them to life in stunning detail, all for the sole purpose of making your eyes explode from the sheer awesomeness of what you are watching. The artwork itself is something unique. Heavily lined, highly defined, and more reminiscent to western comic-books or adult aimed animation than traditional anime. It is nothing like the bishounen/bishoujo look that dominates modern anime; it doesn't have a hint of that sort of 'attractiveness'. Instead, part of the appeal of Redline's art style is how freakishly outlandish the characters can look; one of the main characters looks like a goblin with a pink streak going across his face from ear to ear, in a suit. He looks relatively normal in comparison to many side characters. Even the human (or human-like) characters have strange or exaggerated features. The animation is smooth, and under first time director Takeshi Koike, infused with frenetic energy. The dynamism of the animation perfectly compliments the unique art style; making for an insane visual thrill ride. Redline's soundtrack is also very strong. Composed of mostly high energy electronic beats and guitar riffs with equally as enthusiastic vocals, there is nary a quiet moment in Redline's soundtrack, which is entirely fitting for the movie. The music is perfect for the movie's purposes; its crazy, often funny, and pumps up the adrenaline for the bombastic action set-pieces. In addition, many of the characters have their own themes, all of which are delightful in their own way. Now for the plot, it's a mess. It's a crazy, fun, and thoroughly entertaining mess albeit, but a mess nonetheless. Granted, this is an animated racing movie, so it is not as if a meaningful plot is expected. Indeed, Redline has all the thematic depth of a dixie cup, but that doesn't mean there is not a lot going on. With the romantic sub-plot between protagonists JP and Sonoshee, the conflict with the militaristic Roboworld, a sub-plot involving JP's friend Frisbee being entangled with the mafia, and all the rivalries between the racers; there might actually be a bit too much going on. Of course, all if this is building up to the spectacle of the big race, however, that doesn't make this cluster of plot-lines any less convoluted. The pay-off of these plot-lines alto varies; in the worst cases they're just dropped or forgotten about, in the best cases they're resolved with explosions and violence. While this isn't a bad thing, since it means more great animated action sequences, it does show that while the animation is stellar, the writing is severely lacking. Something the writing does succeed at is the humor. This is an outrageously funny movie, tossing jokes and silly antics left and right, and mostly hitting the mark. A lot of the humor comes from the ridiculous, exaggerated personalities of the characters. The cast is essentially a collection of caricatures, yet all are colorful and memorable. There is the egotistic cyborg who is the longstanding Redline champion, and claims to be in a league of his own because he is literally one with his ride. Lynchman and JohnnyBoya, a pair of bounty hunters who look and act like superhero parodies. The Super Boins are a hyper sexualized pop duo with a vehicle that transforms into a woman-shaped robot that has their cockpits as its boobs. The segments in the middle of the movie that introduce these characters are hysterical. Then there is all the weird situations and circumstances characters find themselves in. Not everything is comedic gold, but even when the jokes don't completely work, they are entertaining enough in their weirdness. It is all very tongue-in-cheek and in-your-face ridiculous, and that is what makes it so much fun. Redline is a movie that thrives more on pure entertainment value than a strong plot and cast of characters. It runs on adrenaline and showmanship rather than a well crafted narrative or complex themes. While this does prove to be the movie's biggest shortcoming, it is also the best thing it has going for it. Though the plot falls flat on many aspects, the movie itself never fails to entertain. Admittedly, you might have to turn your brain off and stretch your suspension of disbelief to fully enjoy Redline. However, if exciting pop-corn munching material with a ton of passion is what you are craving, then Redline is just the thing for you.

Way back at the turn of the century a short OVA series was released that went by the name “Trava”. It was a quirky series that was noted mostly for its visual style. The think bold shadows and lines were very much not unlike those of a comic book and it sported some very interesting and experimental animation. It was co-directed by Takeshi Koike, who instead of going on to direct some more anime seemingly stuck in the background and directed bits and pieces of animation here and there. More specifically, he was also behind the Afro Samurai promo, a section of the Animatrix andIron Man’s pilot. All of them had the same style as Trava, thick and bold shadows and incredibly stylistic animation. While it appeared that Koike wasn’t heavily involved in the industry, in reality Madhouse had went ahead and turned his work on the second set of Trava OVAs into a full feature length film. And so Redline came into existence, complete with different main characters and plot, however taking place in the same continuity as Trava. Redline’s story won’t raise any eyebrows. What will raise eyebrows is how it’s told. Redline doesn’t aim to woo the audience with its writing; however it does use its visuals to make the plot sincere and engaging. The plot is also pretty retro and it’s a callback to anime in the late 80s and 90s with its sci-fi setting and crazy character designs. This is reflected in every aspect of the movie, from its themes to romance and even the fanservice. This isn’t by sheer coincidence either, the old-school style is there to remind people of a time when anime was built solely on the sweat and tears of the animators and staff, when anime was just taking off and was a lot less commercial than it is now. Although Redline does nod its head to its predecessors, it never completely wallows in nostalgia either. It boldly stands on the shoulders of giants saluting the past yet painting the way forward for the medium, taking risks and daring steps forward. It may not amount to anything more than a pipe dream in the end but its stride is more than enough to inspire complete and utter glee from the audience. The single most important factor and noticeable aspect of Redline is without a doubt its animation. Anybody can tell you that after watching 20 seconds of footage. So what exactly makes Redline’s animation so special? Well for one, it’s nearly animated entirely on 1s i.e about 24 drawings/frames every second. You don’t see this in many anime movies let alone TV anime, the animation itself is on the same level as Akira, Satoshi Kon flicks and Studio Ghibli movies. However unlike these movies, the animation is VERY stylized almost to the point where the subjects can look horrendously off-model but all of it has a point. The name of Redline’s game is speed, and that’s something it portrays very well, better than any live-action movie, better than any book and better than any video game. Redline is a revelation, it shows us why 2D animation isn’t obsolete compared to its 3D counterpart and most of all; it’s a towering triumph for animation as a form of storytelling. The animation tells the story in Redline, from the visceral car/mecha porn fights to the more subtle moments of romance and characterization. This movie doesn’t achieve all of this through exposition nor monologues and not even the cast. And yes, plenty of anime have done this before but Redline really drives home the power of animation and how it can be used to really enhance the experience. More importantly, could Redline be possible as a live action work? No, it only works in the medium it was created for. It’s not really possible to brush aside the visuals for this movie nor is it possible to say its all style and no substance. The style is the substance in this case; Redline is all about the visuals as a vehicle for storytelling and in that sense you can’t really talk about Redline’s story without also addressing the animation, mainly because they are so tightly knit together. There a certain art to delivering cheesy popcorn entertainment to the audience and Redline does it the same way many landmark works before did it, by showing the audience instead of telling them, by raw energy instead of robotic puppeteering. I can’t stress the importance of what Redline is trying to do and how it’s trying to do it. It’s a visionary piece of work that restates the strengths of 2D animation and plays exclusively to its tune. It’s uniformly the Akira of this generation in terms of influence it’ll propagate over the industry. The only real difference is the environment in which both movies were released and Redline comes at a time where its presence stands out all the stronger compared to all of its peers. The audio design is fantastic as well, the cars themselves on nitro often sound like jets, which really goes a long way into convincing the audience of the speed and momentum each vehicle has. The crashes and explosions are gratuitous and glorious and the soundtrack is techno. Not the hipster kind but the UNTZ kind, the music is tailor-made to pump up the audience and like the animation, is there to enhance the experience. The technicalities of the animation are also very impressive. The movie was 7 years in production, 2-3 in pre-production (storyboards and planning) and 4 of actual animation. The amount of care and effort into this project is plainly obvious upon viewing the final product, the complexity of the storyboard, the rich and detailed animation and the energetic audio design. The staff involved is even more impressive, ranging from talent like Gainax’s own Hiroyuki Imashi, all the way to grizzled veterans like Shinya Ohira. The animation in this movie is a culmination of the evolution Japanese animation has undergone over the past few decades and the results are dazzling. This is juxtaposed thematically in the movie as well. In the beginning of the movie, we are told that only “fools” with vanishing spirit continue to race in cars, which is acknowledged as a dying sport because of all the superior technology out there. This is commentary on 2D animation in general and the racers are very much alike to the animators who work in a medium that is becoming less and less appreciated over time. If you want to take it a step further, Sonoshee, the heroine is a symbol of inspiration and chasing dreams while the hero JP is symbolic of the audience themselves, smitten with the wonders of racing (animation) as a youngster and forever chasing a dying ideal out of romanticism and passion. This movie isn’t “deep” by any stretch of the word but if it had a message, I’d say it was simply trying to inspire the audience, daring them to dream for so much more. Redline isn’t really the product of a bygone era, but more like the product of its immediate surroundings. It can entertain on any level and really, it’s a wonder just to behold it as the visuals and sound completely and utterly assault your every senses while you sit in awe for an hour and forty minutes. Even if you don’t really appreciate animation all that much, you can still take away a lot of enjoyment from the movie because in the end its just one hell of a ride that really needs to be experienced by oneself.

Ah, Redline, the industry’s loudest bomb. A bomb so explosive, so meticulously crafted and vibrant that its aftershocks can still be felt today from all sides of the spectrum, from the painful lack of risks maligned in today’s time, to the cult following that spawned from the ashes. A decade later, and the film’s still one of the biggest spectacles in the business, so it may have just won in the end. Before I gush about the obvious, how ‘bout we get the specs on the writing, or rather the mainframe holding this bad boy together. Protagonist JP is one of the freshest mother fuckers inthe business, with enough style and charm to rival the likes of Char from Gundam and Lupin from the III. His crew’s pretty alright and Frisbee’s subplot ends in the coolest way you can think for that kind of rigged mafia sports story, but apart from JP and the galaxy he races in, the real stars are the competitors: the racers and the Fun Nazis that run Roboworld. Nothing’s deep about them other than the fun ways the film lets us in on their pasts, but the likes of Sonoshi and Metalhead are captivating love interests and rivals respectively, and Johnny, Lynchman, Shinkai, and Todoroki make for gloriously badass comedic relief. Tying them into their pasts and how well they're presented, Travistila and Dezuya’s rivalry following the former’s fallout with the former over at the military was brutal and magnificent to see. Seeing this absurd yet damn well-constructed galaxy thrash about as the Roboworld Fun Nazis fuck themselves and everything with them up is a sight that you can’t possibly hold, realizing just how damn tight the method to this film’s madness is, even if the ending leaves a few loose threads hanging The madness doesn’t stop there, as when you can see it, you can hear the adrenaline. Heart-pumping tunes such as “Yellow Line” and one of the many examples of leitmotif on display: “Redline” drill into your ears as your heart prepares to explode! Matching and even surpassing the ear-candy tunes by James Shimoji is the dub. Recognizable A-list VAs such as Michelle Ruff, Doug Erholtz, Keith Silverstein, James K. Price, and our main protagonist Patrick MoFUCKING Seitz give it their all to bring all the style to each bombastic character, in a damn valiant effort to match the flowing, flashin’ attitude of this stellar rush of awe. Not a single performance falls short --not even those of lesser-known VAs such as Joey Morris and Laura Post-- allowing this dub to go down as an underappreciated beast worthy of the godlike warhead of a film it’s attached to. As this lavish atom bomb blew, onlookers were greeted to one of the most monumental spectacles in animation and film in general. Forget eye-candy, this is a king’s feast for the eyes! Through the fiery hells of a 7-year production line at Madhouse, animator superstars and madmen of the industry such as Hiroyuki Imaishi and Hiroshi Hamasaki, and madman director Takeshi Koike to create an unstoppable juggernaut of some of the most fluid, bombastic, and detailed sakuga in the market. Every second of every race, every shoot-out, fight-scene, and scene in general is crafted to utter perfection, as to squeeze the life out of your red, blazing eyes as they somehow manage to perfectly parse all the earth-shattering action going on. The wonderfully vibrant colors, car designs, mech designs, and especially character designs Katsuhiko Ishii, and every aforementioned and unrecognized name crafted are as gorgeous, expressive, and or unique as it can possibly get in such a small yet galactic showcase. Each setting is as majestic and even destructible as the last too, and my god, even gushing can’t do it justice! JUST LOOK AT THIS SHIT! FUCKING LOOK AT IT, AND TELL ME THIS ISN’T ONE OF THE BEST-LOOKING THINGS YOU’VE EVER SEEN!!! It left me feeling like a kid riding a roller-coaster and going down a waterslide while on a sugar rush. My holy-shit quotient broke by the middle of the final race, reducing me to a gibbering mess of hype trying to feast on the visual splendor at hand. The raw style and energy is borderline unmatched in this industry, as something like this has never been attempted since its painful crash in '09. Amidst the fires still stood a proud work of boisterous art, an exhilarating monument to the sheer passion plugged into this industry, and the joy its patrons express! And some bastards say some risks never pay off! Fuck ’em, now what about you? Think you can handle a little test drive? Written and edited by: CodeBlazeFate Proofread by: Peregrine

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