In this episode I dive into the depths of the city of Metropolis, inspired by the 1949 Manga of the same name. What messages lie in this film created by the animation powerhouses of Japan?
In this episode I dive into the depths of the city of Metropolis, inspired by the 1949 Manga of the same name. What messages lie in this film created by the animation powerhouses of Japan?
Welcome to the world is my burrito AKA TWIMB, where I take a pop culture topic of my choice, unwrap it, review the ingredients for your tasting pleasure then wrap it up, pack it in. Now, lettuce begin.
This is your host Kory Torjussen, comin’ at you with episode 4, covering Tezuka’s Metropolis the anime. If you didn’t listen to my previous episode on the manga, what are you doing? Go listen to the first, ya dingus. This movie stands on its own, but is even more amazing when you know a little more about where it came from which is WHY episode 3 exists. I’ve mentioned in the first two episodes that I was covering Tezuka’s work as part of a special project. If you haven’t guessed it by now…. Well, that project is on Tezuka himself. Not many people are familiar with this powerhouse or his content so I’m doing the leg work, jumping around a few very important works so that you listeners have a point of reference instead of feeling sideswiped. This project may or may not also exist to justify some things I own...
That basically covers the extent of my housekeeping. As for this episode’s toppings...
and it’s gonna be short. I already told you about the state of things that preceded the manga, which still hold relevance. Between then and now, there had been a few more wars or military altercations and the world hadn’t quite reached the pinnacle of harmony and technological advancement Tezuka hoped to see. Japan had also already experienced enough unfair bullshit from its own still-budding democracy. I’ll could probably do an episode on that topic later using only Godzilla references… Now, I did tell you that last episode was the easy stuff. This is gonna get even deeper because the creative team were older and muuuuuuch further along in their careers than Tezuka was when he worked on the manga.
Released in 2001 and running at 107 minutes. It took 5 years to make, amassed over 150,000 cels, and cost $15 million dollars. It’s creative team consisted of several powerhouses in the Japanese animation industry such as:
Director: Shigeyuki Hayashi who will henceforth be called Rintaro because that’s his choice. Homeboy is a freelance director who worked on the Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion animes with Tezuka and co-founded MADHOUSE. He also directed Doomed Megalopolis, X/1999, some Galaxy Express 999 films and much more.
Screenplay is by Katsuhiro Otomo. It would take all day to list this guy’s accomplishments so let’s limit it to his screenwriter credits: he did Construction Cancellation Order in Neo Tokyo, the opening and ending to Robot Carnival, AKIRA, Roujin Z, and the Stink Bomb and Cannon Fodder segments for Memories to name a few.
Producer: Masao Maruyama previously worked for Mushi Productions, Osamu Tezuka’s production company. He left along with Rintaro to co-found MADHOUSE.
You’re never gonna guess who the production company is: It’s MADHOUSE! Big surprise I know. They’re not really well known and haven’t done anything cool except Wicked City, Ninja Scroll, Perfect Blue, X, Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, Trigun, DNA-squared and a whole library of other amazing films and anime.
Score: composed by Toshiyuki Honda, renowned saxophonist and composer whose father was a jazz critic. Toshiyuki grew up with a flute and Saxophone in hand, and spent decades performing with several popular bands then was recognized as a prominent composer for his score to 1987’s “マルサの女” or “A Taxing Woman”. He started his career in the late 70s and had released more than a dozen studio albums and scored at least 5 live action or animated films prior to Metropolis.
You may notice that Tezuka’s name hasn’t been mentioned. He passed away several years prior to this work. The rest of the info will be in trivia at the end.
I wish I could tell you more about what went into this, but the even the interviews keep things to a bare minimum
It was advertised as Tezuka’s Metropolis, though Tezuka had passed in 1989. Rintaro wanted it to be known that this was Tezuka’s child and Tezuka’s work.
Everyone worked as hard as they could to make this as much Tezuka’s work as possible. The character models in the film are absolutely Tezuka’s. There are so many members of the Star System in here, several serving very important roles. Beyond that, there are plenty of characters referenced from other Tezuka materials. Despite the catastrophic destruction that happens, there is no visible human death. Death is not the point. The conveyed sense of a fallen society is.
I hope you’re ready for more spice because here’s my second hot take: if you have not seen the anime what is wrong with you? This is a grand slam of a feature film. The creative team themselves are like a trifecta of gods. The person they’re honouring is the godfather of manga. The approach to hybridized 2D-3D animation is something I feel like modern artists are only now getting the hang of. The story is as simple or expansive as you perceive. Metropolis is a film that merits multiple watches because as you -the viewer- grows mentally, you will experience more of the movie. I first watched this within 5 years of it releasing. It blew my mind. Seen it about every 4-5 years since. I watched this twice in the past 3 months in preparation for this episode; the first time with no research and the second after research. It had evolved into something else between those. As you educate yourself more on politics and the world around you, this will change. As you discover more about the robotic history of Japan, this movie will change. If you go back and listen to my episode on the manga, this will change. Movies like AKIRA have grown for me over time, but there is something about Metropolis that still feels like I haven’t learned everything.
Now if you don’t want this burrito spoiled you’re just gonna have to yeet it on back into the fridge.
Prior to that, I will state that in THIS Metropolis, humans and robots live side by side, unlike the manga. Also, you will hear me use the term “gynoid” (spell it). For many years the word “android” has been used for all humanoid robots, even though the latin prefix “andro-” specifically refers to the “masculine form”. In 1985 Gwyneth Jones penned the word “gynoid” in her novel Divine Endurance to describe a female robot, and I really dig it. It’s more honorable than “robotess” and “fembot” makes me giggle because I know it from Futurama.
Here’s ye old plot synopsis:
The intro of the film is trippy. The manga readers will see a very familiar face standing atop something akin to a monolith, shouting:
If you think the Bioshock reveal while diving is cool, the intro to this is just as cool but traveling upwards.
Japanese Detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi arrive in the mega-city Metropolis just in time for the grand celebration reveal of the great super-skyscraper, the Ziggurat - their mission, to arrest the Renegade Scientist Dr. Laughton. With all live officers busy tending the week-long celebration, the local police commissioner provides Detective Ban with an assistant android detective to help guide him through this new city. But Laughton has friends in high places; he has been hidden away by the industrialist Duke Red, who wants him to create the final part of the Ziggurat - a living robot who can rule the world via a giant laser that creates sunspots, secretly installed in its heights. While the Japanese visitors look for Laughton, Red’s embittered stepson Rock hunts him for his own reasons, while Red’s agents encourage the impoverished human city dwellers to revolt against their oppressors. When Dr. Laughton is killed, his robot creation -Tima- goes on the run with Kenichi through the warrens of the city, unaware of who -or what- she really is.
That’s the written synopsis, covering the first act of the film.
As this film progresses we’re taken across all 4 levels of Metropolis which I will get to. The president of Metropolis learns that the Duke created a weapon inside the Ziggurat. So, he works with some freedom fighters to plan a coup against Duke Red that will give him the leverage needed to remove the Duke from power. With the military at his command, there’s no way this could happen. Due to the events surrounding Dr. Laughton’s death, Detective Ban spends most of the movie looking for Kenichi. The Duke and Rock spend most of the film looking for Tima for very different reasons. Everyone travels up and down levels like its nobody’s business. The citizens’ rebellion happens, first opening up on any nearby robots, then on to the surface of Metropolis. The president is betrayed by his military advisor who is secretly working for Duke Red, making that coup a very one-sided war, leaving The Duke in charge of all Metropolis. Any character of note is conveniently united. Atlas, Kenichi, Tima, the Detective, Rock, the Duke. Everyone. Duke Red finally connects with Tima, learns of Rock’s treachery, disowns him, then returns Tima to the tower. Some more shenanigans happen and somehow the mainest of characters all end up in the Throne Room of the Ziggurat, where Tima learns that she was only meant to be a perfectly emotionless conduit of destruction. So, she obliges the Duke, willingly takes the throne which begins a transformation that only Otomo would devise, with edges and wires changing and unraveling all over the place. Cables reach out to grab her in an almost haphazard fashion, then she immediately says “hey I’ve just taken over every weapon in the world, hope you don’t mind dying by bombs and/or increased radiation caused by sunspots from this giant laser you created me to control'.” This obviously doesn’t go well as everyone starts running around like madmen, trying to stop the tower’s operations. Kenichi succeeds in an attempt to remove Tima from the throne, but a surprise uprising by the mass of robot workers within the tower -likely started by Tima- stops any hope of recovery, so Rock self destructs the whole damn thing to ensure it can’t be used by anyone or anything. This leaves much of every Zone in ruins forcing the remaining humans and robots to unite to fix their city. As Detective Ban prepares to leave, Kenichi chooses to stay behind to help rebuild and hopes to somehow repair or reunite with Tima. The film ends with a previously seen, old school radio mysteriously turning on and saying, “Watashiwa dare?” or “who am i” a line used several times by Tima...
Before moving further I’d like to cover the characters, since there are a ton of changes and additions from the manga and, as a result, my previous episode:
This film is not as focused on our child protagonists Tima and Kenichi as the manga.
Metropolis is run by president Boone; now a centralized government, no longer the amorphous society from the manga. It’s split up into 4 sections -which will be covered later. The surface is specifically referred to as Metropolis. Beneath it are Zones 1-3. Humans aren’t allowed to travel between levels unless they have proper ID and robots aren’t allowed to travel unless they have the proper physical marking.
Shunsaku Ban is the actual name of Higeoyaji or Mustachio from the manga. Yep, some Tezuka’s Star System characters also had nicknames and full names. His actual role ends very quickly then all of his energy goes into tracking Kenichi and subsequently, Tima. He basically becomes the viewer: confused by what’s happening in this new world, only learning of it as the story develops. Whenever something needs to be learned, he asks or is informed by his assistant of the current situation in that moment.
The young Kenichi is the vehicle by which Tima travels through Metropolis and learns how to be human. They accidentally escape the destruction of Dr. Laughton’s lab by falling into a manmade aqueduct leading straight to Zone 3. She has no personality from the get-go, so he has to drag her everywhere. If Detective Ban guides us through the political and economic situation from the top-down, Kenichi guides us from the bottom-up. The meeting point being that Ban hears of the coup from a third party, Kenichi hears of it from the source.
Tima replaces Michi and is unquestionably female. Duke Red’s intent was for her to just be a gynoid with no personality, but during her time with Kenichi she seems to develop the start of a human passion.
Duke Red is now an industrialist who secretly runs a military operations of sorts, all with the unsuspecting help of the government. His wife and daughter died during the previous war, after which he adopted a boy named Rock. The gynoid and Macguffin of the film -Tima- is modeled after his daughter.
Rock did not exist in the manga, but exists in other Tezuka material playing both heroes and anti-heroes, is now the son of Duke Red. He is the head of an organization called The Marduk Party: vigilantes who started as a political group. They are not officially connected to Duke Red but are secretly funded by him. Their job is to hunt down malfunctioning robots at seemingly any cost. Rock is very obsessed with Duke Red and firmly believes he is the be-all, end-all person deserving to rule Metropolis and the world. After discovering the gynoid Tima, he accuses Dr. Laughton of brainwashing his father into creating this robot, then kills him. At the beginning of the final act, when the Duke discovers Rock trying to kill Tima, Rock admits to his attempts, saying no robot can ever match his father. At the very VERY end of the movie, Rock once again tries to stop Tima mounting the throne, saying that no machine deserves to sit on the throne his father created.
Dr. Laughton is no longer an honorable scientist, nor does he use synthetic cells. We’re told he is involved in black market sales and use of animal organs. However, for Tima’s creation he claims not to use any natural parts because they aren’t as reliable as their robotic counterparts. Early on he does some minor snooping and seems to understand the emotional depth this creation has to the Duke. Similar to the manga, as he nears Tima’s completion, he also doesn’t want this magnanimous creation to be used by anyone but himself.
Atlas is another new character and the leader of the socialist party in Zone 2, who are forgotten by those above, replaced by robots. He wants his people to become a political party, specifically to fight for the rights of the otherwise forgotten humans in lieu of Duke Red’s push for to empower and create more robots.
Robots are seen on every single level working such jobs as waiters, street vacuumers, repairs, dog walkers, trash cleanup, vehicle and street light operations. Little bit of everything. Everything between Metropolis and Zone 2 is pretty humanoid, while Zone 3 are just made to do what they need to do. Robots are assigned certain levels The two we’re introduced to are the Detective: 803-D-RP-DM-497-3-C who is shortly renamed “Pero”, after a dog Shunsaku Ban once owned. Robots are not allowed to have human names as it may infringe upon human rights. Pero actually exists in an Astro Boy story “The Hot Dog Corps”, so it’s cool to have read that and recognize a doubly familiar character. In Zone 3 Kenichi is abruptly awoken by a model called Albert II: renamed to “Fifi”. Also after a dog.
LAMP is the Secretary of the Ministry of Business News
I still don’t know what to call this section but we’re about to cover verticality, racism, classism, politics, and more:
VERTICALITY, RACISM, AND CLASSISM First, we’re gonna tackle verticality by breaking down Metropolis’ 4 zones. Within the context of the film, Metropolis is specifically denoted as being the surface level. How haughty of them. It is host to the super rich, high middle class, and servant robots. Zone 1 is next. It gets sunlight from what seem to be glass ceilings as well as manmade light sources. It’s inhabitants are the middle class and it contains some slummy areas if you go further down into it. This area is still heavily occupied by working robots. It does have slummy areas if you look for them. Zone 2 are the slums; the rejects of the surface who no longer have a place in the world. Atlas, his revolutionists, and those otherwise forgotten occupy this section. This area is mostly devoid of robots as the inhabitants are very outwardly aggressive towards them. Onto Zone 3 which contains the actual inner machinations of Metropolis. This is what runs the city. It’s primarily inhabited by robots, but there are human workers who do nothing of description. Likely maintenance and new construction. The humans in the area all dress and look identical, as if they truly have no remaining identity other than a cog in the machine. This is also the only area with total harmony. The line between human and robot is indistinguishable. The areas where people are supposed to be are clean but have no decorum. However, where Kenichi and Tima end up show massive piles of trash and waste.
Now that we’re done breaking down the sections we can move on to -JUST KIDDING! IT’S THE FINAL PART OF VERTICALITY! HAHA! Thanks to the misguided efforts of President Boone and the selfish desires of the only citizens who matter, The Ziggurat stands on top. Duke Red is above all. Straight up towering over everything. Like, easily 5 times taller than the tallest building, takes up probably ten times more surface area, and is literally built into the foundations of Metropolis as shown during the destruction sequence.
The symbolism of verticality meets its end after the climax. When the Ziggurat falls, Metropolis literally buckles into Zone 1 below. Society must now finally work together
NATIONALIST From the introduction, we’re provided with a speech from the Duke that is nationalist in nature. If you don’t know, nationalism is:
a range of political, social, and economic systems characterized by promoting the interests of a particular nation or ethnic group. Mainly with the aim of self-governance or full sovereignty over the group’s homeland, opposing interests and interference from other nations or supranational groups. If patriotism is when love of your own people comes first, nationalism is when love of the nation as an ideology comes first. Without diving too deep into politics outside of this film, Healthy nationalism can be found in the real world in countries that just keep to their ways, limit outside influence, but still participate in the world around them. However, Nationalism does tend to quickly lead to wars when the country or group feels that it is owed something by neighbouring countries or peoples that disagree.
As the story unfolds, we’re shown that the Duke is an ultra-nationalist. Now, Ultra-nationalism is when you want to promote your nation’s interests so bad that you’re willing to kill everyone in the nation just to make it happen. Makes perfect sense to someone out there. As the head of the Marduk, Rock is the embodiment of the duke’s view of the people of Metropolis. In one scene, he was willing to crush dozens of Zone 1 passersby just to catch a single robot that was out of its zone, though not currently causing any harm to anyone. Later, the Duke test fires his weapon even after being warned that some robots will go haywire. It doesn’t appear that anyone dies, but we’re shown a lot of damage done.
In this instance of ultra-nationalism, the Duke wants the world to recognize their power.
This is when we recognize the real platform Duke Red stands on: Imperialism. Imperialism is when you take your ideologies and beliefs and force them onto other countries, usually by some means of political or military force. In this case: the latter. If the manga Duke were a Bond villain, this one is a very real villain we’ve seen before.
SOCIALISM Metropolis has something to say about socialism, too. In a world full of jobs, there is a whole level basically dedicated to those who can’t find them thanks to this invading force of robots. Atlas takes a conservatice socialist stance. He doesn’t want to overthrow the existing government, just hold a place in power. But without access to a voice, the only way to become known is to take action. The coup d’etat aspect of this movement is secretly incited by the President, who agrees to help them so long as they stop Duke Red, his machines, and The Marduk Party in a joint military effort.
METROPOLIS We don’t know much about Metropolis. However, it is a melting pot of people gathered under similar principles, be they ex-patriots, survivors of a war, or born there. It’s probably fairly young or at least somewhat naive, based on Duke Red who’s only been there for a few years. What we do know is that the people within it are reaching a point of unimportance. This message in the anime is far louder and more of a central point than in the manga: Japan’s democracy post-WWII promised every Japanese would have a role, yet there were plenty of homeless and jobless yet somehow the sangokujin -once again portrayed by robots- had jobs in society. Not the best jobs, no, but nonetheless. I think a cool touch about this is: because it isn’t so blatant, the robots could represent the sangokujin of the past or robots in current times. Otomo was born in the first year of our lord Godzilla, 1954. While he didn’t have to experience this personally, his and the parents of the remaining creative team likely had to experience this some way or another.
THE SUN Hey let’s look at some of the symbology in this movie! What I’m about to speak on is something I intentionally avoided in the previous episode because it’s so weak in the manga and so much more prevalent in the film. Let’s talk about: the sun.
In the previous episode I told you to put a pin in a particular, important piece of history: That being the decree that Douglas MacArthur made Emperor Hirohito sign denouncing his divinity. In Japanese political history, all emperors have been blood-related to the sun goddess, Amaterasu. Possibly the greatest reason Japanese soldiers were so vigorous and zealous was because they were fighting for a deity, not just for a man or ideology. The call to war was a holy call. So when the emperor came out as just a man, the nation was crushed.
There is a TON of sun symbology in this film. You may not capture it all, but some parts are so obvious you will not miss them.
When Tima emerges from her robotic “womb”, she is light. When we first see her in zone 3, she is somehow standing in what is likely the only point of sunlight that reaches the bottom. After being escorted to Zone 2, she stands bathed in sunlight atop a roof that overlooks…. A concrete design in the shape of the sun in the middle of a shantytown. Again, sunlight is pouring in because there is a massive opening that looks up to the Ziggurat: her intended destiny. While on that roof, a dove lands on her shoulder and extends its wing over one of her shoulders as if to show that she is holy in nature, though only the one wing because she is still part of this world. At the end she sits atop a throne that, when activated, reveals a giant red orb beneath the throne. The juxtaposition here being that this machine is made to defy nature by blotting out the sun; the holiest of icons. Instead, it’s capabilities are shifted to attack mankind.
Another significant part of this is in relation to the type of violence: where there is man-made violence, there is something to hate. But divine violence leaves no other option but comradery. There is nothing left to fight, only a unity that must be discovered. Man hated robots for taking their jobs but once the city blows up due to man-made yet god-like weapon, the robots aren’t that big of a deal any more, and serve a much greater purpose.
After the first test to blot out the sun, the city becomes bathed in darkness as if rejected by nature. During the coup d’etat, we’re led to believe that all of the people of Zone 2 have moved up to zones 1 and the surface. After the destruction of the Ziggurat: the surface and Zone 1 are indistinguishable. The final scenes of the film show the sunlight bathing the newly formed horizontal land, not just one level.
THE SONG AT THE END OF THE WORLD Let’s talk about the juxtaposition of love displayed throughout the film. As stated before, Rock was not in the manga. He was introduced as opposition to Tima and also to create kind of a weird love quadrangle. Duke Red did not love Rock, who was basically just an “impulse buy” that didn’t work out. He did love Tima in some way, but most likely as an object. Rock loved the Duke as a father, but hated Tima. Kenichi loved Tima in a non-romantic way, while Tima hasn’t yet developed that emotion yet.
As the mass of worker robots wash over the Duke, he is made to realize that his son is the only one who can do anything for him. Before dying, the Duke shouts out to Rock.
At the same time, Rock is also being covered in robots. With no hope left, he hits Self Destruct and the most singularly beautiful part of the film -and the part that has never once left my mind from childhood- comes. “I can’t stop loving you” by Ray Charles begins to play. The lyrics to “I can’t stop loving you” are perfect because they never insinuate the type of love being expressed. Towards the end of the song, Tima -who has been a psychotic creation of mass destruction- is made to realize that she does love Kenichi in some manner. This song is so powerful because it is singing about yet another message we’ve been watching unfold this entire time
CATALYST FOR DESTRUCTION Tima becomes the heartless creation after...
FRITZ LANG COMPARISONS AND MANGA CONTRASTS:
It does seem that this film is very much inspired by the visuals provided from Fritz Lang’s movie. It’s really hard to miss. However, I will state that nobody mentions the 1927 film during any of the interviews or partial interviews I’ve been able to find. For the sake of devil’s advocate: with almost 70 years of story writing and filmmaking between the films: Verticality was not abnormal, and Otomo by himself has plenty to say about the government. Lang was not the only person in the universe to ever see class-based inequality in the world
In Lang’s film, the workers all visually appear the same and start an uprising. In the anime, the lowest level workers do all appear identical and even move around in a similar elevator, but they are NOT the ones who start or appear to have any involvement with the uprising.
I think the contrasts between Japanese mediums have mostly been covered so this’ll be quick.
The mice and giant bugs are completely gone. It’s imaginative and fun, but really only served as an awkward, repeated Deus Ex Machina. Dr. Lawton was made evil. I think this was done because the science committee didn’t really serve a purpose in the manga, so this was changed to a political thing. Keep Laughton as a scientist but only as a MacGuffin to introduce characters. Both Laughtons died early on, so this works. Michi has no superpowers other than the ability to connect
2 of the characters I didn’t mention from the manga don’t appear in here, because they barely fit the structure of the manga
No taco truck is perfect so let’s do some pest control. Just kidding! I honestly think this film is as perfect as can be. I grew up on message-heavy Japanese live action films, animated films, and anime, so nothing about this feels foreign to me. I didn’t catch or understand the messages on every watch, but recognized it was not the film, but myself that was missing something.
I want to address some of the complaints I found online. Watched 2 negative review films, because they exist. Neither review wanted to watch *this* movie, they unequivocally wanted to watch something else. One of them wanted to be taken seriously but put absolutely no legwork into their review.
The film doesn’t state any specific war nor does it provide any additional background information. Pick a war. That’s the one this movie is talking about.
Too many plot lines: As stated, this film is not about Tima and Kenichi. It’s weird how the title is Metropolis and yet people want it to only be about the boy and the girl, not the city the film is named after. The film opens with a nationalist speech. Very shortly after, there’s a conversation about a possible uprising of people who dislike robots. This movie is jam-packed with political messages and does a pretty solid job of developing characters with and without the use of dialogue. It is not about Tima and Kenichi, they are just 2 of the many vehicles.
Probably the best description of this film is that one family is the catalyst for all of this bullshit that transpires across every level. And it’s not wrong.
#rantover.
Starting it off with Acetylene Lamp! This piece of trivia is the only reason I included him in the cast. Lamp is a character who appears in a ton of Tezuka’s work in varying roles of importance. He was styled after a friend Tezuka had in childhood who had a dent in his head that looked like you could rest a candle on it. In manga, there will randomly be a candle in that dent - like, one scene it’s there and the next, it’s not. At the end of this film when Lamp is killed, there’s a split second where a candle appears in that dent as an ode to who he is.
Rintaro first approached Tezuka about doing this film back in the 60s, to which he refused. There was no specific reason, but some of the suppositions involve Tezuka understanding that the original work was incomplete or subjectively bad. Alternatively, Tezuka was a man who always wanted the next thing, so taking a step back to a completed story even within his own work could be disinteresting. Rintaro does think that, had Tezuka lived longer, he might have been able to entice him with the 3D graphics.
Rintaro didn’t want this film to have a singular theme, which is why it covers so many different types of political issues, topics of love, and more. That surprises me the most because I still think it’s very well balanced.
During a talkshow prior to the inception of this film, Otomo and Rintaro were both asked what Tezuka material they would love to work on if they could do any. Otomo responded with the 3 seminal works -mentioned in the previous episode- and Rintaro responded with Metropolis and Zero Man. So, Metropolis it was.
Otomo felt Metropolis was incomplete but contained the bones he needed. I’d agree with that.
Rock’s full name in the Star System is Rock Holmes, named after Sherlock Holmes. Otomo wanted to keep Rock as his first name because he liked Rock music. His words.
The Japanese voice actors for Kenichi and Tima were rookies. As in, these were their debut voice acting roles. I would probably have died if someone told me I got such a huge first gig.
Let’s talk about composer Toshiyuki Honda. The soundtrack alone should sell the film. The main theme is spread through almost every track. Honda wanted something that would get stuck in your brain and could be hummed or sung. So he basically created 2 tracks that are spread throughout the film and change to convey current mood. The OST is like half one song, half another, then El Bombero and Run: the two best songs in the film. Just go listen to those. you’ll hear the same sound in the titular track Metropolis, as well as Going to Zone, Zone Rhapsody, Three-Faced of Zone, Sympathy, After All, There’ll Never be Goodbye. Beyond that, most of the remaining tracks have a second very familiar sound so he turned 2 sounds into an entire, unique soundtrack.
Rintaro refused to have a full CGI movie. In his words, as a 2D artist he has physical tools at hand. For him, 3D was just a tool. The bits of interview with the 3D team that were provided had all 3 guys agreeing that Rintaro was imaginative and patient, but that they also spent a lot of time cleaning their monitors because he kept drawing ideas on them. He tried to use CG where possible, and mostly with intent on keeping a visual liveliness, but would quickly switch over to 2D when something either couldn’t be done or wouldn’t look right. I wish I could give you some specifics about how they combined 2D-3D animation but none of the materials found really broke it down any deeper than what I told you. Some examples were literally 2D in front of 3D, but others almost looked like maybe they drew sequences then made 3D to fit beneath the lines, but I dunno.
I think that’s enough Metropolis for one episode. Have you seen it before? If you haven’t, I bet you feel real dumb right now, listening to my episode before watching this masterpiece. Let me know your thoughts and opinions! Your goods and bads! You can find TWIMB by searching “T-W-I-M-B Podcast” on social media. You can e-mail me at
Shinto, Nature and Impermanence being hosted by the Japan Information and Culture Center.
Podcasters Assemble recently released their Skyfall episode, will soon be posting Spectre, and then we’re off to a few Kaiju films in celebration of Godzilla vs Kong, followed by alllll of Studio Ghibli’s theatrical films.
Psycho Goreman releases this Friday the 22nd. Godzilla vs Kong actually got moved UP to March 26th. We’ll see if it happens. Godzilla is my jam, the release dates for this movie are not, so I won’t be excited until I’m leaving a theatre after having successfully watched it.
If you want to find my photo work just search the letters “ktorj”, you can’t miss me. I’m the guy with those letters in a row.
I don’t have a sign-off, but Today I will have an outro. It’s a track that myself and local Jacksonville producer/rapper Deftstroke worked on. This was made for the James Bond Skyfall episode that was just released by Podcasters Assemble.