Robotto Kânibaru |
Japan • 1987 • 90m •
  • Directed by: Atsuko Fukushima, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Hiroyuki Kitazume, Kôji Morimoto, Takashi Nakamura, Yasuomi Umetsu, Manabu Ôhashi, Hidetoshi Ômori, Katsuhiro Ôtomo. • Starring: Kôji Moritsugu, Yayoi Maki, Keiko Hanagata, Kumiko Takizawa, Aya Murata, Nariko Fujieda, Satoru Inagaki, Hideyuki Umezu, Ikuya Sawaki, Hidehiro Kikuchi, Daisuke Namikawa, Tatsuhiko Nakamura, Kei Tomiyama. • Music by: Isaku Fujita, Joe Hisaishi, Masahisa Takeichi.    This is a Fantasia-like anthology of robots. The most noble are Presence, Deprive, and Nightmare. Nightmare is the story of an evil, cybernetic overlord that rises one night and unleashes its robotic servants. Deprive is a science fiction tale of a young girl who has been abducted by an invading army of robots, and only a mysterious cyborg can help her. Presence is about a young toy-maker who makes a beautiful, female cyborg. When she becomes "a bit too real", he destroys her, only to be haunted by her spirit for the rest of his life.
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Review:
A village awakens to the fact that a robot carnival might be coming into their area. In hurried horror the primitive villagers, eking out a difficult existence in some barren desert wasteland, attempt to hide themselves in their homes as the gargantuan traveling robot carnival machine comes rampaging through, cutting a swath, destroying everything in its celebratory path as fireworks go off, music erupts in harmony, and little robots dance and play.
In an obvious homage to FRANKENSTEIN, a mad scientist scrambles about in a desperate attempt to bring life to a robot in his laboratory. Just when all hope feels lost, the giant robot rises, but at a destructive cost. This one impressively shows a castle crumbling around the scientist as he joyfully cheers his creation "coming to life", until a devastating conclusion which follows a similar pattern as FRANKENSTEIN in that what one creates can be his own undoing.
In DEPRIVE a robotic protector will assume the form of a male superhero as he gallantly fights numerous mechanical foes in an attempt to rescue the little girl kidnapped by a tyrant who sent a mechanized army to invade a planet. This tale seems like energetic action clips from a series, assembled together, backed up with a pulsating accentuating the action.
In PRESENCE a lonely feministinventor, pining for a "real relationship", stymied by a family(career woman wife; daughter absorbed in her own little world) which doesn't seem to acknowledge his "presence", finds companionship with a female robot he has created, kept hidden in a home in the woods, who seems to be evolving past her programming, in essence "becoming human." When she(interesting enough)decides to "make the first move", the inventor, not used to any sort of "emotional human contact", from a sentient being or otherwise, he resists in an accidental outburst surfacing out of fear. We see as he ages the regret of this decision.
In STARLIGHT ANGEL, the setting an amusement park where robots are an essential part of the entertainment, a broken hearted teenager, who discovers that her boyfriend had betrayed her for a best friend, flees into a "robot ride" where she is rescued by an avenger as an ominous force attempts to capture her. The image of a star necklace is an indelible visual element used to superb effect as are the many different kinds of robots which show up in various forms(of course this is a constant, plenty of awe-inspiring mechanized beings, visually stimulating if you are a fan of robots and sci-fi stories containing them). Part of the story is a "robot entertainer" trying to return the teenage girl her necklace(which fell from her person while running through the park with her gal pal).
Layered with music STARLIGHT ANGEL is an example of most of the tales in this anthology, dialogue is of little importance, the animation, subtle nuances in the facial expressions, and action communicate the stories.
The musical arrangements, as applied in a "for instance" with CLOUD, are selectively appropriate for the emotional subject matter of each story. CLOUD simply follows a "robot boy" almost from his birth as he walks forward, the clouds above changing in shape and color during the travel. What makes this one interesting is that robot boy keeps his face forward while so much activity(the clouds actually take the form of people looking down upon him; a mushroom cloud develops and eventually disrupts the sky; we see space ships and hobbling rabbits moving about in the sky even)carries on as if he's drifting through life without noticing a thing--heck, even at one point lightning and rain pelt his body and he merely shakes off the effects. Eventually, though, robot boy turns around, quits drifting through life, and actually becomes a part of what he's been missing.
A crazed genius, operating a giant mechanical monster laying waste to a city, meets his match in a group of kids who have also created their own robotic titan in a battle which will decimate whatever lies in their wake. This one is cool in how it shows the opposing forces working throughout their robots, controlling the inner-workings and responsible for their actions and reactions.
Perhaps a metaphor in regards to technology overtaking us, a modern city is "infected by a mechanical disease", first started by a godlike robot towering overhead and later carried by a second, more mobile creature operating a flying contraption, blasting various areas with cybernetic beings rising to the surface carrying the close resemblance of insects. We follow one human man as he attempts to evade the mobile robot within a nightmarish mechanized assembly line creating more and more cybernetic creatures..through this maze of nuts and bolts, metal and wires, maybe only the human being can bring about the catastrophe needed before all hope is lost for mankind.
And as the Robot Carnival machine comes to a halt, we realize that the animated movie must to find its conclusion. What makes ROBOT CARNIVAL a dynamo are the grand variety of different styles of animation, the animators' own unique visual flourishes on display here for its audience to enjoy, no one story is alike which is welcome. Some are geared towards an adrenaline rush, other stories more melancholy, worth pondering and thinking about for a while.
Review by Scarecrow-88 from the Internet Movie Database.
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