Warner Home Video has announced that they will be releasing the new Appleseed movie on DVD in 2008, the official site is here. Appleseed is one of the first translated manga titles that I read way back when. I have always thought that is one of Shirow’s best works, and alway been on of my favorites, but I have never been really happy with any of the anime treatments that is has received.

The original movie came out in 1988 back in the days of cel animation and while the story and action were good you had to be familiar with Appleseed to get the most out of it, as it kind of jumped in to the middle of things.
The second movie came out in 2004 and was a CGI, motion capture, cel shaded, disappointment. The animation was so so, while the outdoor action scenes looked very nice, most indoor scenes left a lot to be desired. The character animation was often wooden and the faces seemed to only expression with little or no emotion showing. Giving the whole movie the look of a in-game rendered cut scene.

The newest movie is again CGI and it looks to be of better quality then the second movie. From the looks of the trailers they have dropped the cel shading and went with a more realistic 3D render, thou not a high quality as Beowulf. While it looks like it will get limited US theater release , I will just wait till it comes out on DVD. Hopefully we will have the best Appleseed anime yet if not I will just reread my manga collection and keep waiting.

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