Review for Roujin Z

Introduction

You just never know with anime. I missed out on Roujin Z the first time around, as when it was released on VHS by Manga Video, I was more into the sex and violence side of anime, than I was into intelligent social satire. Surprisingly for a movie made by Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame, that was the last we saw of Roujin Z in the UK. It was only the untimely death of Satoshi Kon two years ago, and a need to fill the gaps in my collection of his back catalogue that re-introduced me to Roujin Z, and I managed to snag one of the last few retail copies of the US DVD release from Central Park Media. I reviewed it back then, and then put it aside as a footnote in anime history, never to be revisited by Western distributors. I wasn't expecting it to be rescued by Kazé Entertainment, and I most certainly wasn't expecting it to be restored and spruced up for a high definition Blu-ray release. But sure enough, Kazé are now releasing Roujin Z in the UK, on both Blu-ray and DVD for the first time, through the auspices of Manga Entertainment. As I've commented on Roujin Z before, anything in italics is a cut and paste from my earlier review.

Roujin Z was the first creation with Katsuhiro Otomo's name attached following the groundbreaking Akira and expectations were high. Roujin Z is nothing like Akira. It's a smaller scale, lower budget production, with not as much sci-fi and a lot more comedy and satire to it. But it did get a 'Pick of the Week' award from Siskel and Ebert, which surely makes it worthy of examination. And with its storyline of the elderly increasingly becoming a burden on society, resulting in drastic measures by the government, it may actually be more relevant now, than when it was initially released. After all, back in 1991, few in the UK were worried about the pension age increasing, and all of us having to work longer to support the welfare state that is in turn supposed to support us. No one was worried about a shortage of nursing and carers, about an overburdened NHS, about the elderly facing neglect and abandonment. Suddenly Roujin Z looks less like a satire and more like a good idea…

Japan faces a crisis that gets even deeper in the future, that of the elderly and infirm overwhelming the nation's ability to care for them. A programme to provide all of the old with a direct connection to a network of carers, an emergency response at the touch of a button if needed, is collapsing under its own weight. A radical plan may solve that, the experimental Z-001. And prime candidate for that experiment is Mr Kijuro Takazawa, an elderly man whose only lifeline is Haruko Mihashi, the volunteer nurse who takes time out from her studies to care for him. She's appalled at the idea of him being in an experiment, he's not too keen on the idea himself, but his family have signed the release forms, and that's all the government needs. The Z-001 is an automated, computerised bed that will serve as Takazawa's nurse, taking care of all his healthcare and sanitary needs. It will even provide entertainment and communications, a link to the Internet, and if there is no companion to communicate with, it can also create a simulated personality to act as its patient's companion. Its autonomous, self-aware, and sixth generation computer can learn and adapt, and even upgrade itself. And it's all powered by an onboard nuclear reactor, so that you don't have to ever worry about power failures. What could possibly go wrong? Well, it could take on the personality of Mr Takazawa's dead wife for one…

Picture

I had a brief moment of alarm when I compared the disc specs for the old import CPM DVD and the Blu-ray. That DVD had a listed aspect ratio of 1.66:1 letterbox while the Blu-ray's ratio is 1.78:1. With panic growing about cropping, I took another look at the DVD, and it turns out that it isn't 1.66:1, but its NTSC format when zoomed in on my TV does lose a few lines of information top and bottom, and doesn't quite reach the edges. It would be cropped even more severely on a CRT with overscan. So I did have a lingering reservation about the Blu-ray. I needn't have worried, as all the picture information in the DVD was present on the Blu-ray, in its 1.78:1 aspect ratio.


That's 1.78:1 widescreen at 1080p resolution to be exact. Comparing the Blu-ray to the CPM DVD is like comparing mountain fresh spring water to mud. I haven't seen the Manga Entertainment DVD that's being released at the same time as this Blu-ray, but if it's taken from the same master, it's got to be almost as drastic an improvement. The Blu-ray's transfer is to all intents and purposes, perfect. I saw no compression, no colour banding, and no aliasing, nothing at all to indicate that this was a digital presentation. It's an unblemished reproduction of the original artwork. The only reason you may have to nitpick is that it's not a grand, theatrical animation. Roujin Z is decidedly old-fashioned, a simple cel animation from a bygone age, and while dirt, and signs of age are absent from the print, you do get the flicker of film, you do get jumps in the frames when subsequent cels aren't perfectly aligned, and you do get the odd wayward fleck of ink or paint on the cels. That said, Roujin Z maintains a consistency in its character designs, the mechanical designs do impress, especially as they are accomplished by hand, and the richness of the world design has a very lived in and realistic feel to it. It being a cel animation, from an analogue age, it benefits significantly from a high definition presentation, and it's well worth watching this way.

Sound

A European disc means a panoply of menus and subtitle options. There's DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround Japanese, French, Italian, and German, as well as DD 2.0 Stereo Spanish, Catalan, and English. There are no subtitles with the Spanish menu, Italian, German and French translated subtitles and signs only tracks, a Dutch translated subtitle track, and an English translated subtitle track.

I was very happy with the Japanese audio, which with this release gets a lossless upgrade. It's not the most dynamic of surround tracks, front-focussed for the most part, but it does have a degree of ambience to it, and certainly gets lively for the action sequences. The dialogue is clear throughout, and it seems the subtitle track is the same, slightly looser translation as that on the CPM disc. The Dolby Stereo English track is the old Manga Video dub, which gets a more inventive translation than you would find these days on anime releases. While the script is interesting, the dub itself is pure Manga Video, something I took pains to avoid as soon as the DVD was invented, with its dual language options.

Extras

The disc comes in a thin, Blu-ray case, with the generic Roujin Z cover art, and a rather plain page of blurb. The inner sleeve is blank.

Stick the disc in, and you get the choice of French, German, Italian, English, Spanish, and Dutch animated menus. The French menu option will take you via autoplaying trailers of KZTV and Redline, to a menu where you can also access trailers for King of Thorn, The Castle of Cagliostro, and Le Fil de L'Araignee. The German menu autoplays with trailers for Summer Wars and Redline.

In terms of extras for Roujin Z, this disc is completely bare. This being a Kazé disc, you can't mix and match audio and subtitles to your whim, and have to do what the disc dictates, so no English audio with subtitles.

Conclusion

Help the Aged meets Robocop, resulting in a satire that was certainly cutting and relevant when it was first released, and still feels fresh today, nearly 20 years after it was made. The worrying thing is that the negatives that this story highlighted, the growing imbalance in demographics, the increasing fraction of elderly laying claim to more of the nation's resources, and the sense of neglect around the elderly seems increasingly to be coming to pass. This film starts with the frail Takazawa, bedridden, calling for his carer Haruko because he has wet the bed, and since no one is there, resorting to hitting the emergency button on his pendant, summoning a full medical response. The striking point here is that in a nation that reputedly venerates its elders, Takazawa's family has essentially left him to his own devices, relying on volunteer care to do what they can't find the time to, or be bothered to do. It's all funny and silly, until you remember those scare stories of the elderly dying of starvation on hospital beds in the UK. Unfortunately there is no evidence of the positives in the story, no national network of emergency panic buttons keeping the elderly tied into emergency response, and certainly no government effort such as the one here that goes into automating geriatric care.

Of course that is the whole problem, as removing the human element from care, and leaving it all to machines leads to visions of people being plugged into the Matrix. Poor Takazawa is quickly plugged into his auto-bed, wired up to and implanted with sensors and probes that constantly monitor the state of his health, as well as being plugged into devices that keep him fed and watered, as well as clean and free of waste products. It's care that is inhumane, which sounds like an oxymoron. But with every great technological advance, there is an element that embraces it fervently, not thinking through the consequences. And it's almost with a Verhoeven-esque degree of absurdity that the concept of this bed is sold, with the programme fronted by a man with the elegance and charm and verbosity of a game show host.

The only voice of common sense comes from Takazawa's nurse, a trainee named Haruko, who could be considered as part of the old guard, fearful of losing her job to automation, but she readily sees the inhumanity of the project and protests, and is quickly labelled an agitator and security risk as a result. Her fears are confirmed when Takazawa uses the bed to call her for help, and even briefly escapes with her to go back home before the bed and patient is recovered by the programme. It's when Haruko tries to contact Takazawa again that things spiral out of control. The only way is to hack into the bed's computer, thanks to some aging hackers on the geriatrics ward where Haruko works. But the only way for Takazawa to respond is if they give the bed his late wife's voice. At which point the bed takes on his late wife's personality, and starts caring for him with the humanity and love that society has been denying him. And Takazawa's one wish is to go to the beach. Mayhem ensues as the bed and patient escape, rampaging through the city as they try to get to the ocean, picking up upgrades on the way.

Of course the big issue is how much such a revolutionary piece of medical engineering will cost, certainly more than a government's welfare budget would allow. Not to worry though, as the Z-001's next generation computer has been gifted by the US military. And if they use it to test the capabilities of the next generation of weapons…

In many ways, it's a typical Katsuhiro Otomo tale of technology going out of control, of mankind advancing far too quickly for his intellect and common sense to keep pace with, and a delicious bit of cyberpunk to boot. But add to that the social commentary and the satirical insight and Roujin Z turns out to be more than the sum of its parts. It's also consistently funny, with a grand punchline.

If you've never seen Roujin Z before, you do not want to miss out on this opportunity. It is the unsung hero of the cyberpunk anime genre, completely overshadowed by its big brother Akira, but this movie is a lot more relevant than the Otomo epic, and has a much more fundamental message to it. For once we get something that the US doesn't, a change from the usual state of affairs. Roujin Z may be a lower budget, somewhat cruder cel animation, but it looks stunning in high definition. The only reason that I have now to hold onto that CPM DVD is the smattering of extras that disc has (a missed opportunity on this Blu-ray), and the awesome b-movie style cover art, against which this Blu-ray case looks rather bland.