My big complaint with Steamboy is simple: it very often just doesn't make any damn sense. I'd been waiting for this film since seeing art for it in a Newtype as a newbie anime fan.īut all the money in the world can not buy you good character development or good pacing, and it certainly can't buy you a five-star film. It is well-established that Steamboy took ten years and some $26,000,000 to produce, the most expensive anime feature to date. The background work is incredible, and Otomo's vision is just absolutely tremendous when it's fully realized. You see, Steamboy is a visually incredible film. I've spent almost a week thinking about how to go about this review. At the center of it all: the imposing Steam Tower built in the heart of London, and its keeper: none other than Ray's father, Eddy. In his possession is a mysterious ball that his grandfather has tasked him with keeping - but the O'Hara Foundation wishes to possess it for military purposes. James Ray Steam (Ray for short) is the third in a line of genius inventors who have learned to harness steam to create powerful machines. Meanwhile, Ray starts to develop feelings for a young girl named Scarlett O'Hara.Distributor: R1 DVD from Sony Pictures, available streaming on Roku.Ĭontent Rating: PG-13 (May contain mild bad language, bloodless violence.)Īlso Recommended: Castle in the Sky, Metropolis, Porco Rosso Indeed, the O'Hara people soon take over the Great Exhibition and turn it into a veritable circus for weapons dealers. Ray later discovers that his dad and grandfather are located inside of the pavilion his dad, Eddie, has become mesmerized by O'Hara and subject to their whims, while Lloyd suspects that O'Hara may want to use the balls for nefarious purposes, and tries to put a definitive end to those plans. As it happens, several of these little balls run the O'Hara pavilion, a massive, mobile fortress.

A gadget-happy British lad named Ray (voice of Anna Paquin) receives a mysterious package from his grandfather Lloyd Steam (Patrick Stewart) - a tiny ball that turns out to be an engine toting immense power. It's the Industrial Age in England, reimagined, and various and sundry inventors and scientists are arriving in Britain to hawk their products while capitalism rears its ugly head. Katsuhiro Otomo, director of the groundbreaking anime feature Akira (1988), returns with this visually striking fusion of the past and the future.

Steamboy anime