Memories (1995) Review

I haven’t reviewed an anthology in a while, and it’s been an even longer time since I’ve reviewed an anime anthology. I actually came across Memories through an anime music video, or AMV, on YouTube, featuring a synth rendition of “The Phantom of the Opera” (come to think of it, that’s also the reason why I watched this movie). Almost immediately, I was enraptured by the film’s beauty and had to see the whole thing. Created by the one and only Katsuhiro Otomo, who famously directed Akira, comes this three-film anthology featuring Magnetic Rose, Stink Bomb, and Cannon Fodder.

Magnetic Rose

A salvage freighter in deep space receives an SOS signal from a nearby ship. The crew—Heinz, Miguel, Ivano, and Aoshima—go check it out. They arrive at a seemingly deserted ship roughly shaped like a rose. As their freighter approaches the rose, a strong magnetic pull gravitates them towards its proximity. Heinz and Miguel explore the rose while both Aoshima and Ivanov act as their surveillance from their ship. When the two make their way inside, they discover that the rose houses a luxurious mansion that once belonged to a famous opera singer named Eva. But the deeper they go, the more hallucinogenic horrors they uncover. From the dark and haunting memories of Eva’s public and private life to reliving their own worst nightmares, the two soon realize that the SOS signal may have been an elaborate trap.

What is scarier than exploring a ghostly haunted castle? It may seem all fun and games until you encounter a real ghost. Or rather, become trapped in the ghostly memories of a deranged and lovelorn opera singer. Even though this short was directed by Koji Morimoto, it was written by Satoshi Kon and contains many of his artistic trademarks, including the emphasis on psychological horror. It constantly messes with your perception of reality, but not in the same way as Perfect Blue does. While the castle may look pretty, everything within it is nothing more than an intricately crafted mirage. Nothing in it is real, from the luxury furniture to the endless blue sky and green fields to even the rich food and fine wine on the table. It’s all fabricated, either through holographic technology or through literal garbage. But the scariest part about it all is how the castle preys on each individual’s inner desires and fears. For example, Miguel’s infatuation with Eva was used to make him her new “husband,” while Heinz was forced to witness his young daughter’s tragic death over and over again.

Despite coming out in 1995, this is also one of the most beautiful animated films I’ve seen. I’m amazed at the attention to detail, from the marbling on the pillars to the lace and velvet textures on Eva’s plethora of dresses. And that’s just scratching the surface. Magnetic Rose perfectly blends the gorgeous operatic and gothic aesthetic with postmodern technology, creating a timeless look and feel that I have yet to see replicated anywhere else. It’s an aesthetic that should not work by any means, and yet it does! It’s so mystifying and oddly harrowing when we enter the dilapidated and rough exterior only to be greeted very suddenly by the lavish castle interior. Right away, alarms are going off in your head that something’s wrong, yet you can’t wrap your head around what’s exactly wrong. And it’s that very notion that makes the aesthetic, along with this first animated short, so jarringly magnetic.

Stink Bomb

Nobuo is a laboratory technician in Japan who is suffering from a fever. His coworkers tell him that the chief has some red pills in a blue bottle that will help with his symptoms. After he goes and takes one, several of his coworkers suddenly die, including the chief. Nobuo is unaware that the pills were not made as a fever suppressant but rather as a counter to biological weapons. With Nobuo out on the streets, every living thing in the nearby vicinity, from the flora and fauna to human life, is now placed in direct danger. It’s revealed that the deadly bioweapon was a joint effort between the Japanese and Americans. While the Japanese government is in favor of killing Nobuo, the Americans are against it, since it would waste all their investment into the project. As Nobuo nears Tokyo, unaware of his condition, the two world powers must figure out a way to subdue him before he kills them all.

Following up the stylistically powerful and chilling thriller that is Magnetic Rose, Stink Bomb seems to be a bit of a stinker, no pun intended. It doesn’t have the grandiose visuals or the eerily unnerving gothic tone. But I think I finally understand it after living through a global pandemic in 2020. In fact, you could say that this short is a direct prediction of the COVID-19 pandemic back in 1995. A biological weapon escapes from a lab (in Japan, not China) and quickly spreads, wreaking havoc across the world. Additionally, the short also provides commentary on the needless harm of biological weapons to innocent life. Both government parties were in the wrong here. The Japanese were at fault for creating the project to begin with, and the Americans were at fault for wanting to salvage their asset over protecting human life.

That being said, the comedic, almost slapstick tone really drags on longer than necessary. Even though it’s effective at conveying the film’s message, it feels especially out of place compared to both the first and third animated shorts. It almost feels like you’re watching The Interview right after Schindler’s List. While the animation style is still the same as its predecessor’s, the modern setting feels jarring when you compare it to the gothic and eerie horror aesthetic in Magnetic Rose or the postmodern steampunk world in Cannon Fodder. I don’t think the entire short is awful by any means; in fact, it ages pretty well, but it does feel like the ugly duckling of the entire anthology.

Cannon Fodder

This leads us to the final animated short of the anthology. Directed by the legendary Katsuhiro Otomo, Cannon Fodder revolves around a family of three—a father, mother, and boy—living in a heavily fortified city that’s at constant war with an “enemy.” Every building in the city has a cannon equipped to it, with the biggest cannon of them all located at the city center underneath a large steel dome. The father is a cannon loader, the mother is a munitions manufacturer, and the boy goes to school. While at work, the father is blamed for a safety mishap and is forced to stand near the biggest cannon as a gaudily dressed, high-ranking officer fires it. After a long, grueling day, the boy tells his father that he wants to be the one who fires the cannon before going off to bed. That night, the air raid sirens go off before an ominous blue light sweeps across his bedside window.

I think Cannon Fodder is the most prolific animated short of the entire anthology. It goes to show just how ruthless our world will be should we continue investing in our military-industrial complex, building more and more weapons and fortifying ourselves against an unknown enemy just so that we can feel like the most powerful nation in the world. This is no way to live. And a nation built on fortresses will, ironically, be poorer and much more fragile in the future. Just take a look at the city in the short. It looks beautiful on the surface, yet the constant cannon firing contributes to air pollution, which causes significant health problems for the population, as seen with their sickly and pale green skin. Every citizen lives in a tiny housing complex with little to eat, because all of the expenses go to funding the cannons. And the deity of this nation is a giant red cannon fired from a walled dome. Every time it is fired, the citizens pause their day and raise their hands in worship. Does this sound familiar?

Katsuhiro Otomo also heavily scrutinizes the dangerous effects of nationalism and authoritarianism. When we are told that the other is our enemy and completely dehumanize them, we become no better than the “bad guys” we fight. Throughout the short, the citizens are constantly told by the media that the enemy is ruthless and that they must “shoot and blast with all their might, shoot for the good of the nation!” This rhetoric breeds nothing but animosity towards an invisible enemy. Otomo never reveals who the citizens of “Cannon Town” are fighting, nor why the war was started. In fact, we are not sure if the war is even real or whether it’s a war for military or national interest. And this is a genius move, because it shows just how meaningless most wars are and how people can easily become radicalized against those who could very easily be just like us. We see this when the young boy expresses his desire to become a powerful military officer instead of a lowly maintenance worker like his father. And while the father never verbally disapproves of his son’s aspirations, he is very clearly troubled by who his son is becoming when he sees his crayon drawings.

Unlike the first two animated shorts, Cannon Fodder deviates from the traditional Japanese animation style. Rather, its animation resembles a 1960s Western children’s TV show. The line art is wispier, akin to pencil sketches, and the animation itself has a fluidity that comes across as more unnatural, yet endearing enough to be visually pleasing. Meanwhile, the color itself appears to be shaded in by a pencil. This makes the film look more like a drawing or even like a Johannes Vermeer painting. You don’t often see this kind of coloring done in American or even Japanese animated films. The only time I’ve seen it was in French animated films, such as April and the Extraordinary World or, perhaps more famously, A Cat in Paris. This only heightens the bleak realism of the film’s dystopian steampunk setting, making every minute detail pop, from the father’s scared expression as the cannon’s fired to the mother’s constant deadpan face to the boy’s giddy excitement as he imitates a fighter plane.

In conclusion, Katsuhiro Otomo’s Memories is more than just another anime anthology: it’s a true work of art that ages like a fine wine. While the three animated shorts all seem the least likely to be connected into one larger theme, they all have powerfully written stories that tackle prevailing social and political issues as well as having superbly fluid animation and gorgeous visual aesthetics (yes, even in Stink Bomb). It combines the powerfully raw themes on the dangers of war, nationalism, grief, and greed while effortlessly delivering an endlessly entertaining movie. If Akira was Otomo’s equivalent of Your Name, then Memories would easily be his 5 Centimeters per Second. Whether you’re an anime fan or a general movie watcher, Memories should be on your bucket list!