Neo Tokyo (film)

Labyrinth Labyrinthos In the film's frame story, a girl named Sachi (Hideko Yoshida/Cheryl Chase) plays a game of hide-and-seek with her cat Cicerone. The game leads them to an old longcase clock, which doubles as a doorway to a labyrinth world filled with supernatural oddities and characters. Eventually, Sachi and Cicerone arrive at a circus tent, where they watch the following segments on a viewing screen. After the following segments conclude, the circus troupe performs a show for the two. However, it is then revealed Sachi and Cicerone were watching the entire film unfold on a television in the void of space. The Running Man Zack Hugh (Banjō Ginga/Jeff Winkless) has dominated the Death Circus racing circuit for 10 years. Journalist Bob Stone (Masane Tsukayama/Michael McConnohie) discovers Zack possesses telekinetic abilities, which he uses to destroy the other racers. After winning his latest race by killing the competitors, Zack hallucinates being overtaken by a spectral racer and destroys himself when he attempts to use his powers on the hallucination. Construction Cancellation Order A revolution in the fictional South American country of the Aloana Republic results in a new government that refuses to accept a contract for the construction of a city-sized project called Facility 444 in an inhospitable swamp. Salaryman Tsutomu Tsujioka (Yū Mizushima/Robert Axelrod) is sent to stop the construction, which is being performed by robots under the command of an increasingly erratic robot designated 444-1 (Hiroshi Ōtake/Jeff Winkless). Witnessing the destruction of several robots and 444-1's refusal to cease operations, Tsutomu begins to lose his patience and is nearly killed by 444-1, who was programmed to eliminate anything that poses a threat to the project. Tsutomu retaliates by destroying 444-1 and follows its power cord to the energy source of the robots in an attempt to finally end the construction. Unknown to Tsutomu, the old government has been restored and is again honoring the contract. ==Production==

Labyrinth Labyrinthos is written for the screen and directed by Rintaro, with character design and animation direction by Atsuko Fukushima and art direction by Yamako Ishikawa. It serves as the anthology's "top-level" story, a framing device that leads into the other two works. The Running Man is written for the screen and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, with character design and animation direction by Kawajiri, mechanical design by Takashi Watabe and Satoshi Kumagai, key animation by Shinji Otsuka, Nobumasa Shinkawa, Toshio Kawaguchi and Kengo Inagaki and art direction by Katsushi Aoki. The segment appeared on Episode 205 of Liquid Television, which featured Rafael Ferrer replacing Michael McConnohie as Bob Stone. Construction Cancellation Order is written for the screen and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, with character designs by Otomo and animation direction by Takashi Nakamura This segment's depiction of South America as a dangerous, unstable place is comparable to other depictions in the Japanese media during the 1990s such as Osamu Tezuka's 1987 comic Gringo. ==Reception==

The film was positively received. In a 2021 list of the "100 best anime movies of all-time", Paste magazine ranked Neo Tokyo at #11, writing "though for the most part absent of any real thematic connectivity, Neo-Tokyo is a concise and powerful example of the dizzying heights of technical mastery and aesthetic ambition anime can achieve when put in the hands of the medium's most inimitable creators." ==References==