Hello guys…I am revisiting my teenage-hood where I used to be bananas about anime (Yes I was an anime otaku before a cinephile). I recalled of knowing Steamboy towards Animax when I saw the trailer of it and of course the seiyuus acting.I was gobsmacked man. Gobsmacked. It was until I maanged to watch it online that I discovered its masterpiece. Now to my review.

Steamboy (2004)-Katsuhiro Otomo.

Set in alternate Victorian London (yes my inner steampunk nerd is coming y’all),a brilliant young inventor Ray Steam suddenly discovered a power by a steamball made by his grandfather and father that is amazing. However this steamball have a power that potienally create a war between two nations. Together with Scarlett O’Hara (Oh Gawd…. Gone with The Wind have haunted me back). Ray will try to stop the world from going loose.

This film is most notably to be the most expensive anime film ever…Now thanks to mother google-the statistics. This film was in production for a decade (Ten years in layman’s speech) and it used *Takes a deep breath* more than 180,000 drawings and 440 CG cuts. You think about the amount of hard-disk drives going overload,lots of animation papers and pens and of course lots of animators to bring this masterpiece to life. Now that is super epic in scale. Look at the detail work of the animation,if you are not gobsmacked by the vast scale. This,my friends is anime at super hard-core drive. So expect lots of steampunk porn that stretches your imagination. So epic me gusta for me.

Within that beautiful animation that suck you into Victorian London,I disagree with the critics that it was mediocre in story. Perhaps that film was underrated due to the vast popularity of Otomo-san’s previous work Akira (1988) which I have not ticked this off from my list of films to watch. Maybe they feel that the  allegory of anti-war wasn’t clear as we are more awed by the thrill of the film. However that is the fun part of the film,it was suspenseful as the audience have to decide whenever science is the tool of destruction or not. It feels almost foreboding as its previous work Akira. It rings to me what is the use of Man’s weapons in war back again. 

Of course the soundtrack is absolutely amazing and yes I have just found out that it was composed by Steve Jablonsky (Surprise! Surprise! just found he did the soundtrack for Transformers). It extremely fit the almost philosophical film.

I remember that I have so much fun watching this film as I was that naive 14 year old girl. Now I am 20,I feel the rush when I saw Ray in his monocycle  chase sequence or that foreboding castle just scaring me off. It’s just fun and it allows your imagination to soar when you watch this.

Overall,I am so glad to revisit my teenhood flick with a new light. Love the animation here and the story was pretty fun. So please do watch this film. You will not regret it!