Ask John: What Makes Redline Good?
Question:
Am I the only person who isn’t even remotely interested in this Redline film? The synopsis makes it sound like a cousin to the Fast and the Furious films and that kind of thing seems more for American comic book fans. What’s the deal with the pockets of fandom hyping this thing? It certainly ended up being a colossal flop in its homeland.
Answer:
I don’t wish to direct any disrespect toward anyone when I say objectively that director Takeshi Koike’s 2009 anime film Redline is specifically and exclusively a film for hardcore fans of Japanese animation. The movie has limited appeal to mainstream viewers likely to find it too outre, or fans of particular varieties of anime. Moé and bishoujo fans, children, fujoshi, viewers that love typical shonen adventure anime probably won’t find a lot to love in the film. Redline is a film to be respected and appreciated by a small, cultish niche of viewers with a particular respect and fondness for the literal creativity of Japanese 2D animation.
Much of the dialogue in Redline is improvised by mainstream Japanese celebrity actors including Takuya Kimura and Tadanobu Asano, so the dialogue is not the film’s primary appeal. The film’s story is quite simple. The film begins with a spectacular auto race, moves into preparation for an even bigger car race, then depicts the race. Unlike Hollywood’s Fast & Furious movies, which attempt to balance action with glamorizing characters, Redline is exclusively an action movie and only slows down long enough to establish character relationships that will affect the race. In effect, the attractiveness of the film does not lie in an absorbing, affecting narrative. Redline is a throwback to the golden era when style was substance and anime didn’t need a complicated or even logical story so long as it had energy and creativity to spare. So it’s no surprise that mainstream Japanese audiences ignored the film. Typically the only anime films to really achieve great Japanese box office success are mainstream accessible pictures like Ghibli films and children’s anime, and features specifically targeted at established fan bases. Redline eschews all of those conventional audiences, in essence existing as an animation film for fans of the literal art of animation.
Animation studio Madhouse spent seven years crafting Redline. The film consists of roughly 100,000 hand-drawn frames. Unlike most contemporary anime, Redline does not contain any 3D CG rendered models. All of the film’s backgrounds, vehicles, and characters were drawn by hand. The film is a lush, wildly creative, exhilarating throwback to the 1980s era of anime when visionary imagination was coupled with fluid and thoroughly detailed animation in films such as Akira, Cool Cool Bye, Birth, Nausicaa, Honneamise, Robot Carnival, X Densh de Iko, Ai City, and Tenshi no Tamago, to name a few. The film’s primary devotees are those that appreciate the distinct visual aesthetics, conceptual dynamics, and technical prowess of top-notch Japanese animation. Redline is a reminder that no other country on Earth produces 2D animation that is as visually and stylistically lush and imaginative and simultaneously as technically accomplished as Japan. The film is heavenly for viewers that enjoy just sinking into a visually complex, artistically brilliant two-dimensional animation world. The movie is fluidly animated pure exuberant imagination on screen. However, not every viewer can or wishes to appreciate that particular variety of visual spectacle. Most moviegoers want engaging characters, dramatic interpersonal relationships, affecting story, not just blissful technical animation mastery. I, personally, have tremendous respect for Madhouse for its lengthy commitment to producing Redline, a film that exists just to remind us of exactly how spectacular anime can be when its only concern is presenting masterfully animated artistry, breathing fluid, moving life into a singular artist’s unique creative vision.
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My thing about REDLINE is this:
It’s 2011. The “golden era” (As you call it) when all an anime needed was energy, vibrance, beauty, and style (All of which REDLINE has in excess) is long gone and anime has realized its potential as an artistic medium since.
Since then, we’ve had series like Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, Haruhi, Clannad, and Gunslinger Girl (A Madhouse production), and films like Paprika and Summer Wars (Both also Madhouse productions) that really set bars and pushed boundaries, whether those boundaries were storytelling, social commentary, or raw emotion.
REDLINE, on the other hand, is just pure animation quality and, while that might have made it “spectacular” 30 years ago, I think we, as anime fans, should really be expecting more from an anime, and I’m willing to bet that has something to do with why it failed so spectacularly in Japan.
I wonder how many of those bubble-era (“golden age”) animation-driven OAVs & movies actually made their money back. Maybe Redline was produced as a prestige piece and not a mainstream blockbuster, which is funny because, in a way, Redline is mainstream– It’s the equivalent of a Hollywood action/effects blockbuster, but with the unfortunate distinction of being 2D animated and a foreign film. It’s only the attitudes that people have with 2D animation that make it niche, not the story content or storytelling.
And while it does feature loads of action, it’s not an incomprehensible string of unjustified setpieces. Redline is narratively competent and well-paced, with half of the film devoted to character introductions & motivations, race preparation, and the (however cartoony) politics surrounding the event. Unlike bubble-era projects like Birth and Robot Carnival, or even some recent Hollywood action-effects blockbusters (2012, Transformers 3), it presents a world & narrative just fleshed out enough to convince you to suspend your disbelief and care about the plight of its protagonists.
In other words, Redline is not a pure oldschool nostalgia trip. It’s only nostalgic in the sense that we used to have ultra-lush anime productions that weren’t one of the following:
1. Family friendly Ghibli-esque fare.
2. Part of a children’s media/toy franchise (Pokemon, One Piece, whatever)
3. Established otaku genre pandering (mecha, bishoujo/moe, etc.).
Of the anime mentioned by Timeenforceranubis, only Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell and Paprika avoid those categories. Two of them are rare international breakout hits from the 90s, and one has to wonder if Paprika, a less expensive feature than Satoshi Kon’s previous movies, even made its money back (and for that matter, Paranoia Agent). We all know how his final film, a seemingly ghibli-esque family flick even, is having funding troubles.
Maybe Madhouse produced Redline on the off chance it would too become a breakout hit internationally.
It’s a shame that a japanese animated film that dares to stretch out of the boundaries of “anime conventions” gets flack like this.
Takeshi Koike is one of the most distinctive visual artists in Japan, and the work method, voice talent involved, and persistence in world building (since this production shares setting with a previous animated production), make REDLINE a production that delivers more, in terms of originality and content, than most current animation from Japan. Describing it as “pure animation” is reductive, no matter how niche the intended audience.
Popularity does not equal quality, and I personally appreciate the work of japanese animators that, building on tradition, don’t fear to have a personal voice. Takeshi Koike, Morimoto Koji, Masaaki Yuasa, Mamoru Hosoda and the late Satoshi Kon (to name a few) have that in common: a strong authoral voice. That must be appreciated.
Gee, I didn’t know Clannad and Haruhi were considered our new examples of boundary-pushing anime. Are we not allowed to just have fun, not make profound statements, or show that anime can be for groups other than children?
Who said we’re not allowed to have fun?
Allow me to present an analogy:
I enjoy playing an arcade game called Ghost Squad. It’s a light-gun shooter, where you use a plastic gun to shoot at targets onscreen. The graphics are a bit dated, the storyline is pretty unimaginative, and the voice-acting is incredibly cheezy, but the gameplay is non-stop, balls-to-the-wall action, and I enjoy the hell out of playing it.
In addition to Ghost Squad, I also play a PS3 turn-based tactical RPG called Valkyria Chronicles. VC has beautiful graphics, a fantastic story, good voice acting, and amazing gameplay. It’s one of my favorite games.
Sometimes, however, I prefer playing Ghost Squad. It’s a throwback to a bygone era where arcades were where you went to play the best games. But I’m not going to say that Ghost Squad is a masterpiece.
Likewise, REDLINE is very well-animated, but that’s about it. Everything else is minimal. Sure, it different, but that alone doesn’t make it a masterpiece. Just like popularity doesn’t equal quality, just being different doesn’t equal being great.
As for Clannad and Haruhi, I particularly had those in mind for anime that set bars, not pushed boundaries. Clannad in particular managed to draw me into the characters so strongly that it managed to make me cry.
The anime that manages to compel the viewer to emotionally invest his or herself so deeply into it that they cry openly at the events onscreen, in addition to looking great, sounding great, and having a well-fleshed-out, compelling story? That is masterpiece material in 2011.
Well, similarly, action flicks (not to be confused with epic films) tend not to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Redline is an action flick, but once again I think its qualities extend far beyond its animation drawing count– its vibrant and satirical world, its unusual and lively non-anime acting performances, its constantly humorous storytelling that conjures the image of artists pouring over every moment and detail of the film, injecting as much human expression as possible.
That last quality is one you can attribute to some of the best works, whether we’re talking about (1995’s) Ghost in the Shell or Summer Wars. As much as I’ve enjoyed Haruhi, Clannad and even Valkyria Chronicles, I have to admit that they sometimes cast a sterile, detached feel, as if they’re running down a genre checklist than allowing their artists to let loose. Much of Haruhi’s 2nd season serves as an egregious example. It was refreshing to see something as transparently artist-driven as Redline, even as it often teetered into irreverence.
As a videogame analogy, there are CRPGs like Skyrim and Dragon Age– well-rounded, impressively produced but overly generic in its world and clinical when it comes to human expression… Then there are CRPGs like Vampire: Bloodlines, which presents a bizarre urban landscape loaded with twisted characters and easter eggs. The way the game powerfully exuded its dark and distinctively human sensibilities kept me playing despite all the irreverence and questionable gameplay mechanics. Redline is kinda like that… it’s deficient as a solid story delivery vehicle, but on the other hand it’s a highly expressive, human product.
When I think of 1980s throwbacks, I actually think of lavishly animated yet narratively incompetent products like the Fate Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works movie, or the (admittedly enjoyable) Karas OVA series.
Unlike those expressionless works, Redline’s core expression is transcendence through speed. While transcendence is a common theme in anime (Evangelion, Lain, any anime that involves “powers” or “transformation”, Mamoru Oshii’s GitS movie) and even Japanese culture in general, I think Redline is in particular a version of Kawajiri’s short anime film, The Running Man– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcQMYyAO_do
Koike did a similar short for The Animatrix called World Record, where a transcendent professional sprinter transcends the virtual world with an all-out performance.
Anyway, there are numerous reasons I don’t see Redline as a strict 1980s throwback or the equivalent of an arcade lightgun game.
I’m not saying the thing’s a masterpiece, but I don’t think it was Koike’s intent to make a throwback anime.
seanny described it perfectly: “Redline’s core expression is transcendence through speed”.
On the “Running Man” analogy, it must be also noted that Thakeshi Koike’s mentor is no other than Yoshiaki Kawajiri, whose influence can still be seen in Koike’s lank character designs and bold black lines.
Just want to chime in that I also didn’t want to suggest that Takeshi Koike’s conscious goal was to create an 80’s style anime; I think that was simply the result. In fact, Koike himself has explained that what he wanted to create as an anime that would appeal to car fanatics, not-anime fans.
I also think that my article may have unfairly reduced the characteristics and appeal of Redline just a bit too far. I do stand by what I wrote, but the film does also appeal outside of the niche I mentioned, to viewers that appreciate the movie’s verve and energy.
“Gee, I didn’t know Clannad and Haruhi were considered our new examples of boundary-pushing anime. Are we not allowed to just have fun, not make profound statements, or show that anime can be for groups other than children?”
Ironically I can flip this “Oh poor me” victim routine around when we fans of moe, bishoujo, and lolicon anime want to express our enthusiasm only to be shamed, isolated, insulted (called pedophiles among other nasty slurs), and ridiculed by the rest of the fandom into silence. Then to top it all off, we are pigeonholed into one dimensional stereotypes based on our interest alone.
@ Seanny
I only have one question for you; if the animation of Redline wasn’t stellar would you still share those same sentiments? Redline has done nothing that hasn’t been done before.
You have your stereotypical characters such as: “The cool dude”, “The Snarky Girl”, “The Mafia Dude betting on races”, and “The Hotshot Asshole”. These tropes/stereotypes could be found in any Fast and Furious Movie. I also don’t understand how you believe that Redline transcended anything. EVA did transcend, because of its profound impact on otaku culture and anime in general while Redline did nothing of the sort.
I am disappointed in the fact that I’ve had to listen to the same whining for years from international otaku about how they want something more meaningful plot and character-wise, and this shallow generic film ends up being your Holy Grail. The only difference between Redline and a Generic Harem anime is the fact that this movie has tropes that cater to international fans instead of Otaku adding in pretty animation to boot.
I can’t really add any new points in this thread or choose “sides” , mainly because most of em come from people that really know what they are talking about . I am what you could call a casual anime watcher .I mostly watch mainstream big titles and ,when i choose to watch a more deep or “hidden” anime i usually stop watching if i don’t really like it or get it.
That being said ,because i am a newbie to the Japanese animation culture i may have a different perspective when watching Redline , than someone with years or decades (o.O) of experience. So when i was introduced to redline through an AMV (anime/animation music video whatever you wanna call it ;p) i decided to check it out having some pretty obvious criteria (just by watching those scenes from the AMV) :
1.beautiful animation , not just Japanese but in general . It emitted an array of colors and effects that was appealing to the eye of someone that at least accepts different animation styles and doesn’t just go “hey this is just for kids” (im sure a lot of anime watchers can relate to that)
2. Sci fi / future setting ? count me in! I love science fiction and the opportunity to watch a (however small) new universe will not be missed by me at least
3.I am NOT going to watch a deep story ,some interesting and diverse in character heroes or even a back story or some logically explained stuff (much like fast and the furious). Its a space movie about race cars and their drivers struggling to reach the finish line , in a no rules tournament , for crying out loud !Anyone who watched it expecting more and then was mad or disappointed is a fool (no offense).
So if you don’t like sci fi anime or you desire a more compelling , deep , full of sentiment story you just should have seen it coming .
Since the 2 points are out of the way , the only problem is the animation style . So as i said i watch anime casually so i don’t like anime with some animation styles and cultures like moe /loli (i do strongly accept their existence as a part of this culture though), Even so when i saw redline i though that it might be appealing to even someone who hasn’t seen a single anime in his life . It has a lack of many things that anime haters or simple non anime watchers find weird and the stuff that is weird fits perfectly with the sci fi setting . Contrary to some people i do believe that the little bits of back story and the political intrigues (they were a bit comic book like ;p) are nice and in the right amount for a single action movie . It is an action flick (that’s the right word ?) and it is not a 20 or 100 or more episode series so why isn’t that little treat of backround and somewhat deep conflict acceptable by some ? An anime series has waaayyy more room to develop characters and deep story lines and some don’t even do that.
All in all Redline gave me the impression of a Hollywood action movie where it is either your choice to go and see it using point #3 and you love what u came to see ( explosions , loud in your face action , FUN ) , or you go like a snob critic or a person looking for more than the movie SAID it will give you and you think you have wasted 1 hour of your life.
sorry for any bad English , it is not my native tongue and in case you would like to see the AMV here is the link (if you don’t like rap then ok ;p)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7EApky3bUY&index=5&list=LLSGABPrWATKXLjQkYtjb5DA