Silent Möbius: The Motion Picture

Original Title: サイレント メビウス THE MOTION PICTURE
Romanized: Silent Möbius The Motion Picture
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

In 2028, a great evil is secretly encroaching on the world of humans--a demonic force known as Lucifer Hawk. Standing in its way is a small, secret group of female police officers: Tokyo's AMP. Gifted with supernatural abilities, they try to defeat the forces of darkness wherever they appear--this time, in a massive new skyscraper under construction. But for one member of AMP, Katsumi Liqueur, this particular battle is personal. As she flashes back to 2024 and her introduction to the world of the supernatural, we discover why.

Quick Review

Rating: 3 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-06-22

Silent Möbius is yet another short theatrical movie based on a long manga series. Like the manga, it serves up supernatural cyberpunk horror-drama with some slick visuals. Although it doesn't completely escape the problems that plague similar films, it successfully mitigates the limited time by focusing on an interesting side story instead of trying to present a jumbled distillation of the whole thing to the unfamiliar. The characters are solid, the plot is confusing but functional, the Japanese version features some impressive emotional drama, and it looks spectacular.

The Streamline dub does some bad things to the plot, but even that version should be a treat to fans of the original story. Those who aren't won't get much out of the characterization or drama, but there's still plenty of slick action and stylish horror to enjoy if you like that sort of thing.

US DVD Review

No US-release DVD exists as of this writing.

Content Guide

One shower scene and some bloody violence got this an R rating when Streamline released it theatrically, and it's fair to call it 16-up.

Violence: 3 - While not gratuitous, a few demons get ripped up, and there is enough blood to go around.

Nudity: 3 - One mid-length scene in a shower.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - Nothing at all.

Language: 1 - Fairly clean language in the dub.

Notes and Trivia

Silent Möbius is based on a long running (over 10 years) manga series by Kia Asamiya (available in English from VIZ). There's also a newer TV series covering the larger story (available from Bandai), and a direct movie sequel to this one, Silent Möbius 2, not available in the US at all as of this writing. Other adaptations include a number of video games: 1990 and 1991 releases for the little-known Japanese PC-98 and FM TOWNS gaming computers, the 1996 Windows/Mac game "Ice Riddle," and most recently two Playstation games in 1998, "Case:Titanic" and "The Phantom Demon."

In Japan this film was shown in theaters as a double feature with the first Heroic Legend of Arislan movie. Streamline also showed it as a double feature in US theaters, though in that case it was paired with the somewhat more logical choice of Neo Tokyo. The sequel never made it to the US but was shown in Japanese theaters as a triple bill with the 2nd Arislan movie as well as Weathering Continent.

Streamline's VHS release looks nice, but the video is cropped from the movie's original slightly widescreen format, a pity for something this pretty.

A note on the title: Möbius can (according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica) be pronounced as either may-bee-us or moe-bi-us (like "maybe" or "Moby" Dick, respectively), and while Streamline's dub used the latter, the transliteration used on the Japanese version is "Sairento Mebiusu," meaning that it was intended as the former. It doesn't really matter, though I personally think the "oh" version sounds cooler.

Incidentally, the word Möbius doesn't mean anything by itself. It is a German family name made famous by August Möbius, creator of the Möbius strip. That association has given it vague connotations of "infinity," though not strong enough that it's in the dictionary.

Also on the topic of names, there is confusion over whether the name of the demon group "Rushifaa Hooku" is more accurately translated into English as "Lucifer Hawk" (which Streamline used), or the "Lucifer Folk," which sounds less cool but probably makes a little more sense in context.

Finally, as mentioned above, Streamline's translation, aside from generally making less sense, makes a few specific and notable changes. The small things, though quite a bit different from the original, are forgivable in the interest of smoother dialogue. As for the big stuff, there are spoilers from here on down, but if you're interested:

• The dub implies that Katsumi's mother hoped her psychic powers would never come to the fore, while the original seemed to say that they had only been hidden to protect her from Lucifer Hawk during her childhood.
• The reason that the AMP team (even the ones who didn't know her history) were so interested in Katsumi was changed. In the dub, she had intentionally entered an area marked "restricted" on her map (which didn't make a lot of sense anyway, since it was only "restricted" because AMP was there hunting for a demon). The original dialogue made it clear that Katsumi had no idea the alley was anything but a normal alley, but that the wards at the entrance were supposed to prevent normal humans from entering at all.
• Most detrimental, in my opinion, are the changes at the end. The dub implies that Katsumi's mother tragically sacrifices herself to oblivion to keep Katsumi safe, and that it was Katsumi's fault. In the original the implication is that she is only sacrificing her body (she even makes a comment like "I'll watch over you with your dad"), and that it was sort of inevitable. The dub also adds a cheesy reference to love being the way to unlock Katsumi's power and makes Katsumi's reaction to her mother's death a little more accepting.

That last change may have been beneficial in terms of making the segue between the flashback and the very end a little smoother, and perhaps some of the other changes were intended to make Katsumi's abilities a bit more ambiguous, but several of the most powerful emotional scenes (including the one at the end of the flashback) are significantly toned down, and the overall effect is negative.

Availability

Was once available from Streamline on dubbed VHS, now long out of print.

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