Silent Möbius: The Motion Picture Anime Review

Quick Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2001-11-23 (updated 2011-04-11)
• 3 stars out of 5 (?)

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 old 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.

Read the full-length review...

Full Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2001-11-23 (updated 2011-04-11)
• 3 stars out of 5 (?)

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 distillation of the whole thing to the unfamiliar.

I happen to be familiar with (and fond of) the manga, so I'll start with a comparison. All the early members of AMP (Nami, Kiddy, Lebia, Rally, and Yuki) are briefly present, but the movie wisely says focused on a new bit of Katsumi's backstory and only touches on the grander themes. Stylistically, it's everything you could hope for: The visuals are dead-on and every bit as cool as the original. It also feels right--most of the cast are only around for a minute, and the focus is on the darker side of the story, but both are faithful translations.

Not surprisingly, the film's main problem is that the manga tells a long, convoluted, and all-around good yarn. Trying to cram even a chunk of that into 50 minutes of film is a recipe for disaster, so instead it focuses on an origin story for Katsumi Liqueur (something that, when this movie was made, hadn't been thoroughly covered in the manga). Most of the movie takes place in a flashback to before Katsumi was a member of AMP.

Framing the story as a flashback is a smart move. It gives existing fans something original and meaty instead of an oversimplified recap. At the same time, the story makes marginally more sense to a viewer not familiar with the series, and it also allows for a jump forward to a satisfying finale. Of course, the entire plot is still rather vague and hard to follow, and although dropping back out of the flashback makes for a good end, it bypasses a lot of character development and isn't a real conclusion. Given the limited time, however, it does a remarkably good job of offering fans something worthwhile without totally alienating other viewers.

The characterization and drama are in the same situation. It isn't long enough to build much empathy if you aren't already familiar with the cast, but the emotional drama is straightforward enough to follow if you're not. The story focuses on young Katsumi's unpleasant introduction into the world of the supernatural. The violent Kiddy, the more sympathetic Nami, and Katsumi's mother are the only other characters with any significant screen time--a nice limited selection given the large ensemble cast to choose from.

Katsumi's difficulty in accepting the role fate has given her is the heart of the story and the strong point of the characterization. She reacts believably to both the demon-induced trauma and the oft-used "hidden family history of magic powers" situation. Her coming to grips with these things is neither rushed nor overly drawn out. The other characters are distinctive and, in a pleasing change of pace from other stylish horror anime, they're not morose.

All that said, Silent Möbius is primarily a movie about style. It blends the complementary genres of traditional cyberpunk and the subtler side of monster horror into a coherent, well-visualized reality. The sights of Tokyo in the 2020s are rendered in detailed and realistic background art--everything from densely-populated cityscapes, to slightly-alien skylines, to simple hotel rooms. Its cyberpunk world feels more livable than many--there are sunny days, well-lit rooms, and traffic jams in addition to endless seas of skyscrapers and rainy, neon-filled nights.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the monster designs are original and appropriately creepy. The creatures are animated as solid yet ever-mutating things not entirely bound by the laws of this world, regurgitating new limbs, emerging from walls, or vanishing suddenly.

The action mixes real and occult, ranging from guns and swords to wards painted in blood and those ever-popular paper talismans. While the magic isn't notably creative and the settings are cliche, it more than makes up for the lack of creativity in the execution: Solid, gory, beautifully animated combat that stops short of gratuitous. The character animation elsewhere isn't quite as expensive-looking, but still on par with the consistently great art. The distinctive character designs are attractive, faithful adaptations of Kia Asamiya's refined work in the later parts of the manga.

There is now a proper English release and a new dub by Ocean Studios, but for quite some time it was only available as an early dub by the long-gone Streamline Pictures. Like much of Streamline's work, that dub sounds good but plays fast and loose with the story. The acting is solid and believable all around; my only complaint is that Iona Morris is a little weak in Katsumi's most emotional scenes. Melora Harte sounds a bit old as Rally, and Julie Donald's voice is much too deep for Yuki, but neither is onscreen for more than a moment and the casting is otherwise good.

The writing is another story. The dialogue is acceptable (a few nice lines, some awkward ones), but the script makes significant changes to the backstory of Katsumi's predicament and the way in which it plays out. I'd complain on principle even if the changes worked, but it's unarguably bad here since the Streamline version of the story doesn't make as much sense and is less dramatically effective. Several scenes are toned down, and while the end flows a little better it's also less satisfying and injected with a cheesy message about "love being the key."

In comparison, the original Japanese is better written and the story is much smoother. The casting is a little better than the Streamline dub, with the exception of Kiddy--as much as I like Hiromi Tsuru, her voice isn't quite gruff enough. The acting is a notch up. In particular, Naoko Matsui is almost perfect as Katsumi--several powerful emotional scenes make for meatier characterization and a much more enjoyable experience.

The music, scored by the usually-outstanding Kaoru Wada, is dramatic and expensive, but doesn't know when to hold back. There are plenty of dark orchestral pieces and grand, evil choral themes at the climax, but some of the non-action scenes are backed by annoyingly overblown or downright cheesy tunes. Interestingly, Streamline turned down the volume relative to the dialogue on the worst of it, so a couple of scenes are noticeably better in their dub--an interrogation and a scene with Rally and Katsumi's mother in particular, though the former would have been most effective with no music at all. The end theme, by Tokyo Shounen, is an interesting song--slightly upbeat and rather mellow considering the movie, but pretty and anchored by an appropriately chaotic piano solo.

As a fan of cool art, attractive animation, and the original story, Silent Möbius was a treat for me. The characters are solid, the plot is confusing but functional, the Japanese version features some impressive emotional drama, and it looks spectacular. Streamline's dub does some bad things to the plot, but I still wouldn't hesitate to recommend that version to fans of the manga. As for those not already familiar with the characters in this manga-turned-movie, it stands on its own well enough to enjoy as stylish horror.

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Related Recommendations

There isn't a whole lot of cyberpunk action-horror anime, but if you're into stylish demon action-horror, then there are lots of things along the lines of Silent Möbius: Wicked City is the pinnacle of the genre, but others include Twilight of the Dark Master, Bio Hunter, and Demon City Shinjuku (more action-oriented), to name a few. Note, though, that Silent Möbius is much less gory than most others in the genre. On the cyberpunk end, AD Police Files (the OAV, not the lame TV series) shares a lot with this stylistically. Finally, there is also the sequel movie, which is all-around similar to this one, and the TV series, which covers a somewhat altered version of the story and, while decent, is much less visually impressive.