Metropolis

During an investigation, private detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi travel from Japan to Metropolis—a restless high-tech city where people brutally persecute their robot cohabitants and a dictatorial force rises in power. The two are investigating Dr. Laughton, a scientist suspected of human organ trading, who is supposedly hiding there. Unbeknownst to all, Dr. Laughton has built a cutting-edge female android called Tima for the most influential man in Metropolis, Duke Red.

When Dr. Laughton's laboratory ends up in flames following an unforeseen incident, Shunsaku and Kenichi are separated while looking for survivors. Kenichi rescues a disoriented Tima and struggles to protect her from Duke Red's ruthless foster son, Rock, who pursues the robot girl. Unaware of Tima's true nature, Kenichi befriends her as a human being. Meanwhile, Shunsaku tries to reunite with the boy, unraveling dark schemes that evolve in the city's background—including the key role of Kenichi's protegee in Duke Red's ambitious goal for domination.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Holmes, Rock Main

Okada, Kouki Japanese

Tima Main

Imoto, Yuka Japanese

Hige Oyaji Main

Tomita, Kousei Japanese

Shikishima, Kenichi Main

Kobayashi, Kei Japanese

Fifi Supporting

Aikawa, Rikako Japanese

Ham Egg Supporting

Ebara, Masashi Japanese

Lamp, Acetylene Supporting

Chiba, Shigeru Japanese

Red, Duke Supporting

Ishida, Tarou Japanese

Pero Supporting

Wakamoto, Norio Japanese

Foodstand Vendor Supporting

Maruyama, Masao Producer, Planning

Rintarou Director, Planning

Mima, Masafumi Sound Director

Otomo, Katsuhiro Script

Reviews

Jul 30, 2026

JPGad

Recommended

An excellent forward-thinking story from Osamu Tezuka, directed by Rintaro who also did The Dagger of Kamui. Metropolis is super impressive, featuring Ghibli-esque animation and colourful psychedelic backgrounds. Early CG is used for the futuristic mechanical equipment, creating a nice contrast between that and the gorgeous traditional artwork. The inclusion of jazz music throughout is another nice touch.

I also appreciate Tezuka’s familiar cast of characters, making it feel that much closer to an Astro Boy story.

Metropolis feels timeless, and has a lot to say about technology, race, war, and humanity.

Screw Flanders Screw Flanders Screw Flanders Screw Flanders Screw Flanders Screw Flanders

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 15, 2026

RyanSpring

Mixed Feelings

After watching the three movies in the Memories compilation a few years ago, I finally circled back around to Metropolis, which was included as a bundle in the same DVD set. After watching it I can most certainly understand why these works were bundled together as my observations here are much in line with what I remember from Memories. As far as the presentation, while it couldn't pass for something that came out today, it must have looked absolutely out of this world when it came out in 2001. Not so much the foregrounds, but the backgrounds in particular still look absolutely dazzling a decade ... and a half later and the color palette on offer in addition to the lighting effects and unique, fitting soundtrack come together for an extremely impressive cohesive whole.

As with Memories, they clearly put a creative type at the helm, someone who strongly sees anime as an art form, and allowed them to do as they please. I, Robot, originally a 1950 short story compilation by Isaac Asimov and then a crappy film starring Will Smith decades later, is clearly a big influence on this movie and while it's far from a straight up ripoff, the overall premise and events of the story have clear similarities. As a whole, it was a bit tropey and somewhat predictable, but not to the point where I knew exactly what was going to happen or how things would end. Nevertheless, other than the setting and the way it's presented, no element of Metropolis felt truly original for me. Character development here is pretty minimal and the story as a whole is likely the overall weakest part of this package.

The pacing felt a bit lopsided for me, with the early and middle sections feeling merely okay but largely lacking compelling content or standout moments, followed by a strong final act that wrapped things up on a high note. I applaud the ending for not taking the cheap and easy way out and providing an all too cliche everybody wins, everybody lives, we all live happily ever after as if none of this ever happened as so many anime these days tend to do.

Ultimately Metropolis ended up being one of those good-ish but not great anime that I wasn't in any way offended by and don't regret watching but it won't be memorable for me and I don't see myself coming back to it any time soon. I'm glad I watched it once and it's time to move on. I would think you, the average reader, would probably feel the same, but you're also not missing out on some kind of masterwork if you decide to give this one a pass.

2001 RATING- Impossible in 2026, but very very lovely to look at!
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7.5~
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7.5

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 15, 2026

Unknow0059

Not Recommended

This has the environmental visuals of Mob Psycho, the casually important scenes of Akira, the pace of Lucky Star to the soundtrack of... Team Fortress.
I could hardly take this movie seriously, and barely was able to get myself to end this.
Maybe it would've been better if it was your first political story ever, and the west was exotic to you.

There's an excess of direct exposition and lack of indirect.
At one point, character A flat-out tells character B a fact he should know given his position, but the audience already knows this, and it's not dramatic or nothing, just "factual".
There also is one recurring word that's ... ineffective and pointless relative to how much it shows up.

The pace seems entirely wrong.
It walks to run, prowls to sprint, but whether you are given direct exposition, or are left confused — because this cannot do indirect exposition ever — whether music or silence, you don't get a sense of the stakes of *jack shit*.
Though, between audio and video, the visuals are decameters better than the audio.

This movie, it is one from which you can like scenes, and other parts, but the plot? Not one of them.
The movie's primary antagonist is not the guy who looks like Jet the Hawk; it's a guy whose sole task at all his waking moments is to blast something out of existence.
That guy is Dante if he got cancer, fell into a Victorian ditch and was found by a galvanic scientist who revived his poor restless corpse.
The character in the cover is a lame horse for most of the runtime, even during the end. This is what I most despise about this story, truly unforgivable.

The end is abysmal. It's a sequence of senseless "Aha, you didn't know X was gonna be present here", multiple endbaitings, interspersed with ineffective dialogue (at one point pleonasmic), that feels like it should've ended before it actually does.
It is truly without analogy.
Oh, and right on the cusp between the end and the epilogue, there's a fade to black, and suddenly, the "dramatic music" (let's call it that) that was playing gives way to Tom and Jerry easy-listening jazz. Absolute piss-take.

One thing I suspected this early on, but took seeing the entire movie to ascertain:
there is a deathly lack of sound effects where they should exist.
The world that is, at times, visually alive, is auditorily dead.
Sound effects and sound design generally are bad - the music is somehow better.
For example, during the end, in one of the many times that character C ruffnecks character D to sling him elsewhere, so he can grab one of the locations's infinite ledges, this one happening to be his 8th ledge, there's no clothes rustling sound, just a minor cloth thump.

I laughed at the movie's jarringness many times.
The only genuine laugh that was intended I got early on, when character X teaches character Y.
The strongest characters are one guy, and two robots, I won't say who, but one is a side-character, and the other two's best qualities are undermined by everything else, so they're worse than their equivalents in other stories.

Comparing this against Karakuri Princess (2000), this is, in my opinion, worse than Karakuri Princess.
KP is shorter, also paced badly, but the sound effects are present and sufficiently good
No, the visuals are not peak, but they are consistently good.
The titular princess is in the cover, but besides being a princess who is titular, she also DOES stuff.
Where MP01 has weird musical and tonal clashes, KP has weird jarring thematic clashes.
Both "movies" turn to abjectly pointless nihilism at the end - that is, where they should end - but then continue into something that has no reason to be there.

When it comes to characterization, the character pair in MP01 is better than everyone in KP, and dare I say, combined with everyone else in MP01, and that's a feat, because this pair are undercharacterized.

I wanted to give this a 4/10, because that's how I feel, but with my third eye, I can see...
- a movie that doesn't have a character who, every time he appears, he shoots a thing in existence;
- a movie that has beautiful silent shots of a malconceived world;
- one that has cool premises for a story.
So, I gave it a 5.
Brief aside: I saw this after the 3DCG movie Scarygirl (2023), which was also better, and it's an interesting coincidence how both feature energy lasers that are beamed into the sun, and daughters that are remade.

The best part of this movie is in its visuals, which you're better off seeing in Sakugabooru or thematic compilations.
The 30-40 minute long OVA Karakuri Princess (2000), which was bad, was better than this.
I am annoyed to have seen it and you should not.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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