Armitage The Third
The year is 2179. Mars has been recently terra-formed and colonized by Earth. Wanting to leave his past behind him, Detective Ross Sylibus decides to join the Martian Police. He soon discovers Mars is far from being a quiet Utopia. The Martians seems to have developed a paranoia against robots and this only escalate when a murderer start executing a new illegal type of robots called "Third". The Third are designed to emulate humans in every way including emotions and are virtually indistinguishable from humans except when damaged. And if things weren't complicated enough, Sylibus ends up having for a partner 19 year old Naomi Armitage, who happens to be a Third herself. Together, they most find out the killer and solve the mystery behind the Third existence, would it be only for Armitage sake.
Armitage III is somewhat of a nice cyberpunk Sci-Fi story that some people describe as a mixture of Blade Runner, Total Recall and Bubblegum Crisis. I guess I would agree, since Armitage III is about the struggle of a "woman" who seeks not only to survive, but to discover the truth about herself, while her partner Sylibus must deal with his prejudice against robots as he slowly learns that humanity may not be the exclusive of flesh and blood.
Without being extraordinary, Armitage III is an interesting movie that should please Sci-Fi lovers. It's not really an innovation as a matter of a story, the "Can a machine be human?" question having been used over and over again, but it's still enjoyable if you like some thriller Sci-Fi action. The artwork is nice, especially Armitage (hey, she does have a cute anime face) and as far as I noticed, it has a nice sound track. The dubbing job may not be perfect (being a good actor doesn't automatically make Kiefer Sutherland a good voice actor) but it isn't annoying either.
Armitage III was first released under the form of a 4 episodes OVA. Then, these where joined together with extra footage and edited to create a movie designated under the name of Armitage III: Poly-matrix. The movie, and likely the OVA where released in America by Pionneer Anime.
Interesting Armitage III pages I visited:
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Updated Juin 8th 1998
