Neo Tokyo (Meikyū Monogatari note ) is an anime anthology film released in 1987. The film has three segments:
- Labyrinth (directed by Rintaro): A girl and a cat wander through a surrealistic city and encounter a circus.
- The Running Man (directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri): A race driver has telekinetic powers, which go out of control.
- Construction Cancellation Order (directed by Katsuhiro Otomo): A robotic construction crew won't stop working on a cancelled project.
Streamline Pictures released an English-dubbed version under the title Neo Tokyo. Later, ADV Films released a bilingual DVD with the Streamline dub, still titled Neo Tokyo. Also, The Running Man was featured in one episode of Liquid Television (with a different English dub).
Tropes:
- Absurdly Dedicated Worker: The robots in the third section will work to self-destruction trying to finish a project and refuse commands to stop.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The robots in the third section refuse to be shut down, even though the project has been cancelled and the individual units keep breaking down or exploding.
- Axe-Crazy: Sugioka's experiences begin to wear down on his sanity
- Art Shift: The segments have different styles, especially the first one, which makes use of squash-and-stretch animation not often used in anime.
- Catapult Nightmare: Zach has one before his fatal race in Running Man.
- Circus of Fear
- Cool Gate: A grandfather clock acts as a portal to the city in the first segment.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: "Trying to use logic against a never-ending tide of robotic "get-the-job-done" types should be pretty familiar to anyone who's ever worked for a big company, especially in Japan."
- Robot #1 declares in its introduction speech that if the proper procedures are not followed then there will be chaos, even if the hierarchy is utterly nonsensical.
- There's also the way that the robots work themselves to the point that they explode and robot #1 just decides to increase overtime.
- What really makes Sugioka angry? The fact that the robots cost a lot, so being worked to the point of exploding is costing his company a lot of cash.
- Framing Device: Sachi from the first segment watches the other two on a screen in the circus tent.
- German Expressionism: An apparent influence on the art style of the first segment.
- Gratuitous French: this first line in the Running Man: Un des hauts lieux du continental circus: la chicane assen qui precede, de quelques dizaines de metres, la ligne d'arrivee durant les premiers tours.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Gymnopédie No. 1 by Satie, Chanson du Toréador by Bizet, and Morning Mood by Grieg (this one is used as a Standard Snippet for Mickey Mousing).
- Pun-Based Title: Meikyuu monogatari, make you/r story.
- Superpower Meltdown: This is pretty much the entire premise of the second segment. A race driver's telekinetic powers go out of control, killing all of his opponents and ultimately himself.
