Anime: Terra e...

Back To The Earth

In a dystopic future mankind has once again managed to devastate its own homeworld, Terra, and is forced to abandon the planet to give it the time to regenerate and be able to return one day. To reach this goal super computers made by the last survivors are to take control over the new generation. Natural birth is prohibited by law and children are created in test tubes and raised by randomly selected couples till the "Waking Day", the day when children are forced to leave their home and start a life as part of the productive society, with their memories getting deleted.

No system is without failures though. From time to time there are children who develop psychic powers and withstand this memory deletion, thus becoming Mu. Jomy is one such child, with tremendous powers, surpassing even the Mu, he is chosen their new leader and swears to lead the Mu back to Terra, the planet where both humans and Mu came from.

In a story told over the length of several decades, his major antagonist is a boy without memories and feelings, created to become the new leader of humankind, but still curious enough to ask the most important question: "Why are there still Mu born when the computer has complete control over the system?"

Toei Douga is often criticised for its mainstream style regarding films, catering to the general movie public and citing a lot from Disney. But there is no dispute that visually they are one if not the biggest animation studio throughout the age of cel animation and defined the animation movie standard in the '70s and '80s.

And Terra e... is no exception to that rule. Made in 1980 and based on the Seiun and Shogakukan Awards winning manga by Takemiya Keiko, its animation is pretty good as expected of a movie. With lots of detailed and fluid movement, impressive and varying explosions and overall a good visual execution. At times there are some weirder movements which is excusable considering the year it was made. Same goes for the few mass panic scenes which featured annoying cel reuse making them look silly. The one or two storyboard errors were also not a big problem. What's more of a concern are miscoloured cels, missing cel parts and the funny half body misplacements. All stuff which is standard for tv series of every age, but inexcusable for a movie.

Despite those flaws, which I would contribute to a small timeframe available for the animation process, the production team still delivers. Some animated sequences here and there have a nice style and most of the time the animation enhances the plot visually a lot. A particular favourite of mine is the short segment which shows the Mu's new found life on Naska. It's jumpy and vivid, perfectly fitting of their state.

But the most impressive animation was featured in the following destruction. People and ships disintegrating was particularly impressive, as was the multitude of different explosions without just reusing the same frames over and over. And the destruction of the planet's surface was detailed with a genuine style to it. This senseless genocide fueled by hate and rage was the key point of the movie and the general change of the style following afterwards was thoroughly executed.

In regards to the musical score it does settle back though. While there are several impressive pieces and even two songs featured, one at the end of the first part and one at the end of the movie, which is standard, a lot of the movie does rely rather on the acoustic effects than on background music. Whereas one has to ask, is the absence of music in many moments justified. While there are several moments which are arguably better left without music and background sounds of steps, opening doors, equipment or wildlife have a real feel to them and changes the impression of the scenes a lot, there are also moments where you wish for accompanying music, after all, the interaction between the characters is less existent than the forwards moving plot. It goes even as far as the background music gradually getting less and less attention from the viewer himself, making the movie's impact at times less than it should be.

As far as regarding the story. It isn't that much original in its parts but the whole of it does feature interesting ideas. It is being told in several parts, with generation jumps inbetween, and the aspect of cultural hate and bias is incorporated deep into it. The general problem lies within the short amount of time the movie has to present its large scaled storyline. While the first part has a rather slower pacing, compared to the rest of the movie, and could be very well stand alone with its conclusion at the end, even featuring a longer song segment, the rest doesn't even stop to take a short breath.

Many parts of the plot are more or less hinted on, there isn't a lot of time and space for intellectual dialogues, and most characters are given the shaft. Only the two main characters, Jomy and Keith, are given enough development, which is a must given their importance for the movie. And both of them are very strong leads, moving the plot forward with their ideals and actions. But most of the relations between the characters do not work out and only serve as pointless dead ends.

Thus, skipping a lot of stuff here, there and everywhere, the movie runs at a breakneck pace towards its conclusion, which ends in a fashion typical for a movie in this age, not necessarily bad, it's just that the core of the story is too bland to justify it, even when the ending itself is quite well done.

The movie is certainly enjoyable, at least how "enjoyable" a movie about race hate and genocide could be. Its story is interesting and intriguing, especially considering the age it's also very controversial in many of the presented ideas, but the general execution is too short, not giving enough importance to the background of the problem and the human point of scope, and better fitted for a series.

Incidentally a remake has begun airing in 2007 on Japanese television and it will be interesting to see whether that one can live up to the manga's story.

Story
At first glance, this is a sci-fi story about how mankind has ravaged the earth and have had to isolate themselves from it for it to recover on its own. When you get more into the movie however, you'll see that this is just a backdrop for the intrigue between the main character and the system.
The system is what has kept mankind alive through the environmental disaster that happened in the past - it controls every single aspect of everyone's lives from who their parents are to if they're even allowed to reach adulthood. There have come a new breed of man called the Mu, with psychic powers, and the system attempts to eradicate them as soon as it spots them. It does this by having everyone that shows odd tendencies be psychoanalysed as soon as it notices.
It sometimes feels like the story is a bit shallow, but it does hold, which is more than can be said for a lot of sci-fi. However if you're expecting a deep story with a lot of meaning behind it, look elsewhere. It does have the message that we should take better care of our environment, but that's not particularly "deep" and not the main point of the plot either.

Animation
When you look at this anime, you'll know that it's from the early 80s; the character designs are typical for that era, with few lines and uniform colours. The actual animation isn't that bad though, at least not for being from 1980.

Sound
The music is far from inspiring, the lyrics are just "there". It might be the translation that makes me say this, but they have really nothing to do with the story, and seem to be just generic stuff put in to fill some blank space. The voice-acting is good but nothing special; they convey their emotions just fine, and the lip movement works. Sound effects likewise, nothing to write home about.

Characters
The characters were probably the best parts of this movie; they had opinions, reasons and could think, and they did it in a fluent manner, making all the decisions seem character-driven instead of plot-driven. That is a mark of a really good writer in my opinion - the characters drive the plot, the plot doesn't drive the characters. All you can really wish for. There was a bit of plot development that hampered one of the characters slightly, but it wasn't anything overly obtrusive, and you could understand his actions if you stretched your mind a bit. It was basically only one character that didn't make much sense, but he was characterized as mysterious in any case, so you could forgive the writers.

Value/Enjoyment
This is not something I'll recommend to all my friends, but if you're into anime and sci-fi, like me, you may want to give it a shot. Nothing really stands out in this one, but it is a solid story that can give you a bit of entertainment for almost 2 hours. To conclude: if you have nothing better to do, go for it.