Although ostensibly set in 1941 Japan, "Geo-Armor" deftly blends familiar elements from a half a
dozen screen genres and at least as many time periods into a surprisingly coherent and imaginative
fictional world. Director Takaaki Ishiyama deserves accolades for the fluidity of the story as it flows
through seemingly disparate ideas - a bicycle chase through the cobblestone streets of a fishing village
to a pitched battle between tanks, mecha and aliens, to the drama of endearing young orphans, and finally
to the megalomaniacal machinations of armies and scientists.
He balances the viewers' various expectations for each of the separate storylines in different genres so
that rather than subverting or distracting, the contrasting modes of the story enhance each other. Due to
the fact that the earlier scenes play up how adorable the ragamuffins are, the violence carries more meaning
later when the jackbooted thugs tear apart the orphans' squat looking for Taishi and the package his father
gave him. Thus, rather than seeming out of place, the somewhat cutesy elements of the story pay off by making
the action and violence more affecting.
Ishiyama also manages the tricky balancing act of telling the story from multiple perspectives. Passages seen
through Taishi's eyes keep the audience as unsure and overwhelmed as the young protagonist is. In other scenes
Ishiyama reveals precisely enough information through snippets of overheard conversation and the reactions of
background characters to convey the tensions within each opposing camp (and the many plots they lay against each
other) without allowing subplots to compete with Taishi's plight for our sympathy. 'What' happens unfolds clearly,
but 'why' it happens remains ambiguous - a thoroughly effective storytelling strategy.
Art director Mitsuki Nakamura and designers Masyuki Goto, Takeshi Yamazaki and Koji Watanabo find equally
creative ways to integrate the visual elements of the story. Classic roadsters, rickety bicycles, dining rail
cars, trench coats and women wearing stylish hats all evoke, if not the actual 1940s, then at least every movie
set in the '40s.
The designs for the mecha, though, steal the show. As is de rigueur in the genre, before the battle begins the
camera pans and lingers on the glinting steel framework. But in order to maintain the "believability" of battle
mecha in 1941, Nakamura's camera pours over vacuum tubes, old-fashioned transistors, propeller engines, steam powered
body parts and other authentic period technology. At one point a pilot in the middle of a raging battle stops to
crank a hand operated winch to rotate his mecha's cannon. The designers' unabashed mix of rigorous attention to
detail and whimsical fantasy evidences a tongue in cheek wit.
Goto's character design is less inspired, but so it goes in most mecha-driven anime. Both the good and the bad
guys have a lantern-jawed muscular loudmouth, Daisaku Sukaki and Masao Goto respectively, as their chief flunky.
Arch villain Colonel Shinkai has a bloated eye, a scarred face and pointed ears. And, coincidentally, he only appears
in settings that are heavily bathed in a blood red glow - a sunset, a warning light, a fire, etc.
Nevertheless, "Geo-Armor's" design, art and direction effectively and ingeniously blend its many parts to create a
world and story that feels both classic as well as fantastic.