Armitage III

Armitage III: Poly-Matrix

armitage iii 1994. OAV. (4 X 30 min.) Science fiction. org Chiaki J. Konaka (manga). dir Hiroyuki Ochi. scr Akinori Endo, Chiaki J. Konaka. mus Hiroyuki Namba. des Hiroyuki Ochi, Atsushi Takeuchi.

armitage iii: poly-matrix 1997. Movie. 90 min. dir Hiroyuki Ochi. -jd

A crazed killer’s attempts to wipe out a “Third” type of android on Mars leads Martian police officer Naomi Armitage to the truth about her own heritage in a thoughtful science fiction/action anime series reminiscent of Blade Runner and the works of Isaac Asimov.

The Martian city of St. Lowell is the setting for a series of brutal murders of female androids, all of them indistinguishable from humans in both appearance and behavior. Chicago police detective Ross Sylibus, a new transfer to the Martian Police Department, becomes involved in the case immediately upon his arrival at the spaceport, when diminutive young female police officer Naomi Armitage shows up and begins to exchange gunfire with terrorist Rene D’Anclaude and his henchmen. D’Anclaude unfortunately escapes, but he leaves behind the body of his victim, the famous country singer Kelly
McCanon.

To everyone’s shock, McCanon is revealed to have been a very realistic-looking robot, not human at all. Theories fly: Had McCanon been a robot all along, or had there ever been a “real” person who recorded her songs? There are more killings, every one of them female and, like McCanon, artists passing for human—an opera singer, a writer, and a painter, among others. D’Anclaude broadcasts video footage of the murders to the Martian populace, inciting riots. Assigned as partners, Ross and Armitage manage to track down D’Anclaude and discover the real reason for the murders. The Third series was designed to be capable of conceiving and giving birth to human children. The case has personal significance for Armitage, who turns out to be a Third herself (thus the series title, which is read “Armitage the Third”). Ross, who had a very negative attitude about robots when he arrived on Mars, begins to reassess his opinions after getting to know Armitage, and a romance begins to develop between the two. The story culminates in a confrontation between Armitage and her “father,” the scientist who created the Thirds, and in a desperate battle for survival as the murder case becomes the target of a political cover-up.

Armitage III: Poly-Matrix is a theatrical version of the video series, trimmed of extraneous detail for a more streamlined story. Individual cases of Third-killings are condensed, including a subplot about Armitage being a major suspect in the murders. (A surviving fragment of this subplot in the movie is a voicemail message at one crime scene that implicates Armitage.) A few short pieces of new animation were added to smooth over gaps, most notably an expanded opening sequence in which Armitage is introduced before her appearance at the airport.

The opening scenes of both the OAV series and the Poly-Matrix movie quickly establish a future universe in which robots are common. The space shuttle carrying Ross to Mars is piloted by a bored human surrounded by a cocoon of machinery and a row of skeletal robots in support roles. In a detail trimmed from the movie, a mechanical flight attendant is shown to be a doll-like figure with round anime-style eyes and a skimpy outfit. As she moves down the shuttle’s main aisle, we see that “Don’t touch” is stamped on her right buttock, like the markings on the wing of an airplane.

As with most science fiction visuals created after 1985, the design sense of Armitage III’s Martian city of St. Lowell has some similarity to the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner and Syd Mead’s concept visuals for its city of the future, but the resemblance is actually only superficial. St. Lowell is a vertical metropolis, with layer upon layer of platforms and criss-crossing roadways. The blazing neon signs are nearly all in English, and the character designs are Western in appearance, especially Ross and the other policemen. Ross is a big man, tall, tanned, and broad-shouldered, and seems huge next to the tiny Armitage, who wears an eye-catching red outfit of a short jacket over a bra, hot pants, and thigh-high stockings. The rest of the populace are dressed in more typical 20th-century style clothing, and although robots and cyborgs are omnipresent, other technologies also seem recognizably 20th century. Guns fire bullets instead of laser beams, and cars do not fly, but drive on surface-level roads.

Armitage III: Dual-Matrix (2001, movie)

A science fiction story with excellent production design, Armitage III boasts a well-developed plot, high-quality animation, an engaging lead character, and a memorable electronic soundtrack. The OAV series was an early production in the roster of the newly formed Pioneer Animation (later Geneon), a division of the manufacturing company Pioneer, best known as a producer of laser-disc players, karaoke machines, and other media hardware. Encouraged by the success of their first forays into animation, Pioneer made inroads into the U.S. market next, scoring hits with English-language and subtitled releases of titles such as Tenchi Muyo! and Armitage III. The theatrical version of Armitage III: Poly-Matrix was a coproduction between the Japanese and American divisions of the company, designed to appeal specifically to an international audience. Dressed up with all-new sound effects and dubbed into English in Hollywood with celebrity voice actors Elizabeth Berkley (Saved by the Bell, Showgirls) as Armitage and Kiefer Sutherland (Flatliners, Lost Boys, 24) as Ross, Poly-Matrix was arguably the first anime-turned-Hollywood blockbuster. Other sci-fi anime such as Ghost in the Shell and Akira had found success in U.S. theaters, but Poly-Matrix had the pacing and structure of a mass-market big-budget Hollywood movie, right down to the evolving romance between its two leads and an ending in which a whole lot of things blow up. The animation style is Japanese, but the story is so close to a Western product that certain aspects of the 2004 Hollywood movie I, Robot are reminiscent of Armitage III, particularly Will Smith’s character, who shares Ross Sylibus’s hatred for robots.

As a story about artificial intelligence, though, Armitage III stands out from most Western entertainment by being less interested in questions about the dividing lines between robots and humans per se than in the social implications of those lines. Armitage, like the replicants of Blade Runner, is essentially alive. She can feel emotions, and there is no question of her intelligence or free will, or whether she has a “soul.” After meeting Armitage, Ross decides rather quickly that androids aren’t the enemy of humans after all, despite being introduced as someone who hates robots. It’s a point of view—seen in other Japanese productions such as Chobits—that androids who behave as if they have the same emotional toolkit as humans should have access to the same rights and be treated as functioning members of society. It’s a message that maps to any issue of social inequality, from race relations to immigration and gay rights. “If humans don’t want me, then why did they make me?” Armitage shouts.

A movie sequel, Armitage III: Dual-Matrix, was produced in 2001. Directed by Bubblegum Crisis veteran Katsuhito Akiyama and featuring a different English dub cast, Dual-Matrix is set a few years after the events of Poly-Matrix. Ross and Armitage have married, and are living incognito on Mars with their young daughter. When the girl is kidnapped, Armitage pulls her hot pants and visor out of storage and travels to Earth to get her back. Although the film’s action sequences are impressively animated, including several fight scenes between Armitage and two duplicates made from her own blueprints, Dual-Matrix is considerably more somber, even depressing, than its predecessor. Composer Julian Mack’s music doesn’t have the high-energy punch of Hiroyuki Namba’s, and without a charismatic villain such as D’Anclaude, or the emotional connection with Armitage’s journey to solve the mystery of her own origins, the action feels flat. Only toward the end of the film, when Armitage is reunited with Ross and must fight against her own malevolent copies to save their daughter, does the story truly come alive. Juliette Lewis’s performance as Armitage lacks the spirit of Elizabeth Berkley’s turn as the character, and has the unfortunate effect of suggesting that married life has destroyed much of Armitage’s previous rebellious nature.

Director and character designer Hiroyuki Ochi helmed both the original OAV series and the Poly-Matrix movie, and did character designs and animation direction for Dual-Matrix.

D’Anclaude’s pirate broadcasts of his bloody murders of the Third-type robots to a horrified Martian public are some of the most emotionally gripping scenes in both the OAV series and Poly-Matrix, uncomfortably calling to mind terrorist broadcasts of executions and snuff films.

In a scene from OAV episode 2, “Flesh and Stone,” that doesn’t appear in Poly-Matrix, two street thugs attempt to assault Armitage in the street, mistaking her for helpless because of her tiny size. With a wicked grin on her face, she brutally beats down the first attacker, and then chases after the second one as he runs away from her in terror.

Another scene from the OAVs: during his initial investigation of the Third murders, Ross visits an android-manufacturing company and is told by a public relations official that one of the main reasons for androids is to bring human fantasies to life. Not very feminist fantasies, either—one Second Type shown off by the PR man, apparently his personal assistant, is a look-alike of Sailor Moon with her distinctive blond ponytails. During the interview, this Usagi clone assumes a pose on one knee, and her master sits on her upraised thigh, as if it were a chair.

There is no Japanese soundtrack for Poly-Matrix. In Japan, the film was released in English, with Japanese subtitles.

Poly-Matrix features totally reengineered sound effects by Serafine Studios of Simi Valley, California, which also created the sound work for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Hunt for Red October, and Tron.

The OAV series’ opening credits, a music-video-style sequence that shows Armitage getting dressed in her trademark hot pants backed by Hiroyuki Namba’s pounding electronic music, was directed by Hiroyuki Kitazume (Moldiver), who worked as an animation director on Armitage III.

violence Multiple bloody shootings. Heads and body cavities are broken open. nudity There are several instances of full female nudity and a rare example of pubic hair being shown in anime.