I saw this OAV in the early 90's, mainly because I was such a fan of the original Appleseed manga. Fortunately for me, I decided to rent the video as opposed to buying it. These days, I don't remember a great deal from the OAV, which is probably understandable, since there really isn't much that IS memorable. The things that had attracted me to the manga are simply missing in the OAV. Gone was the manga's overall grittiness, graphic violence, and occasional tinges of humor to keep the story from being too dark and nihilistic. When I watched the OAV, I felt as though I were watching some sort of weird animated security tape The pacing of the story was too slow for my taste, and the characters themselves lacked detail, as they were often were far away from the camera and placed neatly in the center of the frame. And then there's Olympus itself, it just seemed too antiseptic, I didn't get much sense of the city's dark underbelly as I did with the manga.
I haven't seen the recent Appleseed movie yet, I can only hope it did the manga justice, this OAV sure didn't.
I haven't seen the recent Appleseed movie yet, I can only hope it did the manga justice, this OAV sure didn't.