megafat

Sometimes, you just want to watch some turn-off your brain fun. When plot isn't the main focus and it's just there to be the driving force for all of the cool action set pieces and fun characters. And Redline is one of the best all killer no filler anime movies out there.

Released in 2009 at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival before being theatrically released in 2010, Redline has quite the history, taking several years to develop. A short 4 episode OVA was released way back in 2003 and was supposed to be released alongside Redline to promote is, but clearly things clearly didn't go as planned. But in the end and enough patience and persistence, Redline eventually got released, and the end product easily reflects the effort and time the team behind it put into it.

The story centers around a race that is held every five years called Redline, and it's one of the universes most highly anticipated competitions. Despite all of the advanced technology, Redline us a land race, showing that even in the future, there is still a fanbase for old styles of racing. The only rule of this race is that you have to cross the finish line. Where the race is held is announced right before the race starts, and the latest race is being held on the planet Roboworld, home to trigger happy military who is insulted that the race is being held on their planet.

The film focuses on "Sweet" JP, who drives in the universes most dangerous races for the fun of it. His partner, Joshua "Frisbiee" Flathead joins him as his mechanic and business partner, who is doing some backdoor dealings behind JP's back.

The rest of the characters are made up characters all with well designed and unique look to them, including a pair of magical girls who come from a planet that is 100% magical girls called BoiBoi and BosBos, the previous driver and four time consecutive winner of the deadly Redline race MachineHead who is big enough to tear you in half, and Sonoshe "Cherry Boy" McLaren, a racer that JP has taken an interest to.

Redline's plot and all of it's characters are pretty simple, knowing exactly what the audience is here for, but are all written and designed enough that you know which caracters are which just by looking at them or hearing them talk, which is more than I can say for the anime that have more complex stories and characters that I've seen.

Thankfully the movie does have it's slower moments, giving the audience a breather between the high energy races, letting us get familiar with the setting and characters of the movie. This movie could have easily fallen into the trap of being nothing but action, completely tiring the audience out, but doges that problem.

Redline's animation and art is also top notch and those several years of development are really shown off in this department, with every frame being hand-drawn and with high attention to detail instead of lazily re-using animation to cut corners. As a result, all the of animation is incredibly smooth and is wonderful to look at. The style is so on point that even looking at the background characters, you'll easily recognize any of them, even if they're in one scene.

The movie also comes with a fantastic 42-track OST done by James Shimoji, and I'm pretty sure that most of the music never made it into the film. Which is a shame, because all of it is fantastic, and is even worth listening to outside of the movie. I even have it on my phone to listen to when I go out to exercise. The English dub for it is also solid, so for fans of English dubs it's worth checking out.

While Redline was a fun fast paced fun film, it didn't have much in the way of character development. It had it's slower moments to break up the action, but it sacrificed character development for being well paced. But as if to make up for it, there was the previously mentioned short 4 episode OVA.

TRAVA: Fist Planet follows ace pilot Trava and his personal mechanic buddy, Shinkei, who are on their way to mart an out-of-the-way-planet. As they're arriving, they find a pod floating in space containing a girl called Mikuru, who has amnesia. Soon after, Trava and Shinkei discover that the planet that they were sent to mark is more than it seems.

This OVA is only tangentially related to the Redline movie, putting it's focus on the daily life of one of it's racers. It isn't as fast paced as the film is, instead going for a slower pace that puts it's focus entirely on the characters. Which is nice that it went in it's own direction instead of just doing what the movie did again but in a shorter time frame.

It's pretty obvious that this OVA was released several years before the movie, since the animation isn't as polished as the movie. But that doesn't matter, since it still has a unique art style and solid animation. For those who like their English dubs unfortunately TRAVA doesn't doesn't come with one, since I'm pretty sure all of the effort went into the actual movie itself, but isn't really a problem.

Honestly, I wish there was more short OVA based on the characters from Redline, each doing something different. Unfortunately we're probably not going to get that any time soon.

Redline, along with TRAVA: First Planet, are definitely a fun time. If you're going to watch it, it's definitely worth finding a Blu-Ray copy just to experience it in the highest quality possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiFjyqRfkpo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGOneMdjpw4