Ai City (1986)

 

Director: Kōichi Mashimo

Screenplay: Hideki Sonoda

Based on the manga by SYUFO (Shuuhou Itahashi)

(Voice) Cast: Hirotaka Suzuoki as Kei; Yuki Ueda as Ai; Mami Koyama as K2; Banjou Ginga as Ii; Ichirō Nagai as Rai Ro Chin; Issei Futamata as Ryan; Jouji Yanami as Ti; Kenyuu Horiuchi as Mister J; Kiyoshi Kobayashi as Kuu Ragua Lee; Nachi Nozawa as Raiden; Seiko Nakano as S; Takeshi Watabe as Aroi

An Abstract Candidate

 

With fair warning, this review will have to spoil a great deal as even merely to explain Ai City, an obscure anime feature film, means having to unravel a significant amount of its content. To even explain the plot it going to be a great deal to figure out: for the opening scene, in a futuristic metropolis, a man named Kei, a young girl named Ai, a detective named Raiden and a cat are fleeing from a motorbike gang led by a female psychic. Kei and Ai were test subjects for the evil corporation FRAUD, in their developments of telekinetic powers, and their story becomes even more complicated as allegiances switch, FRAUD falls into violent infighting, and that Ai’s purpose (and who she is) is intertwined with Kei and with the fate of many. That seems simple but Ai City, based on the manga by Shuuhou Itahashi, who would later adapt episodes of The X Files into a manga, will confound so many viewers between its unconventional plot structure and erratic pacing of plotting. It is gleefully weird, for how else do you explain a comedic side character cat that seems to have wandered from a children's cartoon in the midst of this proto- cousin of Akira (1988)?

Only released two years before Akira, which broke into the West and properly introduced anime, they exist from a period in anime and manga's history with an obsession with ESP and psychic powers as their key themes. Likely influenced by the sixties and seventies interest in fortean culture, and figures like Uri Geller, every piece of cutlery's greatest nightmare, this strand of plot premise would appear in countless works. Genma Wars (1967-9), the collaboration between sci-fi author Kazumasa Hirai and the legendary Shotaro Ishinomori which was adapted into the infamous 1983 feature length animation, and a really bad (if morbidly fascinating) 2002 animated series. Mobile Suit Gundam (1979-1980), a giant robot show that became an institutional franchise to this day, had psychics in its plot eventually, and even a romantic comedy, the Kimagure Orange Road franchise, had psychics in it. There is as well, in an adaptation we sadly never got to see, the collaboration between the legendary band Sparks and Tim Burton to adapt the 1986 manga Mai the Psychic Girl¹. Ai City is another member of this fad, when psychics were big as a plot point, the inevitable weird film that also was helmed by anime director Kōichi Mashimo. Many anime fans will think of the film he made the next year, Dirty Pair: Project Eden (1987), which is a highly regarded production in a highly regarded franchise, and would put him in their good books. He is also the founder of the animation studio Bee Train, which makes this a fascinated production early from his career that he and the production team put their hearts into even if it is ridiculous.

As is described in a very descriptive song halfway through, Kei is a man with super psychic powers fighting for good, kidnapped alongside his girlfriend for experiments by a group named FRAUD. She dies, and he is deemed defective and only useful for laundry duties, only for the cartoon cat (who cannot talk, but walks on hind legs and interacts with everyone) to reveal that his girlfriend was cloned. Now a seven year old with incredibly powerful abilities, Kei wishes to protect her whilst being targeted by FRAUD. She is part of a power play between FRAUD's leader Kuu Ragua Lee, helped by minions including cloned female beaus and artificially constructed men, and Lee's former colleague Lai Lou Chin, probably the strangest character as he is literally a tiny little old man in a jar, in water, on top of a robot body. Alongside the fact that Chin's psychic ability is so strong, he can conjure up stone floating heads that swarm the city, and there is so much here to work with in just eighty minutes. If it had been more conventionally told, Ai City would have still been an ambitious production.

Ai City's difficulty is not from how dense the plot threads are, but how the story is told. A lot is in the abrupt flashbacks and a lot of exposition that feels out of place, eventually starting to get into ill defined details like past lives, a DNA evolutionary monster, and an abrupt inclusion of what the title "Ai City" actually refers to. Other details are just unpredictable, weirdness of this specific eighties era of anime. The cat, a fully fledged character who eventually gets his own set of clothes and even a pair of shades, is a figure of importance plot wise, behind the. Then there is K2, a former enemy who is blasted so hard with psychic power both all her clothes and the fabric of existed are blown away, propelled through reality itself as if a theatre stage cloth ripped asunder. Briefly losing her memories, she becomes a heroine, entering a flirtatious relationship with detective Raiden, and is wearing a Playboy bunny outfit for the rest of the film. Even getting her memories back, she ends up in an awkward respect scenario with a henchman when she kills someone on his side. Material like this is strange, as is the tragic relationship with Kei and Ai, once lovers but now with her calling him her "papa" and Kei taking on a paternal role. It is compelling, a fascinating bundle of idiosyncrasies, but it all fits without a collage that is abrupt in what transpires too. Even in terms of the depiction of psychic powers, Ai City is unique in how, to depict the psychics being different, they have digital number gauges appear on their foreheads mid-use, the numbers for each power varying randomly depending on what is done.

It is all incredibly irrational, incredibly random, but also magnificently compelling and at times gorgeous to look at, the most eighties of anime in aesthetic style with moments of incredible experimentation. Even when there are clear limitations to the production, such as why a metropolis this sprawling has few bystanders barring one scene, there is still a multicoloured spectacle as a result in multiple scenes. It sadly was not a title available in the DVD era, and especially in the UK from a company like Manga Entertainment, a shame as its not only a cut above in craft (barring some wonky moments), but would have been the perfect representation of that delirious breed of anime churned out from the period, which is absurd but is certainly memorable. The fabric of time is literally ripped, only to be fixed as if a traffic incident, whilst Lai Lou Chin is powerful enough to not only brainwash people but also release those aforementioned giant heads, big enough for anyone to ride on. The best way to approach this film, as I did, is to never attempt to figure out the whole plot, aware that a lot of it was probably improvised; it is not as difficult to grasp as it first appears as a result, but just mixed with wild tangents you need to let soak through.

And yes, MAJOR SPOILERS HERE, it gets weirder when the film collapses into forgotten memories, a battle in a phantom realm with a horrifying mass of DNA that feels nonetheless illogical, and the plot being told as a Möbius strip which repeats itself from the beginning. Even admitting that does not spoil how this happens, as that abruptness befits the work. And this is in mind of who made Ai City. Knowing something this bizarre may have been just another day in the office for Kōichi Mashimo, alongside his more famous production for the next year, just adds to the madness. Eventually the psychic genre ebbed away, befittingly with Akira, when it helped anime reach the West feeling like the zenith, but we can still look at this oddity among them. It definitely feels like it could only have been made in that era, utterly perplexing yet energised as a mad, colourful head-trip.

Abstract Spectrum: Bizarre/Mindbender/Psychedelic/Surreal

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

=====

1) Tim Burton to Direct MAI THE PSYCHIC GIRL? Written by Ramses Flores, and published for Collider on May 18th 2010.