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Black Magic M-66 Director: Shirow Masamune Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Academy Ratio Format: Color, Animated, Dolby Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 60 minutes Studio: Palm Pictures/Manga Video Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2001-10-30 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 16 Average rating: 3.0 "A Rough Cut" * Masamune Shirow has become one of Japan's preeminent manga authors, due to his imaginativeness and extreme (sometimes excessive) technical detail. BLACK MAGIC M-66 is one of his early forays into anime. The plot takes place in some semi-mythical country where two highly lethal "M-66" combat androids have escaped. They were accidentally programmed to kill the granddaughter of the scientist who built them. A military team is trying to track them down, and simultaneously dealing harshly with civilians who have learned the secret of the M-66. The heroine of the story, Sybel, is a gutsy freelance journalist who is trying to learn about the M-66s and rescue the girl. If you've ever seen the BLACK MAGIC M-66 manga, it is basically sketchy early rough efforts by Shirow. The BLACK MAGIC M-66 anime simply borrows some ideas from the manga and essentially fits them into a minor variation on the plot of TERMINATOR. The end result looks less like a finished product than like a rough cut for someone experimenting with constructing a real movie later -- something like a "student film" if you like. It's less than an hour long, and though it does reflect Shirow's artwork and some of his clever technical thinking, it otherwise has little going for it in terms of plot or production. (At least it has a bit more going for it than the APPLESEED anime, which is strictly machine-made stuff that has no Masamune Shirow flavor to it at all.) So ... I would conclude that this might be of interest to hardcore Masamune Shirow fans, but I doubt that anyone else would consider it much worth their time, money, or effort. Try GHOST IN THE SHELL instead, which if not perfect at least has a lot more going for it. "It's not that great, but it's fun" If you can find this movie used or really cheap, it's a good deal. It's not the best transfer or the deepest story, but it's got action and a cool robot that destroys things. It's a bit short, but that's okay. If it were longer, it would probably need a better story to justify sitting through the whole thing. It's a fun, old-school anime for those who want just that. "Poor Shirow..." Masamune Shirow writes the some of the deepest and most thoughtful manga ever, but whenever they become animated, they get butchered and stripped of nearly everything that made them worthwhile reading. This is no exception, and the animation and art direction in general aren't particularly good either. Appleseed and even Ghost In the Shell are likewise vapid and shallow anime versions of his great manga, though at least GItS had some high production values behind it. In short, skip the videos, stick to the books. "A promising premise destroyed by poor execution." When I first saw the beginning of the movie, I could already tell that it wasn't going to be a classic of any kind. What else could I realize when the movies shows the main female character gratuitously (although mildly) nude for a minute or two? But this scene couldn't foreshadow how bad this movie would really be. After watching this film, it's easy to see why Masamune Shirow - the film's director and creator of the manga this film was based upon - decided not to direct later projects based upon his works like "Appleseed" (which is even worse). The premise of the film is promising, but the way everything is executed makes the movie fall flat. The coloring in the film is too varied and contrasting, and movements sometimes appear choppy and unnatural. But it's not the animation that ultimately brings this film down. Rather, it's a combination of a unbelievable plot, flat characters, and squirmish voice acting. The plot of "Black Magic M-66" is silly, to say the least. The idea that a reporter can save someone from a destruction-programed robot when the military can't isn't exactly believable. And then there's the question of why the robot wants to destroy the creator's granddaughter. They say it was programmed in the robot to begin with, but why choose the creator's granddaughter? It just doesn't make sense. And the characters themselves aren't fleshed out at all. The anti-hero heroine of the film doesn't create that feeling where we question her personality yet we appreciate what she's doing. She acts like a witch with a capital B. The other characters are equally bland, and this can be attributed to the voice acting. It's not the worst voice acting out there, but it's not that good, either. The way the characters speak sounds as if they memerized scripts sometime in their lives and they finally found the opportunity to say them. All in all, "Black Magic M-66" is a poor choice for anime fans. If you liked the manga this film was based on, you might consider looking into it. To everyone else, however, be very wary about this film. "this movie is horrible" this is the worst movie manga ever made in the previews it look like it had a lot of action when i got home to see it i was very disapointed it was a boring triller i brought it back and exchanged it the same day