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"Toward The Terra" The 80's Strike Back
By Eric Stehmer
07-03-2009, 12:42 AM |
Like heady 80's sci-fi? Have I got a movie for you! Based on the manga series by Keiko Takemiya, Toward the Terra is about as high minded as you can possibly get. Set in a quite distant future where environmental Armageddon as has made the Earth uninhabitable, we meet our main character, one Jomy Marcus Shin, as he prepares to take the final step on the road from being a child to being an adult—by having his memories erased by the oppressive, omnipresent supercomputer that control the satellite he was assigned to from his test tube birth. Technology is very much not your friend in this future. Despite the somewhat similar post-environmental implosion motif of Wall*E, there are no friendly robots or kind-if-blubbery humans here. The future is a very stark, cold place where you have no free will to speak of, just a path the computer has laid out for you.
 Of course, every perfect system has a bug. The bug in this case is the Mu. Really just humans with extraordinary psionic powers, the Mu are an aberration is an otherwise "perfect system" devised by Grandmother, the computer that control human society. Jomy Marcus Shin is a Mu. Not exactly the word you want to learn about yourself when all you know of the Mu is that they are a violent terrorist organization bent on destroying the world you know. As we very soon find out, though, the Mu are actually trying to return to Earth, a reserve for only the elite of human society as determined by Grandmother. Grandmother is, to say the least, less than pleased about this and continually marshals forces to attempt to wipe out the Mu. These forces are led by Keith Anyan, a humanoid bio android created by Grandmother for the express purpose of destroying the Mu.
Over the course of many years Jomy and Keith battle each other as Jomy finds the joys of free will, and sex, and Keith finds himself torn between his programmed nature and the fact that he is made of human flesh and blood. Jomy slowly builds his forces, with the aid of the psychically implanted memories of Soldier Blue, the founder of the Mu organization, and Soldier Blue's main confidante, a blind woman named Physis. Oh, and his poor neglected wife Carina and his son Tony, who would take over in Jomy's stead when Jomy decides to take a leave of absence following some very unfortunate events. The movie eventually ends as most Japanese sci-fi films seem to, with the destruction of the ziggurat representing the oppressive and/or destructive forces that threaten/control the world.
The animation is about as good as 1980 gets; Toei quite obviously spared few expenses. When the animation budget allows for full scale scenes they are incredibly gorgeous, if you have any appreciation for the style of the time. It's certainly not shiny in the modern sense, but it is a very fine example of what you can do with fully hand-drawn and -colored animation with a concerted effort. The DVD itself is pretty bare bones: just a trailer for the 2007 Toward the Terra TV show, also available from Nozomi Entertainment. In fact, it's so bare-boned that the subtitles are not automatically activated when you play the movie or on the trailer, despite there being no English audio track available and this being a purely Region 1 (English) language area release. It seems like an odd choice to have to activate them by hand before watching, but that's the only real complaint that I can have of the disc. The image is of exceptional quality for a budget end release.
It's quite obvious from the structure of the film that Toward the Terra more of a cliffnotes version of what appears to be a more extensive manga. There are a number of extensive time jumps and some more-than-slightly-baffling jumps in the characters progression that can't be explained by much other than a need to keep the movie to a certain running time. You don't lose anything that seems major, but it does make for a slightly disjointed viewing experience if you are used to a particularly linear flow to your movies. Highly recommended for fans of the 80's and those who like their animation with some brains.
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