The ones that are just don’t give you enough reasons to dislike them and cheer on our hero. While they don’t fit the black/white stereotype that one often seen in these characters for this story type their motivations are obscure and not well defined for most of them. Steamboy's villains are not anymore interesting. She seems to make a little progress as the story unfolds but not enough to make me actually like her. She’s spoiled and arrogant and cruel to animals. I did not find her to be all that likable nor did I care much about what happened to her. Scarlett is even less interesting as we learn almost nothing about her either. There just isn’t enough development of his past or personality to make him all that compelling or memorable. He is heroic and idealistic and very much a standard and predictable character type for this kind of story. Ray Steam is an adequate leading character. It reminds me a lot of a Jules Verne style story.
The movie also does a wonderful job in building a Victorian Age fantasy with amazing steam powered machines of all types. The battles and action scenes are marvelous to watch and the CGI effects are wonderfully embedded within the animation. Fans of action will have a lot to like here. There is a lot of very good action in Steamboy however. Maybe I am being to idealistic but I want the bad guys to get their just deserts, and Steamboy didn’t leave me feeling that they had. Also it didn’t feel like any of the villainous characters ever really faced any consequences for their actions and the only people hurt were the innocents they stepped on throughout the story. The story has lofty goals but by the time the movie ends, I found myself confused about what actually happened and what the purpose of the whole thing was. grandfather he soon finds himself chased by villains who want it for themselves. After he receives a mysterious package from his The story centers around the boy Ray Steam, who is an inventor from a family of inventors. If you've seen any adventure stories before then the overall premise is going to feel very familiar to you. The plot of Steamboy is really nothing all that original. But in the end it fails to really deliver those ambitious goals. It certainly has high production values and some incredible CGI effects and action. It's a masterpiece that Otomo-san should be extremely proud of, and that every anime fan will enjoy.Steamboy is intended to be one of those grand adventure stories set in fantastical world with pure hearted heroes and nefarious villains. I could not have been happier with the way this film turned out. Steam turns to his grandson and says "Go Steamboy!" That choked me right up.
This film is full of wonder, with amazing inventions, interesting characters you quickly care about, and beautiful scenes. Rather than quick edits, some scenes are panned, zoomed, or rotated with amazing accuracy, as if they were actually filmed rather than being drawn. There is a lot of camera action that you've never seen in an anime before. I've been waiting for someone to do this properly for years. 3D was incorporated throughout the film, which I normally hate, but instead of inserting it and having it look out of place, it is simply used as a reference, and then painstakingly traced to appear more 2D and blend in with the film. Even minor touches like water reflections under bridges were added to make the film seem more real.
The message is not heavy handed though, as Otomo-san presents several angles and allows the viewer to come to the obvious conclusion on their own. Simplified, the message of the film is that science is a tool that should benefit mankind, and not be used to fatten the pockets of warmongers. I've always felt a great anime should do the following: create real characters, make you think, dazzle you visually, and forward the art of animation by creating new techniques. Though he did work on a few projects in between, like MEMORIES and METROPOLIS as well as supervising SPRIGGAN and the brilliant psychological thriller PERFECT BLUE, you can easily imagine Otomo-san spending the better part of a decade honing STEAMBOY to the masterpiece it has become. STEAMBOY is director Katsuhiro Otomo first feature film in ten years, since the release of the cult-classic AKIRA.