Redline

After all, what’s the point of a race if there are no nuclear weapons, am I right?

It’s Mario Kart meets Gurren Lagann meets WHAT THE HELL IS EVEN GOING ON? I knew I was in for a wild ride before watching it, but not THAT wild. Expect a lot of capslock and exclamation marks in this post! Vrroom vrrooom, baby, let’s do this!

Wooooo hoooo!! Redline is finally out? Time to get ready for some crazy ass racing with aliens and make everyone jealous of JP’s awesome hair and his car! I WANT HIS CAR! Time to tag team this beast of a movie enjoy the review.

It’s a redline day, everything’s okay, put your cares away. It’s a perfect day, time to get away, everyone can play, so everybody say, “It’s a REDLINE day!” DUUUDE, THIS IS THE SHIZNIT. Took seven years to make and every frame is like a piece of art. I have a special love for this type of picturesque anime (dark shadows, defined lines and crazy designs). So, here is what we think about it. I can assure you, three paragraphs were not ENOUGH!

You see, I’ve never heard about Redline. In fact, I actually downloaded Redline out of whim because of the comments in the download page (“OMFG SO GREAT!! Etc. etc.”) So I downloaded it, thinking, what made this anime so effin great. I mean, the plot isn’t that great, just a normal racing movie, except that they’re in space. You know, Star Wars thingy. So I watched it. And I was amazed by it.

I hope my body is ready for the super nitrous boost that is the 100 minutes of this movie. Ladies and gentlemen, START YOUR ENGINES!!!

Overcooled: Quick summary time, because you just have to watch it to get it. Redline takes place in the future where aliens, robots and humans all co-exist. The main character is a strapping lad named JP who makes most of his money by rigging races so that he stays in last until the very last part of the race. It’s not something he enjoys, but his mechanic Frisbee insists he does it so they can pay back his debt. By doing this, he doesn’t win the qualifiers to make it to famous Redline racing tournament…or so he thinks, until another racer drops out.

As a replacement racer, he enters Redline which is taking place on Robo World. They secretly have a TON of weapons that they don’t want anyone finding out about, so they’re not shy about threatening to kill all the racers. But still, the race must go on! It’s a race of epic proportions as everyone dodges armies, cannons, and a secret biological weapon called Funky Boy. They manage to blow up EVERYTHING EVER that opposes them thanks tot he power of BADASS or something like that. At the very end, JP decides to try and win the race instead of giving into rigged races. Luckily, JP’s other mechanic stops Frisbee and the mafia from letting the bomb ruin JP’s chances of winning. JP wins, gets the girl, everything sparkles, and life is suddenly perfect.

Bonus Nitro Boosts:

Dating Tip #45: when flirting with a chick, don’t skip right to taking off your pants before she even knows your name

Oh baby, just take a look at that nice, alluring, enticing…ENGINE

Sadface torpedo knows he isn’t wanted D:

Car gets shut down, swag gets booted up

End Thoughts:

Whoa Redline! I remember seeing this trailer a while back and really got excited to watch it, I think the artwork caught my eye right away it really did remind me of Gurren Lagann stylized characters and over the top scenes. After watching it finally I could say the animation on the cars and all those random aliens was so awesome! I really did like the design of JP and his hair! LOL THAT HAIR! So amazing it can withstand so many crashes and helps land the ladies. Besides JP I liked the designs for Frisbee aka space goblin that’s what he really looked like to me, and of course Sonoshee! Not too bad for the eyes right guys? Sure do love that neon green hair of hers and those glasses! Well course we did get a topless scene so there was some fanservice which wasn’t overly done.

I recently watched this with a lot of SCCSAV! We had like eighteen different people in one Skype convo! It was probably the best thing ever even our very own Anaaga joined in. We really had so much fun watching it, I recommend you check it out with some friends! It really is one of those movies that should be watched in a group or with friends. I think the best scene for me had to be the random LOL giant monster battle! Course Funky boy was really epic and did so much damage! I was not expecting to see a Evangelion battle to break out in the middle of a race.

So anyone get their hands on the OST?! You really should go check it out, unless you are not a huge fan of techno style music. However there are non techno songs as well, I really like that last track on the OST really nice. Overall this movie from start to finish really has some great scenes and a great mixture of action, we even have some romance between JP and Sonoshee near the end of the movie. Well what are you waiting for?! GO WATCH REDLINE!!

I am a big fan of crazy, stupid, over-the-top anime along the lines of this. Things so ridiculous they don’t make sense, things so outrageous you just have to laugh, and things pumped up to hell and back with pure adrenaline. I wanted to run out and crush a building after watching this. It’s so intense, it makes anyone watching it feel instantly energized. In other words, watching it feels really, really satisfying.

Redline does pretty much everything right. The art is gorgeous and stylistic, much like Tailenders was. There’s never a derpy moment to be seen, and the actions always looks like something is being done with enough force to total an entire city. What use is a racing anime if the cars don’t look like they’re going at the speed of light, right? Put all this to a kickass soundtrack that sounds a bit reminiscent of the Panty and Stocking OST, and you’ve got a winner. Redline is one of my new favourite movies. Heck, it’s one of my new favourite things that exist in our universe.

Another pleasant surprise is that underneath the layers and layers of GAR is a plot. Not a deep, moving one, but a pretty decent one. Okay, so it’s mostly “I MUST WIN BECAUSE I AM A MAN AND I DO THAT KIND OF THING.” But JP being a master of rigging races and RoboWorld’s attempts to hide their military forces from the rest of the universe was a nice touch. It wasn’t just straight-up racing, all the different racers had specific motives and played a different role. It’s nice to have a crop of racers that are all involved instead of just focusing on two of them. Of course, JP and Sonoshee will always be the stars of the movie. Those two are the best. I have mad respect for a man who can pull off Elvis hair and still look hot. But I digress, this isn’t about hair, it’s about SATURATED AWESOME for your viewing pleasure. You’d be a lunatic to miss out on seeing this one.

From where should I even begin?! I don’t like many movies as a rule because the plot usually doesn’t get time to settle and characters remain new unless it’s an extension of a series. However, there are titles like A Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Kara no Kyoukai (fufufufufuuu~) and Evangelion, which break boundaries in handling the awesome quotient. So, what would happen when smexy cars, engine sounds, epic character designs and brilliant techie scenery with ear HNNNG BGM come together? Well, that’s Redline for you and here at Metanorn, we LOVED it to pieces. The craziness was so much that we were shouting UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ nonstop.

So, the rest of the names I dished out, actually had plot. This one is more of an over the top craziness with heroic lines and crazy characters who have their path set out for them. JP and Sonoshee take the cake because they ARE the main protagonists, but I actually liked most of the supporting characters. I mean, you would hate Frisbee for being a douche in the beginning but what do you know, he has dreams too and a semi-solid reason for whatever he did. The spidery Oyaji was a screenful, romping around but he knows his stuff and is an awesome shot; what else can you expect from the man? I loved the fact that all the racers were not just a buzz in the background but were interesting enough for leaving you wanting for more, even the midget Hime-sama and few bad guys who didn’t get much screen time yet left a mark.

Production quality is to die for. HHHNNGGGG, Madhouse, I love it when you do it like this! The original soundtrack just keeps my feet tapping (catch it here), Redline theme is currently my ring tone so you can imagine how many times I have listened to the soundtrack and fangirled over it. Overall, the story is pretty easy to follow and has enough GAR to keep you glued to the screen. There are even times that you scream and egg on the amazingly pimped cars to go beyond, not to mention retaliate over the continuous gunfire and assault they face just to race. Adrenaline pumping, MMM-GAR and over the top action makes this an amazing solo/group watch. So, if you haven’t checked this out yet, WHATCHA DOIN’? GET YOUR ASS SHAKIN’ and go watch it NAO. :3

Redline is just SOOOO GOOOODDD. The plot isn’t amazing. It’s just a normal story about a dude who wants to win in a race, meets a girl along the way…His racing mechanic has a shady past, yada yada…. The characters aren’t so great either. They are, just like the story, just stereotype characters; you see these kinds of characters everywhere, starting from a cool-but-romantic main character to childish gay characters. You will still love the characters though, because you will love how the characters act.

Although the story isn’t great, it has been executed well done. The story has been carried out so great you won’t even stop think that of how plain Redline’s story is. No, you’re too busy cheering for JP, or squealing because of Shoshee’s and JP’s relationship, or laughing because of the humor, or being awed by the graphic. That’s right, Redline is pure greatness when it comes to the computer graphic and art. It’s just AMAZING.

The animation is perfect, flawless, and smooth. I don’t see any graphic failure when I watched it (or maybe I was too busy talking and laughing). The artwork is just gah so great! I totally love the art. The details on the art are just amazing, there are so many little details that I bet even some of us won’t notice, but the details are there. The color combination helps it to give more “fun” and “exciting” vibe, seeing how colorful Redline is. Basically, Redline is a great movie that everybody should watch. And if you haven’t watched it, you suck. Seriously, go watch it. NOW!

Oh man, the animation in Redline is just oozing with pure awesomeness and imagination. The fluidity of the animation is simply astonishing; it clearly shows why this movie took 7 years to make. The car races are exhilarating and a massive adrenaline rush, but even the moments where things slow down, you can appreciate the subtle facial movements on characters like Frisbee or the fish in the background of the Oasis restaurant scene. If you take the time to go frame-by-frame on any scene in this movie, you’ll see an incredible amount of attention to detail was paid with Redline. It’s quite a feat. The art style does look slightly similar to a work Koike previously did, Dead Leaves, but here it looks so much more matured and refined. I believe the bar has just been raised.

The character designs are amazingly varied with all of the different-looking species and designs and style choices. It just feels like there are so many different types of people and they all look really unique and hip. I particularly was a fan of Colonel Volton’s design as that dude looked pretty BAMF, and also the police-robot people (Sonoshee, yeah, she’s cute I guess). Even the announcer blockhead was given such excellent detail. Though the Funky Boy and that other massive creature were pretty crazy, if there’s anything to speak of that I might have felt was out of place, it was biological weapon animals disrupting an auto race. The vehicle designs are awesome and have their own cool post-modern quirks to them and felt like an extension of the driver’s personalities, and of course DAT POMPADOUR! When ever you do something that involves racing, having a pompadour should prove quite handy when you need to cross the finish line. It just might give you the “EDGE” you need to win.

The plot is just serviceable enough to digest while you wait for the big Redline race. There are some interesting points, such as JP knowing Sanoshee in the past, some discussion of gambling and JP being involved in fixing races, so there’s a good bit that at the very least keeps Redline interesting when cars aren’t zooming and an awesome soundtrack isn’t going “untz untz untz” to combine an EarGasm along with the constant EyeGasm. At the end of the day though, plot needs not apply. You could watch this movie without subtitles and still be intensely into the movie and its insane, over-the-top excellence in animation and artistic direction. Head over to Victory Lane, Redline. You were an awesome movie that I’m gonna get multiple watches out of!

May the rest of your day be filled with glory, adrenaline, and booty booty booty booty rocking err’where