Animeigo is really delivering the goods with their recent slate of Kickstarted classic Anime restorations starting with their GLORIOUS Bubblegum Crisis set (if you don’t have that, you need it, they also have a Kickstarter for Metal Skin Panic – Madox-01 coming up this week, you should contribute if you’re reading this). Their most recent release is the utterly classic, and influential anime series MegaZone 23. If you’ve seen the Matrix or Alex Proyas’ Dark City, you’ve seen the influence this series has had on western cinema.

The series opens in what is seemingly 1980’s Tokyo, Japan. This is until a futuristic motorcycle called “The Garland” appears and falls into the hands of Shogo Yahagi, revealing that the world he knows is not reality at all. The world he lives in, is actually a colony ship, and the year he lives in is not 198X, but 500 years in the future, and that is just the beginning. The second film takes place shortly after the conclusion of the first (no spoilers), and the third film continues on with the themes of the first film, but takes place in the far future of the series.

The series could be considered to fall into the cyberpunk aesthetic that was popular in anime, and in culture in general in the 1980’s with anime such as Akira, Blade Runner, Venus Wars, and the novels of William Gibson. Also notable is that the first Megazone 23 film is considered the first OVA film. The designer of the mecha (aka the Garland) is Bubblegum Crisis designer Shinji Aramaki, and you can definitely see the continuity from his work on Bubblegum Crisis into this.

This is not the first Blu-ray release of MegaZone 23, it did have a prior Japanese release, but importing from Japan has always been a pain, and Animeigo always does such stellar work which continues here. All 3 films are well-restored in their original 1:33:1 OAR in 1080P transfer, colors pop, detail is excellent. Audio is handled with HD tracks in English and in Japanese and sound excellent with no issues. Extras include both Japanese and English commentary tracks, a documentary on the history of the series, the fantastic colored subs Animeigo is known for artwork galleries, full on booklets of liner notes, bonus manga, and a book of artwork. If this doesn’t end up being one of the best anime releases of 2021, then there is some insane competition coming up. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED