Armitage 3

I liked it. It’s a great Sci-fi story. I got to see it on a three pack DVD set. Each DVD had a different dub of the anime. My guess is that each dub somewhat tells you how popular the anime was at one period or another.

the first original  English dub, was actually an Anime series of four episodes featuring a voice cast of unknowns, unless your are an anime fan. There’s that one voice in it that’s in all the low budget anime English dubs. You know the voice. it’s kinda groggily and grizzly and  he usually voices a police official, that gives the protagonist information (I looked it up his name is Mike Reynolds (I know you thought I was going to say Steven Blum, me too but he’s not in this).

The second DVD was actually the 4 episodes edited together to be a feature film sub titled Poly Matrix. This dub had some well known actors like Elisabeth Berkeley. Your thinking she got the part because she played Jessie Spano on Saved by The Bell, it should be noted that the anime came out the same year as a little X -Rated cult classic known as Show Girls. It does not hurt that Armitage dresses like she does some pole dancing. Also in the film is the voice of Kiefer Sutherland. This was before his huge hit series 24 and I’m not sure what he was doing in the 90s. My best guess is that he’s still riding high from his role in the cult classic the Lost Boys, and possible his role in the film Young Guns.  However the interesting voice over comes from Bryan Cranston, who act the time was an unknown (unless you watched Seinfeld, and recall him as Tim Whatley in a few episodes). This was before he played the dad in Malcom in the Middle and way before he got his mega role of a lifetime playing Walter White in the ever so popular Breaking Bad. So at the time he was just a unknown voice actor and this was not even his first turn in Anime. In the English dub of the anime Street Fighter II: Anime (one of the greatest anime ever), he actually had a small role as Fei Long. So Cool.

And now the third DVD actually contained the sequel to Armitage  sub-titled Dual Matrix. The dubbed featured Juliette Lewis this time as the title character (Confirming my theory that Berekly was given the role because of her turn on the pole in Showgirls because her Save by the Bell fame was still good enough to ask her back, yet they did not).

But focusing on the original. The story takes place on Mars where robots have gotten so self reliant that they need to fight for their rights to be treated as equals from the humans. While investigating the murder of a human that turns out to be a robot Armitage learns a lot about who she is.

Not to give anything away but there is a lot of Blade Runner in the story. Although unlike The Ridley Scott film Armitage 3 has far more action in it (not as many cool visuals though), but that same cool vibe of deciding what is life. Plus, I like the few extra layers that Armitage 3 had in its story.

I will say that I did prefer the original 4 episode anime over the movie poly matrix (and Dual matrix was a better movie that Poly Matrix)