Anime Review - Redline

Hello everyone, J here and today I’ll be reviewing Redline, a balls to the wall death-race anime movie, complete with badass cars, great animation, and a unique story.

Description

JP's sweet ride.

Redline is a 2009 original movie produced by Studio Madhouse, the same studio  behind series such as Deathnote, Beck, and Black Lagoon. Every five years there is a universe-wide death race, known as Redline, where contestants both human and alien race to the finish using any means possible, and nothing is against the rules. The movie follows our main protagonist, JP; an 80’s looking ladies’-man who by pure luck has gotten the chance to compete in Redline, even after losing earlier races. Each racer drives their own weird cars, one guy even drives a freaking mech, while our main man JP drives a tricked out Trans-Am (your read that right) but don’t underestimate it, this isn’t your average Trans-Am.

Visuals

One of the big points for this movie are its gorgeous visuals. Alot of work went into animating this movie. Redline was drawn completely by hand over the course of 7 years, which is pretty insane (in a good way) if you ask me. There is so much detail in every scene you sometimes have to just pause that scene just to see every little bit of detail, there are very few scenes with not much detail or little going on.

Sound

Redline’s soundtrack was not too much to marvel at honestly. It featured some generic rock tracks and racing music that sounds like something you’d hear while working out at the gym. Nothing marvellous in this department. To be fair though, you aren’t too focused on the soundtrack as you’re mostly hearing engines and explosions and other noises, along with dialogue, so the lacking sound can be cut a little slack.

Story / Plot

A very enjoyable thing about the film, has to be the concept. You don’t really see much of this kind of thing in anime, with one, if not the only well-known racing anime is Initial D, and even that doesn’t take place on a distant planet full of ugly aliens and crazy-ass cars. It was pretty refreshing to watch it all go down in a way I honestly haven’t before. It is pretty funny at times and has romance, action, girls, and fast cars, so it was definitely something that someone like me would enjoy. The characters were played rather well in both English and Japanese dubs.

Subs or Dub?

I’d have to go with the English dub on this one. JP and his partner in crime were casted perfectly, and every character just sounds right, I can’t really explain it. You can’t go wrong with either though, your choice, but I’d go with this particular English dub.

Rating and Final Thoughts

This great racing movie really shines in all categories except the soundtrack, but I can’t really criticize that as you most likely take note of it for this movie. From a normal watcher’s point of view, it was pretty simple and enjoyable, Something nice to just pick up one night and watch with a friend without overthinking it at all.

I give Redline a 9/10 overall, and I recommend you watch it.