Roujin Z

80 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 08/26/1998
Reviewed: 02/07/2006

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Andrew: My favorite part was when the Budda statue had the power lines coming out of it. Good stuff.
A long time ago I would include quotes of things that occurred to me, or Andrew, or whomever else might be in attendance at the unfortunate time when I was watching one of those awful, horrible, waste-of-space anime DVDs that made up (and still occupy) 90% of my anime collection. Andrew's a notoriously picky anime dude, maybe even more so than my good buddy and fellow podcaster Joel (who moves mountains with his resolute stance). He's certainly more discerning when it comes to anime than I am, but Roujin Z struck a chord with him, and I thought it would be prudent to show a facet of anime that made even the most troublesome "fan" at least a little complacent in his position. He took it like a champ! ...but why? What did Roujin Z have to offer?

It's not an action-filled fightfest, that's for sure. It's tough to guess given the rather menacing looking coverart. I don't get why, but companies seem absolutely crazy about spicing up the cover art on this DVD. When you look at that do you think the movie is gonna be a cutesy romp around Tokyo with a little social commentary thrown in for good measure? Absolutely not! You think it's gonna be about crazy robots and the old men that control them, and the psychotic series of events that would ensue from a bout with insanity like that.

That's actually fairly close to the truth, but Roujin Z is a bit more laid-back than what the various iterations of cover art featuring flailing tentacles and menacing looking machines would suggest.

The State Medical Emergency Lines are in crisis. In Japan there are over 70 million elderly people with severe health problems. PITH**, the program to provide nurses for home care of the aged, is inefficient and underfunded. Basically the government has to find a way to kill all the old people quietly, or take care of them for dirt cheap. Their solution? A robot nuclear powered bed that takes care of all the wants and desires of your average "APE" (That's what they call the old guys, I think). Their test subject? A man named Kijuro Takazawa. Who, quite excessively, was taken against his will. Nevermind the fact that nuclear robot beds would be more expensive than barbeque sauce in a steak factory, leave it to the Japanese to think of ridiculous crap like robo-nurses and actually try and get away from it. The Z-001 will take care of your every need, bathing, sleeping, waste disposal, and cyber sex.
Lawful or not, the thing seems pretty sweet. When you have pretend internet sex and a computer that'll happily take your excretions without you having to get up then what else do you need? Not only that but it's safe from electrical storms, burglary, and METEOR STRIKES. However, Kijuro doesn't seem too content to be making sweet sweet love to his ideal mate, so he manages to send a whole bunch of messages to his former nurse Haruko's computer so she and her med school friends can get him the hell out of that thing. Soon after is about the time the bed starts going absolutely wacko.

Remember Hackers? Well, Roujin Z is for old people what Hackers was for nerdy teenagers. Well... for old people that want to be hackers and chase after women a quarter of their age anyway. While the story focuses on the attractive Haruko and her significantly more dog-like friends, there's certainly an element of Zach de la Rocha-esque "Take The Power Back" as the elderly decide they're not gonna be confined to their beds when there's nurses to sexually harass and government computers to tap into. These senior citizens hack like men have never hacked before, willfully ignoring 8:30 PM bedtimes and nightly vicodin-con-applesauce feedings. Why, not even a heaping helping of viagra could distract them with their anachronistically complex computers. You think your 1.2 gigahertz is the hot stuff? These crotchety hobos can synthesize a person's voice from their PICTURE. Let's see your Soundblaster 128 emulate that stunt.

A younger, stupider me would've figured that Akira was gonna be a one hit wonder, but Roujin Z was pretty high quality. Dreadful packaging aside it's a pretty humorous film, and it's got a "value added" not particularly deep but still kind of interesting commentary about how the younger generation might've been treating their elderly. It's not exactly as poignant as other shows, but I suppose it doesn't always have to be. Roujin Z, with its simple story and silly ending, hooked Andrew... and that's about all the compliments you can ask for.

**Or "Provision In The Home", one of about 50 acronyms mentioned in the film. Apparently people in 1980s Japan really liked being efficient with their words.