There are not many steampunk anime out there, but this is one of the best.
It's never too late to remember the classics – like the legendary Katsuhiro Otomo's second feature-length film, Steamboy, born out of the chaos of revisions and redesigns at the turn of the millennium.
The author of the Akira manga and the animated masterpiece based on it filmed Steamboy at Sunrise, and the production took eight years and a record 2.4 billion yen at the time of the premiere.
What Is Steamboy About?
In 1866, Ray Steam lives and works in industrial Manchester – a hereditary genius of engineering thought whose grandfather and father, Lloyd and Edward, had emigrated to the US. There, on the payroll of the O'Hara Corporation, they invent an almost perfect engine – a kind of core that allows steam engines to function beyond the wildest imagination.
In the process, Edward nearly dies, and Lloyd decides that he no longer wants to work for the company, or create brilliant inventions that can be used for military purposes. Young Ray will have to figure out the balancing act of his ancestors' thoughts almost on the fly: both on the technical level and in the political-existential dimension.
A package arrives at the Steam family's Manchester address containing the very core – one of three required for the full operation of the Steam Castle – Edward and Lloyd's magnum opus.
The wayward granddaughter of the consortium chairman, Scarlett O'Hara, sails from America on a steamship. The capitalists dream of selling their new developments at a profit thanks to a presentation at the upcoming London Great Exhibition, where the hopes and plans of scientists and military attachés of the greatest powers are focused.
Steamboy Is a Grand Reflection of Progress
Otomo's conceptual find lies in the comparison of types, in the articulation of the kinship between old dreamers who failed to raise their sons with good intentions, and their grandchildren, for whom admiration for their parents goes hand in hand with empathy.
Lloyd is a man who has recently realized the value of discovery, Edward is an inventor without a moral compass, and Rey is a new hope and awakening of strength, a synthesis of ethics and aesthetics.
No less expressively, Otomo rhymes the three cores of the Steam Castle with generations of Steams, embodying the types of scientists from different eras, coordinates, and even genres – adventure, science fiction, and fairy tales.
Without them – the heirs of both technological progress and literary fantasies about it – the machine of civilization cannot, of course, take a single step forward.
Where to Watch Steamboy?
Steamboy is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.