Robot Carnival

• ロボットカーニバル, Robotto Kānibaru
• Directed by Hidetoshi Ōmori, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Hiroyuki Kitazume, Katsuhiro Otomo, Koji Morimoto, Mao Lamdo, Takashi Nakamura, and Yasuomi Umetsu
• July 21, 1987

Voice Cast

Presence

• Protagonist-Michael McConnohie
• Girl-Lisa Michelson
• Granny-Barbara Goodson
• Daughter (after marriage)-Lara Cody
• Colleague-Tom Wyner

Strange Tales of Meiji Machine Culture: Westerner’s Invasion

• Kichi-Bob Bergen
• Yaori-Lisa Michelson
• Toki-Eddie Frierson
• Denjirō-Kerrigan Mahan
• Chubby-Tom Wyner
• Jonathan Jameson Volkerson III-Steve Kramer

Nine shorts from different directors with each having a unique animation style and story from comedic to dramatic.

Robot Carnival was one of those things that popped up as a suggestion on various platforms, yet it was only now that I checked it out. Nine different stories may seem like a lot, and that count is, but each one is complete in its presentation. You could liken them to student films given the lack of experience of the directors. The result are shorts with dreamlike or stream of consciousness feels.

As a film this accomplishes ‘weird’ and ‘surreal’ without trying too hard or really trying at all quite easily. It never forces weirdness or strangeness. It just begins whatever scenario the auteur has in mind and builds the feel naturally as far as the creatives can.

One can see similarities with the original Heavy Metal though the connection here is a robot of some type being featured. The music used makes this one of the strongest soundtracks I have ever encountered. These are not pop diddies but orchestral compositions. Like animated musical shorts.

Done before the prevalence of computer animation or even computer assistance in standard animation, Robot Carnival is dynamic hand drawn art. These are detailed character designs and backgrounds done by craftsmen. The visuals are kinetic and chaotic or even disturbing.

In a breath of fresh air, most presented stories are devoid largely of anything other than music. A risky artistic choice that pays off.  Most contain guttural sounds beyond the shorts Presence and Strange Tales of Meiji Machine Culture: Westerner’s Invasion. Characters speak with Presence getting philosophical with it being about a man secretly building an automaton to compensate for having no close relationships.

Which leads to my main gripe with the film. The lack of dialogue made the film universally accessible and stylistically harmonious. Presence could have communicated its ideas with character expressions and Strange Tales of Meiji Machine Culture: Westerner’s Invasion could have been viewed as much more slapstick.

That echoing stylized sound that once permeated Japanese animation is here serving to highlight the ample fantasy of the stories. Why this aesthetic went away completely is unknown to me. It is a quick and effective narrative shorthand.

With the visuals and sounds it is a feast for the senses. It’s one of those things that hooks you in a way you can’t quite explain and is just so good you can’t let it go. It is beautiful to watch or simply listen to but together becomes greater than it does separately.

Robot Carnival is an experience and a very good one. Dramatic, comedic, and surreal, it is must-see viewing for fans of animation.