Memorizu

Memories (Memorizu) is an animated movie by the highly acclaimed Studio Madhouse. It was written by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress) and Katshuiro Ōtomo (Akira). The movie is a compilation of three different stories, and the interesting thing is that none of the stories is related to any of the others by anything other than the title. It was released in 1995.

Synopsis

There are three stories that make up Memories. The first one is titled Magnetic Rose. In Magnetic Rose, the year is 2092 A.D. A junk ship named Corona picks up a distress call and decides to go to investigate. When they get to the sector that they are receiving the distress signal from, they find an empty, half-broken space station. Two characters, Heinz and Miguel, go into the space station to see who needs help. Instead of a person, they find a world that has been created by the memories of a Opera Diva named Eva Friedel. Eva’s life spiraled downwards when she lost her voice, and the space station is controlled by an artificially intelligent unit that has created the world around her.

Stink Bomb is the next short in the movie. Stink Bomb is all about a chemist named Nobuo Tanaka. Poor Nobuo has had a cold for a very long time and finally decides to do something about it. A colleague of his suggests that he take a type of prototype medication that the company has been working on in order to get rid of his colds. Unfortunately for Nobuo, he takes the red pill in the blue capsule instead of the blue pill in the red capsule as he was told. Nubuo goes to bed and, when he wakes up the next morning, he can’t understand how come everybody in his office is lying on the floor, apparently asleep. It turns out that poor Nubuo has now become a biological weapon of mass destruction. A whiff of his breath, even though a mask, will kill a person instantaneously.

Cannon Fodder is the final short in the series of three. This is also the shortest short of all of them. It is set in a futuristic, military-type society. The father of the family of three that the movie follows works on what is known as the Big Cannon. The Big Cannon is the biggest cannon in a city full of cannons. The cannons are fired into the mist that surrounds the city, which leads the viewer to wonder who could be the enemy behind the mist. Some fans ponder if there really is an enemy beyond the mist. The mother works in a manufacturing plant, and the son dreams of growing up and working on the cannons. Cannon Fodder is remarkable in that the entire movie is one very long scene. There is no cut-aways to other places or close-ups on anything in particular. This is one of very few shorts that take the risk to do that.