Memories(HKAFF 2021)

Relatively unsung among Katsuhiro Otomo’s works, anime anthology Memories enthrallingly treads the same dark sci-fi territory as his mega-classic AKIRA. Featuring three short animated films drawn from Otomo’s manga stories, the film leads with mind-bending deep space horror “Magnetic Rose” (directed by Koji Morimoto), which boasts a screenplay by the late Satoshi Kon. “Stink Bomb” (directed by Tensai Okamura) tells a blackly funny tale of technology run amok, as a lab worker accidentally becomes the source of a noxious cloud of death. Finally, Otomo himself directs the ironic war story “Cannon Fodder”, about a nameless city and its downtrodden people who are perpetually at war with, well, someone. An aural and visual feast that, as is expected from Otomo, also engages the mind.