Neo Tokyo

Neo Tokyo (Meikyū Monogatari, 1989) is a Japanese animated anthology you can watch online on iFILM. Three shorts, three directors, one uneasy vision of where technology is dragging us.

Rintaro opens with "Labyrinth," where a bored girl and her cat slip through a mirror into a phantom circus. Then Yoshiaki Kawajiri's "Running Man" pushes a telekinetic driver through one last lethal race. Katsuhiro Otomo closes on "The Order to Stop Construction," where a lone engineer deep in the jungle tries to shut down robots that simply refuse to quit building.

There's barely any dialogue and almost no plot — these fifty-odd minutes run entirely on craft. Fluid linework, cold neon palettes, a creeping sense that the machines have stopped listening. What you really get is a compact look at three artists who would go on to define a whole era of anime. Good pick if you came for Akira and want the short form. Stream Neo Tokyo (1989) online on iFILM.