Roujin Z

Roujin Z (1991) is a Japanese anime feature you can watch online on iFILM. Hiroyuki Kitakubo directed it from a script by Katsuhiro Otomo, the mind behind Akira. Bedridden old Mr. Takazawa gets picked for a government trial and strapped onto the Z-001 — a computerized robotic bed pitched as a replacement for an entire nursing staff.

Bureaucrats parade the machine as the future of elder care. What they downplay is the combat exoskeleton buried under the medical shell, a frame that reads its patient's thoughts. Tapping into the old man's buried wishes, the bed slips its leash and lumbers off across Tokyo as an unstoppable hulk. The one trying to shut it down is Haruko, the nursing student who looked after Takazawa and never trusted the gadget. A crew of elderly hackers joins her, cracking the system from the inside.

Under the goofy premise sits a sharp jab at an aging society, government red tape and blind faith in technology — pure Otomo. At eighty minutes, with the dense hand-drawn animation of the early 1990s, it's a film classic-anime fans prize for its invention and mean streak of humor. Stream Roujin Z (1991) online on iFILM.