Shadowskin

Original Title: N/A
Romanized: Shadowskin
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

A young man with no memory of his own past finds himself suddenly under assault by the military. Though unclear whether it is a blessing or a curse, this "Patient X" is in possession of a powerful suit of armor, but there is more to it than just a simple weapon. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Cage, who has motives of his own in tracking down Patient X, seeks out the help of Erica Sugiyama, but even her knowledge of this project only scratches the surface of what is really going on.

Review

Rating: 2 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2003-07-01

Shadowskin is an OAV series (currently only one episode long) by Studio ArtFX, the same independent behind Understanding Chaos. It shares the same dark cyberpunk style and professional-looking production as that short, but unlike its predecessor it's also a full-length episode of what will hopefully be a continuing series. I'd say that of the independent anime productions I've seen to date Shadowskin most successfully delivers on the potential of its concept.

It's hard to make any meaningful statements about the story, since the first episode only establishes the groundwork, but so far it looks to be a reasonably interesting sci-fi story with an added overtone of mythology. I can say that the characters were established solidly, and the hit-the-ground-running way the story is introduced got me interested.

In particular, I liked that the introduction of the plot gave enough concrete information to get a good grasp of what was going on while still leaving enough details out to keep plenty of mystery in the air. It also didn't feel like there was an active effort to keep the viewer in the dark--more like some of the important pieces of information just haven't come up yet.

This is thankfully a case where the story comfortably carries the production, but the visual end is no slouch, either. The style is essentially identical to Understanding Chaos, so I'm repeating a lot from my review of that title, but basically Shadowskin uses 3D computer models to produce animation that looks almost indistinguishable from hand-drawn art. The dark visual style and more realistic character designs have a look similar to movies like Jin Roh or Ghost in the Shell, and although the fluidity of animation, style, level of detail, and sense of lived-in grime isn't on par with those high-budget productions, it's still a good looking OAV. My only real complaint is that the backgrounds are a little on the bland side, although there was one reasonably creative abstract setting and a couple of very brief but really nice looking action sequences to make up for that.

Due to a combination of good design, some hand touch-up, and a very good cel shader, the 3D characters look both hand drawn and quite good, but there are a couple of minor side effects. The only significant one that I noticed was that the character animation was just a bit stiff, but this wasn't a big deal. The other issue were a couple of angles in which characters' faces ended up looking just a bit odd (not surprising, since the anime style was never designed for three dimensions), but this was also minor. I wasn't personally fond of some of the character designs, but that's a matter of personal taste, not a failure of the medium or the production.

An interesting side note is that, despite being rendered from models, the animation wasn't high frame rate at all--about OAV level--and the mouth movements were standard open-and-close anime style. This might have been due to budget constraints (less render time), but it also had the arguably positive effect of making the production look that much more like cel art.

The voice acting is, unfortunately, rather flat all around, but at least the casting is good enough to offer a variety of natural-sounding voices, and our apparent hero is probably the most natural of the lot. The music isn't particularly remarkable either, but the slow, generally sad-sounding synthesizer pieces compliment the story effectively and unobtrusively.

In all, Shadowskin, as of the first episode, lays a reasonably solid foundation for a sci-fi yarn. There are a couple of decent little action scenes, plenty of information to begin piecing a story together from, and enough mystery and allusions to a creative concept to keep me interested in where it will go. Considering that it's an independent production, I'd consider it a rousing success, and even based on its own merits it was at least average, with the potential to be more as the story develops.

Related Recommendations

Though Understanding Chaos is only a short film, it is not surprisingly very similar to Shadowskin in style and feel. D7 Peacemaker is also worth mentioning as an independent production with a similar cyberpunk setting, although the style is entirely different. In a more traditional vein, Dark Warrior, the Guyver series, and probably Cybernetics Guardian all have vaguely similar stories, though all of them are of dubious quality. Jin Roh and Ghost in the Shell have a similar visual style, and are much more impressive.

US DVD Review

The DVD is a basic but solid production. The anamorphic widescreen video (nice touch) is very sharp and clean, and the 2-channel audio, though it perhaps felt a bit weak, was reasonably crisp. The disc includes a nice-looking animated menu with a chapter index, plus trailers for Studio ArtFX's current works (this, Understanding Chaos, and the yet-unfinished A.M.P.), plus the three interviews on the production process.

Content Guide

Rated 13-up by the studio, which seems reasonable.

Violence: 1 - There are a couple of serious action scenes, but nobody dies yet.

Nudity: 1 - The only female character has an extended scene in relatively revealing nightclothes.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - Nothing.

Language: 2 - Some strong language.

Notes and Trivia

The second feature produced by Studio ArtFX, and the first "real" story. Their website is quite interesting--sort of blog for animators, particularly those working with Lightwave 3D software. There are lots of useful tips on techniques for using 3D models to produce cel-style art.

The DVD also includes three detailed interviews (more like tutorials, really) on the production process. These videos, though perhaps not quite as extensive as what is included with Understanding Chaos, are still a very thorough step-by-step walkthrough of the tools and techniques employed to create the visuals, and will be quite interesting to anybody interested in making something like this themselves, or just what goes into making one happen.

Availability

Available on DVD direct from Studio ArtFX.

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