Real Drive First Impression: Delightfully Confuzzling

OP: 9mm Parabellum Bullet (Wanderland) [4shared]

After the recently concluded 2007 anime series Ghost Hound, Masamune Shirow works with Production I.G. once more with a brand new series, Real Drive (RD Senno Chosashitsu). This time, he revisits the surreal sci-fi concepts of Ghost in the Shell but with more emphasis in the "now" instead of the "what if."

Real Drive is set in A.D. 2061, or fifty years since the completion of Meta Real, a revolutionary network infrastructure that allows people to connect with each other directly through their consciousness. The technology is supposed to create a virtual utopia, but problems arise as a phenomenon called the "Earth Order" occur, threatening to destroy the network system.
Based on the premise alone, the anime sounds really fancy and typical Masamune Shirow. But if prior experience with other Masamune Shirow works serves right, Real Drive will turn out to be one delightfully mind-bending, highly speculative, and wildly imaginative anime.

Already, from the first episode, you can sense vestigial hints of Shirow's particular brand of thought process: a virtual system that mimics the flow of the ocean, the concept of "diving" into a network system, the use of consciousness and intuition, and the inter-connection between cyber-consciousness and the organic body.

But the defining moment of Real Drive takes place, not in any of these bombastic plot devices and hifalutin ideas, but in the use of a seventy-year-old man as the main character. Think: when was the last time you saw an anime with an old man for a protagonist? Right off the top of my head, I can't think of any. And it's a wonder, actually, considering that majority of Japan's population are from ages seventy and above.

So if there is one anime that manages to explore fanciful scientific possibilities as they have never been explored before but at the same time keeps itself relevant and relentlessly real, this is it. Real Drive strikes me as a story marked by unrestrained imagination but tempered with experience and a very adult sense of what is happening now.
That said, let's go to the art.

I can't not compare Real Drive with Ghost Hound, especially when it comes to the animation technique and art style. The characters, especially the younger ones, lack details and actually look plain and flat in contrast with the rich thoroughness of the background. But, in my opinion, that's what makes this particular style so fascinating to watch.

Movements are easy to animate when the lines are simple and there are little in the way of details to distract the eye. Additionally, movements need to be especially fluid in Real Drive where much of the action takes place underwater.

The designs of the characters themselves are somewhat distinctive. The women are mostly comprised of rounded shapes creating uniformly voluptuous bodies (NOTE: thunder thighs! XD) while the men (there are only very few) are lean.

Colors are used sparingly and most of them are varying shades of the same hue. However, when a scene calls for a wider palette, watch out: the result is so beautiful it can hurt the eyes.
As for sound, Real Drive uses it sparingly again: underwater sounds and static and explosions but with almost zero background music. The opening is called "Wanderland" by 9mm Parabellum Bullet, first heard in the second episode. It's a vigorous rock song with a yawping power riff that establishes the melody line and the tone of the series. The closing is "Katahiza no Yogore" by Last Alliance, which echoes the joyous explosion of fuzz in the opener.

MORE INFO:

OFFICIAL (Japanese)
Production I.G. Work List Details
Anime News Network
Wikipedia
More screencaps from Real Drive Episode 01
Watch Trailer