Redline Flatlines, but Still Beats

Redline opens, race in progress and my mouth stretches wide with a wicked grin, eager to sing its praise over the rooftops of the world. My buds need to see this. There hasn’t been something this balls dipped in awesome in years. At last, I have something new I can lend to Mr. Likes anime, but would never wear an anime girl head as their fucking Twitter avatar. And then, the opening Yellowline race ends and that enthusiasm starts to bleed out slowly.

It is a fantastic piece of artwork. I’m in love with the visuals. The pacing, direction, editing, is efficient, lean, and doesn’t waste time on useless or distracting information. It breezes through introducing the racers. It is a tribute to the direction and character designs that all the racers feel distinct with minimal exposition. Redline gives exactly what anyone riding shotgun needs, a destination, a fast car and gorgeous sights to see.

Unfortunately, Redline fails to set the stakes for the main character, Sweet JP. For all the ruthless planning and editing that must have occurred to get Redline into top racing form, that Redline neglects to establish the stakes is like a Ferrari without gas.

Other than winning the race, what happens when JP wins Redline? What happens when JP loses? None of the answers have much consequence nor are they that much different. Either way, it’s not a big deal. There are no stakes, no tension or conflict among the characters. Even for the Robo army trying to blow up the racers, who wins Redline doesn’t matter. Even if the Robos blow up all the racers, nothing changes, no stakes were lost and the Robos don’t even gain anything from it. It’s a tragic flaw.

I really wanted to love Redline in the end as much as I did in the first ten minutes. The opening Yellowline race made anime feel cool again. What could have been one of the great racing movies of all time winds up being just pretty sweet eye-candy. I’d still lend it out when I get the occasional, “I’m in the mood to watch some anime” and K-On won’t do.

English Dub Notes: Reminds me that I really miss hearing Patrick Seitz (JP) and Liam O’Brien (Frisbee) in anime. The director nails a cohesive mood here with all of the various side and incidental characters, which often drag a dub down, but here bring the crowd to life as another character. Setting aside adaptation discussion, the English version works very well as a piece on its own.