Reign The Conqueror, Vol. 2: Obsession
Sadayuki Murai's screenplay shifts between past and present as Alexander  begins his wars of conquest. The episodes largely focus on a bizarre ritual in  which Alexander's mother, Olympias, may have been impregnated by the god Zeus.  Alexander visits the philosopher Diogenes in Athens, cuts the Gordian Knot in  Phrygia, and attacks the Persian Empire. The mechanized Persian army is less  threatening than the assassins of the "Cult of Pythagoras" who stalk the  young king. An air of decadence pervades this garbled sci-fi reworking of  ancient history. There are unsettling visual disjunctions between the CG  machinery and the hand-drawn humans, and between the elongated,  Expressionist-influenced figures of Alexander and his minions and the  toad-like designs for Diogenes and Parmenion--who look like friends of Jabba  the Hutt. (Unrated, suitable for ages 17 and older: violence, nudity, alcohol  use, grotesque imagery, sexual situations, urination)--Charles Solomon