In 1988, a highly-tatted science fiction manga god named Katahira Otomo would make his full feature length debut with Akira, which would later be garnered by the mainstream public as one of the greatest animated and sci-fi films ever made. Keep in mind, I said his full feature length debut because during the time he was working on both the manga and the movie, he also had a hand in a pair of anthology films, which were both released to previous year with his actual directorial debut about man's dependency on technology in the Otokyo and both the opening and ending sequences for Robot Carnival. This would be the first two of a number of triple-billings Otomo would work on as it plays a considerable part in his career as a director, while also spending an ungodly amount of time working on this feature film, including one that's currently in production, as well as the plans to direct an Akira TV series that will cover the whole manga, but while not much is either widely known in the vast anime landscape or as impressive quality-wise to Akira, one piece of work has been highly regarded as a career highlight for Otomo, and that would be the next anthology film he would work on after Robot Carnival his first one since Akira, which is 1995's Memories, to which he was an executive producer and created the three manga short stories that would be adapted. As the title states, the three short films all revolve around Memories. Stinkbomb, which Otomo wrote showcases the persistence of holding on to a specific memory, and Cannon fodder, one in which Otomo both wrote and directed, is an excellent example of showing a lack of change in a society, in other words, a lack of memory. And the short film I'm going to talk about today shows what happens when you hold on to certain memories for too long. My name is Payne, and this is Magnetic Rose. The story begins when a salvage freighter ship known as the Corona of Jesus Christ gets a distress signal and finds a space station surrounded by a spaceship graveyard. In order to find the signal, the ship's two engineers, Heinz and Miguel, go towards it to get a closer look, only to see the interior of the station resembles very fondly of a Victorian-style home. After walking into many rooms of fake furniture and numerous holograms, they discovered the station once belonged to an opera singer named Ava, who has been attempting to relive the glory days of her career through artificial intelligence. Now, from that quick synopsis alone, you can tell parts of the story sound familiar, especially if you're a general film buff or just a fan of 70's sci-fi movies. The crew, responding to a distress signal, is reminiscent of the first part of the 1979 film, Alien. The use of AI and its essential part in the narrative is similar to Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001 Space Odyssey. An Ava's use of the engineers' memories against them is also a massive part in 1972's Solaris, a Russian film about a man who has sent to a space station to investigate the cause of numerous mental health issues, only to discover that the water from the nearby planet Solaris has the power to bring back the repressed memories of anyone who goes near it. In any other circumstance, the use of these references would come off as cheap or derivative, but instead, it had a fresh and unique feel to it, all thanks to its writer, a fellow magica named Satoshi Kohn, who had worked with Otomo on a couple of works before this one, such as an animator on Akira and a writer in, at the time, the only live-action film Otomo worked on were all the apartment horror. In a way, magnetic rose gave people the preview of what Kohn would do in the next decade or so, as he also had scenes where the line between reality and fantasy is blurred to hell, something that he would work on a lot more in his upcoming manga Opus, which he was working on during production, and considering this was his screenwriting debut for a feature length animated film, you could say this was the first time he tried anything on a scale like this, which wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for Otomo, who created the story and put it in his memories one shot manga, and the short director Koji Morimoto, who worked on the storyboards, both of them not only helping him as a writer, but also as the art director with both aspects turning into something that is just absolutely stunning. This proves that there is more to animation than just looking good visually. While its art style hasn't really lived its best shelf life, everything else does. The stellar attention to detail, the fluid animation, and his use of cinematic techniques and cues, such as the beginning of the film where we see what each character is like just by the way they fly through their ship, and the multi-playing camera and certain scenes to introduce a number of plot developments, they are used masterfully and really do pre-date and gave people a preview of what Kone would do later in his career. Accompanying the artwork is the music, which was done by Yokokano, considered by many to be one of, if not the best composer in anime history. Basically, Johi Saiishi, but for the niche crowd of anime fans. Today, she's known for scoring numerous anime films and shows like Ghost in the Shell standalone complex, Wolf's Rain, May Cross Plus, Kids on the Slope, Cowboy Bebop, her most famous work, and most recently Space Stannie and Zaku No Terror, which both came out in 2014. But before she worked on all those, she got a gig composing magnetic rose, and in typical Yokokano fashion, she killed it. But she also needed some help, which helped enhance the vibe the show gives off. Also credited with the score is Italian composer Jekomo Puccini, more specifically his 1904 3-Act Opera, Madame Butterfly, a story which also touches on the theme of love and betrayal, which explains why the track Madame Butterfly, which Kano redid for the film, lets out this commanding presence. It makes sense why this is considered to be Ava's theme, because just like her, this track wants its voice to be heard. But apart from that one, Kano makes a soundtrack that leaves an unrelenting blow with every scene these tracks replaced in, whether it's just an orchestra piece. One where it's mainly just the chorus. Anything similar to Madame Butterfly, where it's just an opera singer, just giving it all that she possibly can, or anything in between, with a few instances of electric guitar and sax scattered here and there. After going through the soundtrack again and again, both in the actual film, magnetic rose, and while listening to the whole thing on YouTube, working on the script, I can say for certain any other soundtrack and any other composer would not have worked for this project. This was a spot that was reserved for Yokokano and Yokokano only, and she killed it. After sitting with this for a while, watching other things and hearing other people's opinions about this, it makes it easy for me to say this is one of the most underrated pieces of work in anime history. The idea of someone trying to gain what they once lost is interlaced beautifully throughout the story. The atmosphere of the building and cones early endeavors in reality bending, kept me on edge, and guessing what will happen next, while it executes the fear of uncertainty beautifully with every shot. It left me thinking for a little while, even when I was just getting off of Angel's Egg, and maybe wonder what else it would have explored if it was made into a feature-length standalone film. I mean, this is the only time we're gonna see Satoshi Koon and Yokokano in the same work, but it was during a time before they made their biggest impressions on both the anime sphere and the world of film, as Koon would work on perfect blue, millennium actress Tokyo Godfather's and Paprika as well as Paranoia agent. Really, everything Koon works on is in the eye of the mainstream public, while Yokokano would get most of her attention from Cowboy Bebop and her career would just skyrocket from there. All in all, Magnetic Rose is yet another thought-provoking art house-esque film with psychological horror elements. With one of the accomplishes, it's a masterpiece. We all have those moments where we wish we could go back and relive our favorite memories, and that's what makes Magnetic Rose very unsettling. It's because it takes what we, as human beings, desire and proceeds to twist it into a tragic, yet beautiful story. The only thing I could say now is after everything I've said, let's just hope Hollywood doesn't butcher this timeless sci-fi tale.