Donald F Animated anthology films are few and far between. Its a shame - few feature length films can offer so much wonder. Fantasia, Fantasia 2000, Neo-Tokyo, and Memories are must-watches for any fan of the art. Robot Carnival isn't well-known, but its one of my favorite films.Robot Carnival is special not only for the few restrictions enforced on the directors, but because it has a single restriction - all the shorts must be about robots. And each short provides a different perspective on the sci-fi trope. Each with a different art style, a different genre, and a different tone, not a single story repeated.Its a very intriguing film. You never know what's around the corner. Some of the shorts will be alright, others amazing. Its not as consistently good as other 9-star films, but its such a breath of fresh air. The discussions with friends afterwords make Robot Carnival a great party movie. The shorts are so different from one another, no two people will have the same opinion on the film.Robot Carnival was an early discovery of mine - I learned about it by watching a sci-fi channel trailer for Lensman, a VHS anime I bought for a dollar. To find something so beautiful and unique, yet so unknown...it has a permanent place in my heart. If you're a fan of animation, you need to see this.

Aaron1375 Almost every story in this film was very well done and enjoyable. I just wish I could get a hold of a DVD of this fine film so I can do a better review of it as there are a lot of the stories I can not remember to clearly as it has been a while since I last saw this film. I remember it starting with a bang as a giant robot carnival comes to town and begins to blow up everything in sight and this is also part of the ending tale too. There is a story of a woman kidnapped and a mysterious young man comes to save her, I enjoyed this one as the music was very good and this one had good action as well. Another one I remember is a Frankenstein one that is the shortest of the bunch if I remember correctly. Then there is one where a girl goes to a fair and somehow a ride she goes on ends up as being an action sequence. The funniest one involves two robots as a mad engineer does battle with kids using what was intended to be a float for a fair. Then there is a strange one involving a guy and this female bot, this story made the least sense, but I am guessing a lot of it was cut as I watched it on TBS so I am guessing it would make a lot more sense if seen in its entirety. The final one I remember is one about a robot that looked a bit like Mega Man just walking through the clouds, very simple but well done. I think there was more, but this is all I remember, like I said I would love to get a hold of the DVD so I can watch it all again and uncut this time.

blitzkrieg1701 This remains one of the best Anime feature films I've ever seen, and, in a stroke of great luck, was also the first Anime feature film I ever saw. While a little (well, a lot) on the artsy side at times, Robot Carnival is a great example of the reckless imagination and superb craftsmanship that Japanese animation at its best is known for. Unfortunately, it's also an example of a kind of film that is becoming very rare in the anime world today. Robot Carnival mops the floor with the ever spreading hordes of Dating Game adaptations/Merchandizing tie-ins that are never the less dominating the industry. Robot Carnival ought to be one of the most well known Anime in the world, not the obscure relic of hardcore geeks that it seems in danger of becoming. If you see a copy of this, buy it on the spot and see what animated film making ought to be.

Eviljomr Like all anthology films, some of the segments are better than others, but there are enough good ones to make this film worthwhile for animation fans.The framing sequence which opens and closes the film is nicely animated, certainly one of the most original ways I've seen for a film to present it's title. The great Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) contributed to this sequence, you can really see his touch. Two of the segments, "Starlight Angel" and "Deprive" are pretty typical sci-fi action anime, albeit nicely animated. A lot of anime fans complain about the "Cloud" segment, I find it kind of interesting, like a piece of animated art. My favorite segment in the film is probably a tie between "A Tale of Two Robots, Chapter 3: Foreign Invasion", which made me think a little of Wild Wild West (a lot better, of course), and "Nitemare".I think having all but two of the film's 8 segments (I'm counting the opening and closing as one segment) dialog-free was an interesting choice, it allows the viewer to concentrate on the images, and precludes needless exposition. I really liked Aeon Flux a lot better before it became a regular series and added dialog. Of course, it also makes an English-dubbed version of the film more tolerable.Some of the music for this film is by the great composer Joe Hisashi, the regular composer for both Hayao Miyazaki and Takeshi Kitano. I think the opening and closing themes are by Hisashi, as well as the music for the "Presence" segment.This is one of the first anime films I saw when I knew or cared it was anime, I think it's a really good introduction to the genre. Also a worthwhile film for anyone interested in animation in general.