Appleseed XIII (as in the number Thirteen) is a science fiction action show about a couple of E S.W.A.T. members named Deunan and Briareos. Deunan is a very hard as nails female and she is a very brilliant at combat.  Briareos is her protector and best friend who also happens to be a cyborg.  While the both of them may seem worlds apart they both have one thing in common and that's for them to find their own "paradise".  While they are busy wondering if they'll achieve their goal they get assigned a mission to take down a terrorist group called "The Argonauts" who plan to eradicate cyborgs, bioroids, and robots to preserve humanity... or so we think.  There could be a lot more going on behind the scenes that the government and Argonaut members themselves are unaware of.  Will the E S.W.A.T. takedown Argonauts and get to the bottom of this mystery?  Will Deunan and Briareos find their paradise?  Will this show be worth watching?  The latter will be answered after the jump. (Click "Read More" to read the full review).

Bad droids, bad droids.  What ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when they come for you? Bad droids, bad droids.

The story in this show may seem very simple and straight forward but it can get really confusing if you are not paying attention to everything the characters say.  This show is also cut together very weirdly where one minute you are watching the show and then without warning it cuts to a flashback and you won't pick up on it until the flashback is nearly over.  Those two problems don't make the story bad by any means as I did enjoy it and I found the fusion of science fiction and Greek mythology (like Hercules and Minotaur) to be very interesting.  Yes you heard right this show has some Greek mythology mixed in and it's in the form of subtle references which they also explain during the show if you are unfamiliar with Greek mythology.  My main problem with this show is that the main story moves along so slowly with a bunch of filler episodes and that will put people off although the filler episodes weren't bad but just keep that in mind if you are interested in this show because of the main plot.  Main characters in this show are alright but they do get very whiney which makes it a bit annoying to watch although they do have some charm when they aren't in a bad mood.  Side characters and villens are very generic with barely anything special about them with the only plus side being that the reccuring ones are interesting... but barely.

Zoiks Scoob!  Deunan was the Metal Maurderor the whole time!  She would've gotten away with it too if it were'nt for us meddling kids.

The art style is computer generated 3D models and the quality varies per episode.  Sometimes it looks pretty but most of the time it looks lika a Saturday morning cartoon straight from the year 1997 (take Beast Wars for example) which will be too much for some people to bare.  Animation also varies on quality as for the most part it is rendered well but you will get some episodes rendered really poorly to the point where the episodes are choppy.  There is also some weird irony with the animation as the human characters are much more robotic than the robots and androids.  English dub is very good with a nice strong cast that work really well with the characters.  The soundtrack is pretty forgettable and I can only remember a few tracks and they weren't bad at all with a nice opera sound.

If looks could kill.

The special features aren't bad as not only you get text-less opening and closing sequences and commercials but you also get audio commentaries from the English voice actors on episode seven and twelve.  The commentaries were pretty decent but they tend to go off topic quite a bit although they do talk about the show enough to get an idea of what it was like behind the scenes.  If you are looking to get even deeper with behind the scenes information you can find a documentary on this release that talks about all thirteen episodes in greater detail.  I hope you all have a free day ahead of you as this documentary goes on for around three hours.  The only downside I see is for the people who only watch dubbed programs as I'm sorry to say but this documentary is subtitled only.

Freeze!

Overall this was an okay show and it had it's fair share of problems but there is enough good in it to warrant at least one viewing.  Sure this only just makes the cut and I can understand if you are not 100% convinced.  I recommend either renting this or if you are lucky enough not to live in Australia I recommend checking it out on a video streaming service like Netflix (assuming it is on there).  A watchable show.

Title: Appleseed XIII
Animation Studio: Production I.G.
Genre: Animation/Anime, Action, Sci-Fi
Running Time: 325 minutes (13 Episodes)
Distributor: Madman Entertainment (www.madman.com.au)
Rating: M15+ (Fantasy themes, animated violence)
Price: $64.95
Recommended: Yes (Best to rent or stream)