Toward the Terra, or, "What was that movie with people turning 14 and someone named Mr. Blue?"

I first watched the "Toward the Terra" movie around 4 years ago, and have been trying to find it again for some time. Unfortunately, when you only remember that an anime from the 80's involved leaving earth, government conspiracy, and someone named Blue, it is pretty difficult to find said movie on the internet. Thankfully, due to a review of the TV show remake that i stumbled upon, I rediscovered the movie and had the opportunity to revisit an old favorite.

It is difficult to detail the artistic style of movies like this to someone who has not seen one. The soft lines and slightly choppy animation of hand drawn animation with generations of traditional Japanese art as a source origin have a special place in my heart, and the visual warmth is a phenomena that everyone interested in film or animation should witness at least once. I use the word choppy here not because the animation feels discontinuous or poorly constructed, but because the lower frame rate and lack of computer generation gives a hand crafted feel to the images moving across the screen. Perhaps a better term would be baroque or rustic, but these too fail to give words to the emotive potential of the combination of motion and negative space that characterize this style.

Since I am sure that you have heard more than enough of me praising hand drawn slides from teh 70's and 80's, I will spare you from further explanation and move on. Towards the Terra takes place in a society of complete social regulation by the ominously named "Universal Control." At age 14, each child is taken from their parents and reprogrammed at a government facility to ensure that they function as a "proper" mechanism of society. This extreme regulation and oppression is a hold over from the era in which humanity destroyed the environment of earth; it is a tool for maintaining the delicate balance of the artificial cities, the fake earth, that the formers inhabitants of earth now live in. The final feature of this system is to weed out and eliminate members of the society with psychic powers, the social scapegoat for the host of problems now faced.

The narrative follows one such psychic from his 14th birthday as he is pursued by the system and forced to flee, rescued by an organization of psychics trying to disrupt the human social programming and bring society back to a system of freedom and cooperation. Needless to say, I am a fan of anything with liberally anti-state themes, so this is a fun romp through marginally developed revolutionary philosophy of cooperation and non-violence through...violence. No one is perfect, including the angry fucking kid here, all breaking windows and such. 

Nothing about this movie is going to challenge you academically unless you are not particularly smart, but the positive themes and glorious art style make it worth the watch, without question. Also, you get to watch some guy named Blue be called Blue by people with totally straight faces, which is fairly entertaining. Peace children, I will be back with some other thing and words about that thing and maybe pictures also...of the thing.