If I can just gush for a second about how much I love Robot Carnival and Neo Tokyo from an animation style standpoint but also as an incredible piece in animation history that ties a ton of animation legends together in ONE animated piece.

Both are anthologies but I'm going to talk about Neo Tokyo (1987) first, it starts with Labyrinth Labyrinthos which was written and directed by Rintaro who directed Galaxy Express 999(1979)

Rintaro later went on to direct Metropolis (2000) based on Osamu Tezuka's manga, the movie adaptation was writen by Katsuhiro Otomo (creator and director of Akira)

The second segment "running man" was directed and written by Yoshiaki Kawajiri who went on to create Ninja Scroll (1993) and Vampire Hunter D:Bloodlust (2003)

3rd Segment "Construction Cancellation Order" was written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo creator of the manga Akira and also its film adapation. He also worked did the opening and ending segments of Robot Carnival as well as a segment in Memories (1995) and Mushishi (2006)

The Key animation done on the third segment was done by Koji Morimoto who also animated on Akira, Robot Carnival, Animatrix, Kiki's Delivery Service, Fist of the North Star and is a co-founder of Studio 4C

Studio 4C has produced some incredible pieces of animation that have pushed the boundaries of what we think of as "anime" like: Mind Game, Tekkonkinkreet, Mutafukaz as well as Genius party, Dimension Bomb, GLobal Astroliner, Kung Fu Love

Now to talk about Robot Carnival (1987), the film consists of nine shorts by different well-known directors, many of whom started out as animators with little to no directing experience.

The opening and ending segments of Robot Carnival were directed by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) with backgrounds done by Nizo Yamamoto (famous art director and bg artist for Miyazaki and Ghibli movies)

Nizao also worked on Laputa the year before and went on to work on Grave of the Fireflies (1988) ,Only Yesterday (1991), Whisper of the heart (1995) and most famously Princess Mononoko(1997) and Spirited away (2001)

Nizo also worked on Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) and Little Nemo- Adventures in Slumberland (1989). A background artist god and legend.

ok STILL talking about the opening segment of Robot Carnival; the key animation was done by Atsuko Fukushima. she was animation director for Neo Tokyos Labryinth Labyrinthos segment, a year after Robot Carnival she did key animation on Akira AND on Kiki's Delivery Service

She went on to animate on Studio 4C's Genius Party. She's an animation powerhouse and married to co-founder of Studio 4C's Koji Morimoto (can you say animation power couple??)

2nd segment is Fraken's Gears, directed by Koji Morimoto with Backgrounds by Yuji Ikehata. Ikehata also went on to become a BG artist on Kiki's Delivery service (1989), Roujin Z (1991) and artist on Metropolis(2001)

Ikehata also worked as production desiger on Akira(1988) and art director on Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust(2000)

Third segnent "Deprive" is directed by Hidetoshi Omori who continues to work in animation and has done animation on JoJo Golden Wind, Kill La Kill, Bubblegum Crisis, various Lupin the III pieces and a LONG long lost of others:

4th segment was directed by Yasuomi Umetsu who was pretty unheard of at the time, he went on to work on Lily C.A.T. and is most well known for creating the Kite film series
5th Segment "Star Light Angel" was directed by Hiroyuki Kitazume, character designer for Mobile Suit Zeta

6th segment director Manabu Ohashi went on to do tons of key animation in anime, most notably Sailor Moon (ep 27-46) and Roujin Z

7th Segment "Strange Tales of Meiji" directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo, he began work in the anime industry as a teenager on 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979. He went on to work on Golden Boy, Roujin Z, Blood the Last vampire,

and Black Magic M-66 (Masamune Shirow, creator of Ghost in the Shell) and worked on Akira.

Character designer for "Strange Tales of Meiji" Yoshiyuki Sadamoto went on to be a founding members of Gainax. He also went on to design characters for Neon Genesis Evangeion and more recently The Girl who Leapt Through Time (2006), Summer wars(2009) and Wolf Children (2012).

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's mentors Yasuo Otsuka once said there was only three people whom he regarded as more skillful than himself that he has met during his career.-

"One of them is Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. The other two are Sadao Tsukioka who became a visual creator, and award-winning director Hayao Miyazaki."

Now the Mechanical designer for Strange Tales of Meiji was Mahiro Maeda who later went on to do concept art and esign for Mad Max: Fury Road(2015) which is fucking wild. He also designed 2 of the "Angels" from Neon Genesis, directed Blue Submarine No.6, and Gankutsuoi.

Maeda also worked on Nausicaa, Castle in teh Sky and Porco Rosso. BUT ALSO did key animation for the animation sequence in Kill Bill and also animated on a Studio 4C segment for Genius Party Beyond.

1987 was a fucking wild year for animation. I just love these two movies so much because you can just FEEL the talent that's bursting from both of these pieces. You watch it and know the people who worked on it are going to go on and do incredible things and they all did.

For me I didn't end up seeing Robot Carnival or Neo Tokyo til semi-recently. I had already been watching and loving all of these artists later work so it has a special place for me when I finally watched this and saw where a lot of them got their big break.

OK END ESSAY LOL I just really love these films so much

No one:
Not a goddamn soul:
Me: SOOO here's the entire history of Robot Carnival and Neo Tokyo and the impact it had on anime as a genre: an essay by ME