We’ve just watched the DVD of ‘Steam Boy’, an anime by the chap who did ‘Akira’, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s not groundbreaking or particularly original and doesn’t rival Akira, but if you enjoy watching pseudo-Victorian engineering explode then it’s got everything you need. This is steam-punk with a lot of steam. It seems to lose its way a bit towards the end and characters are rather thin (some names are terrible) but it’s definitely a film I’d recommend to anime fans.
The first part of the movie is set in Manchester, something I didn’t expect. Surely Victorian England only had one city, called London? They’ve not done a bad job too, despite the alternative-history setting there are recognisable skylines and buildings, scenes in Victoria Station, and in one definite ‘what-the-’ moment, a reference to Coronation Street.
