Imagawa was pretty much right about Tetsujin 28: The Lingering Moon

Tetsujin 28: The Lingering Moon is an odd movie. Despite sharing the same director, character designs and cast as the excellent 2004 series it is neither a sequel nor a re-imagining of said anime. Instead, as we learn in the films rushed opening exposition, it is something of an alternate take on the Tetsujin-28 anime. Like many of Imagawa’s works the movie opens in media-res, with nothing but a brief introduction to acquaint you with the world and the characters. Yet, unlike Imagawa’s other works like Giant Robo or Shin Mazinger I would not recommend this movie to someone who has not experienced the previous iterations of this franchise. The Lingering Moon does very little to explain who the character of Shotaro is or how he came into possession of the titular robot and you’ll find little reason to care about the plot if you don’t already have some amount of love for the franchise.

The focus is mostly on a new character, Shotaro’s adopted brother (also named Shotaro), a soldier who returns to Japan after hiding out in the southern Islands for years, believing the war was still continuing. Coinciding with this, a series of undetonated bombs, relics from Taisho era Japan, are discovered underneath Tokyo, capable of destroying buildings without harming civilians or animal-life (surprisingly humane and advanced for something created by Imperial-Japan) The plot of this movie is used mainly to re-iterate the themes of the TV-series; the clash between modern and Imperial Japan, the industrialisation of Tokyo and the question of whether weapons of war can be used for good. They are still surprisingly effective here, for an anime which, by all accounts, we’d expect to simply be about robots hitting each other. In fact it wouldn’t be a stretch to say this movie is less about Tetsujin-28 and more about a war veteran returning to a country which has moved on, in the character of Shotaro’s brother. This theme is handled with a high-level of melodrama, as characters tend to speechify at length, such as in the scene where Shotaro berates a beggar for pretending to be an injured Veteran. Still, there’s a level of sincerity here, as there was in the TV series, which makes this view of Post-War Japan, as a fragile country on the cusp of rebirth, surprisingly emotionally resonant.

Unlike the series however these themes feel at odds with the story of the robots themselves. Tetsujin-28 itself is completely ancillary to the plot, and there aren’t any real Mecha encounters until more than an hour into the movie. The mecha action that is there is superb, with the roundish tin-man looking Tetsujin being given an impressive sense of scale as he lumbers around the industrialised Tokyo-city. Imagawa as-always shows off his visual-flair for set-pieces in the climax, involving a Tetsujin-28 so large it dwarfs much of Tokyo with hundreds of missiles sprouting out of it, and while the resolution to this set-piece is entirely too reminiscent of Giant Robo, and feels somewhat rushed, its still visually arresting. Still, all of this takes a backseat to the character interactions. One of the great elements of the TV series was Shotaro’s relationship with the somewhat-sentient Tetsujin, and how it developed over the course of 26-episodes, leading to a heartbreaking conclusion. Here the story of the boy detective and his robot feels almost tacked on to a movie which is half retro-futurist mecha action, half contemplative post-war melodrama, and not entirely adept at either.

Imagawa was not entirely happy with this movie, as he said in a 2006 interview,      “ The Tetsujin 28 movie has been completed but shelved. It was finished last September but however it is not a good movie. It was a troubled project from the beginning. These troubles are reflected in the film.”                                             Its refreshing to see a director be so honest about his work, and yes, Tetsujin-28: The Lingering Moon is not up to Yasuhiro Imagawa’s usual standard. But its an interesting oddity, one which encapsulates a lot of what made the 2004 series so interesting and unique. Its just a pity that it never feels as cinematic as it should, neither is it entirely sure of what it wants to be.