shoutout @Frogluver101 for making me watch this one! only took me a friggin' week, but i FINALLY got around to it! daisukiiii~

The opening needledrop sets the perfect tone for Download - a faux-folk blues track sung in poor English hilariously commands the audience to "slap me up some biscuits and some gravy, yee hee!"

I could tell you a billion reasons why this is the best tone-setter ever. Maybe it's because it foretells the goofy characters we'll come to love, the absolutely nonsensical plot, or the cartoonishly bright colors. Perhaps a combination of all three! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

Download follows an incompetent monk who falls head over heels for a woman, and right into a detective noir plot - A chain letter, dubbed 'Death Mail', starts making the rounds around town. It's rumored that whoever receives this 'Death Mail' will die within three days...unless they forward the message to three friends.*

*By that metric, I probably got about a hundred Death Mails as a kid. For 1992, Rintaro sure was accurate! I should have the guy do me a tarot reading.

As the hacker/monk Shido's obsession with the elusive Namiho continues, yet proves to be fruitless, "absence makes the heart grow fonder". He redoubles his efforts after every failure, tripping over every single red flag in his way. From biker gangs to corrupt corporations, this guy can't catch a break!

The characters in Download are equally as fun as its animation. They're humorous, pitchy and eccentric. Shido, our perverted lead, makes for an unpredictable character lead by nothing but his third leg; The ethereal Namiho heightens the mystery of the narrative, and the countless others pepper Shido's life with endless chastising. They all squash, stretch, and bounce around the screen, fitting their non-serious natures to a T. Their character designs reflect this too, with rounded chins, big eyes, and curved noses to really drive that slapstick tone down.

Speaking of the animation...God, the animation! Download is riddled with abundant details, from flowing hair to erratic movements and eye twitches. If Download wants to flex, it flexes better than anyone else in the room. With Rintaro's work you can never be visually bored. Just when you think you're safe...BOOM! A change in colors! ZOW! A lighting bolt slashes the camera! BAM! A Lupin-esque text cutaway. Even complete throwaway shots are gorgeously grimy, selling the rough texture of the world with saturated purples and piercing yellows. You can tell from the color usage alone that this is Rintaro, and that's what I love so damn much about the guy! Instead of valued shades, he fills the area with blues and purples. Lots of bonkers particle effects too. Bike fumes stream through the streets and electric sparks burst into massive neon explosions. The amount of detail almost comes to visual overload!

There are some busted shots in this. Rintaro brought in some top talent for this one, including (but not limited to) the great Tatsuyuki Tanaka, a.k.a., progenitor of the most nightmarish sequences in Akira, and Kanada Yoshinori, whose work on essential Ghibli films cannot go unnoticed. He probably has the best cut in the entire thing, where Shido barrels down a hallway to stop the Death Mail once and for all. And it makes sense Yoshinori would be comfortable here - he previously worked with Rintaro on Harmageddon and Phoenix: Karma Chapter, visual titans in their own right. There are a few names I'm not mentioning, not because I don't want to, but because there isn't enough information! But you can be assured that Download moves like a dream.

No production element in Download is lacking, not even the music! After the initial shock and hilarity of the opening, the score settles in, and acts as a glue to hold this slapstick world together. See, cyberpunk is normally underscored by heavy techno tracks and and electro breaks, but instead, Download opts for the blues. This underscores the world in a drab, wretched tone which sticks for the entire runtime. And it just works!

Now, is it the greatest thing ever? Well, not exactly. It's severely lacking in depth, the main romance is shallow, and the great Death Mail mystery is unfocused, but hey! Not everything has to be Shakespeare! Sometimes, you just need this lightning-in-a-bottle, and you're not gonna download anything better than this eponymous title.

From top to bottom, Download is one hell of a time!

P.S. FaceTime would be a BILLION TIMES BETTER if we used CRTs instead of phones.

P.P.S. I need that chunky red Tron bike in my non-existent garage...NOW!