I have a theory about anthology films: the good ones make you forgive the bad segments, and the great ones make you forget there were bad segments at all. Robot Carnival is almost great. It stumbles once or twice, but when it’s working, it’s some of the best animation of the 1980s, full stop.
Released on July 21, 1987, Robot Carnival is nine short films by eight different directors, loosely connected by the theme of “robots.” That’s it. No unifying storyline, no shared characters, no framing narrative beyond Katsuhiro Otomo’s bookend segments about a rusted mechanical carnival grinding through a desert. Otomo was simultaneously working on Akira, which would drop exactly one year later. He brings his signature love of large-scale destruction and mechanical decay. The opening sequence, where the carnival machine obliterates a village as it passes through, is vintage Otomo: gorgeous, terrifying, and weirdly funny.
The nine segments range from masterful to forgettable, and everyone ranks them differently. Here’s where I land.
The standout is “Presence,” directed by Yasuomi Umetsu. A man builds a female automaton in secret, gives her a personality, then panics and destroys her when she becomes too real. He spends years haunted by visions of her. It’s quiet, melancholy, and shot like a live-action drama. Long silences, careful framing, a Victorian-era setting that feels like another planet. Umetsu would go on to direct Kite in 1998, and you can see the seeds of his obsessive attention to character animation here.
Right behind it is “Franken’s Gears” by Koji Morimoto, which is a perfect two-minute joke. A mad scientist brings a robot to life via lightning. The robot copies everything the scientist does. The scientist dances with joy, trips, and the robot mimics the fall, landing on him, killing him. It’s a silent-film gag executed with gorgeous gothic animation. Morimoto later co-founded Studio 4°C, and this segment shows why. He understands timing.
Then there’s “Cloud” by Manabu Ohashi, easily the strangest entry. Done entirely in a scratchboard etching style, it follows a robot walking through the evolution of humanity: creation, civilization, self-destruction. No dialogue. No conventional animation. It’s a visual essay, and it’s either hypnotic or boring depending on your tolerance for abstraction. I found it hypnotic.
“A Tale of Two Robots” by Hiroyuki Kitakubo is the crowd-pleaser. Set in Meiji-era Japan, a foreign invader pilots a giant robot to conquer the country, and the locals fight back with their own steam-powered mech. It’s played for comedy, complete with the Western villain shouting in English while confused Japanese villagers operate their machine by committee. Character designs by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who would later do Neon Genesis Evangelion. Mechanical designs by Mahiro Maeda. Both were essentially unknown at the time.
The weakest for me is “Star Light Angel” by Hiroyuki Kitazume. Two teenage girls at a robot-themed amusement park; one discovers her boyfriend is dating her friend; a virtual reality ride summons a giant mecha. It looks like a neon-soaked pop music video from 1987, which is both its appeal and its limitation. There are background cameos of Akira characters, though. Otomo’s influence bleeding into everything that year.
“Deprive” by Hidetoshi Omori is a straightforward action segment. Aliens kidnap a girl; her android companion fights through waves of robots to save her. Competent and forgettable, which is the worst thing an anthology segment can be.
“Chicken Man and Red Neck” by Takashi Nakamura is pure nocturnal surrealism. A robotic magician transforms Tokyo’s machines into living robots for one night, and the only witness is a drunk man stumbling home. It’s dreamlike in a way that rewards rewatching, details you miss the first time become the point on the second.
What makes Robot Carnival matter isn’t any single segment. It’s the fact that in 1987, a studio called A.P.P.P. (Otomo’s own production company) gave eight animators the freedom to make whatever they wanted with the theme of “robots,” and the results span gothic horror, silent comedy, Victorian drama, surrealist fantasy, and giant mech comedy. Most of these directors had never directed before — they were animators stepping up for the first time. The OVA format made that possible. No network executives demanding toy tie-ins, no demographic targeting. Just talent and a theme.
Streamline Pictures brought it to the US in 1991, nearly four years after the Japanese release. Carl Macek’s company shuffled the segment order for the dub and cut some still images that had Japanese text. Discotek has since released it on Blu-ray and 4K UHD with the original order intact, which is the way to watch it.
I come back to Robot Carnival every few years, and I always discover something new. Last time it was the music — Joe Hisaishi did the primary score, and there are moments in “Presence” where his work feels like a dry run for the emotional register he’d later bring to Ghibli films. The time before that, it was noticing how “Cloud” uses its scratchboard texture to make the robot’s walk feel ancient, like cave paintings coming to life.
Nine segments, eight directors, 91 minutes. Not all of it works. But the parts that work are worth every minute of the parts that don’t.