RetroCrush has just released the 1995 anime short film Magnetic Rose to YouTube, giving anime fans and film nerds access to an underrated gem in filmmaker Satoshi Kon's extensive filmography.
Magnetic Rose is the first of three short films included in the 1995 anime anthology film entitled Memories. Magnetic Rose follows The Corona, a space roaming freight ship that salvages the contents of wrecked spaceships. Two engineers, Miguel and Heintz, on crew soon find an extraterrestrial graveyard of a space station and decide to set out to explore. But what they find is a place decaying and haunted, something prepared to consume its new inhabitants.
The short is based on a manga by Anthology creator Katsuhiro Otomo, and is directed by Koji Morimoto. Legendary filmmaker Satoshi Kon wrote the screenplay. The film predates Kon's most notable work which has inspired numerous filmmakers. Though Kon died at the age of 46, his work has proven to be nothing short of canonical for both anime and film aficionados. His two most notable films include Perfect Blue, which was released in 1997, and Paprika, which was released in 2006.
Perfect Blue tells the story of Mima Kirigoe, a former Japanese pop-star who retires to pursue acting. However, this transition is met with increasing chaos in both her personal life and the world around her. As Mima deals with the chaos of her changing life, she soon loses grips with reality and herself. The film has proven to be a classic, wit hits haunting imagery and chilling story of mental dissociation. Many of its visuals inspired Darren Aronofsky's 2010 film Black Swan, which featured a similar story arch and echoed many of Perfect Blue's visual stunts.
Paprika, Kon's final film, tells the story of a psychologist and a terrorist who both battle for control over a device which helps people to share their dreams. The film was based on a 1993 manga by Yasutaka Tsutsui. This film also inspired another notable 2010 film, Christopher Nolan's Inception, which has a strikingly similar plot and features many action sequences that mirror those in Kon's film.
This newly available short offers a glimpse into the early career of what would become a giant in Japanese cinema. The film's dark tones and intense visuals give us another piece of Kon's short but intense filmography reminding not only of what was lost with his death, but what his brief life was able to provide. RetroCrush has made Magnetic Rose available for free on YouTube. The short runs just under fifty minutes and is well worth the runtime. You can check out the film below: