Ugg... the rating I gave to this anime took some thought.  The main reason I didn't give it a very good rating is because it was hovering between good and very good, and since I have regretted giving certain titles too high of a rating in the past, I wanted to play it safe and let you judge for yourself through this review whether or not you might like this.  Know what?  I see a scene on the back of the box that I don't remember seeing in the movie... odd.

          Roujin Z is basically a statement about elderly people in society and the effects that they have.  It also tries to show that, while the younger generations may not realize it, the elders of society have great experience and knowledge that is seldom taken advantage of by those that choose to ignore them and classify them as a nuisance.  There are also dirty old men, a robot bed that can transform and thinks it's an old man's dead wife, repeated use of the word "asshole" and one use of "fuck", implied sex after drunkenness  at a karaoke bar, mass destruction, silly pet names and explanations on how mechanical devices flash lights while people excrete wastes... PLUS MUCH MORE!

          It's all a crazy ride of wackiness, and that's the main reason I had so much trouble rating this, some of this anime was very, very cool, but some of it was just really strange... strange to the point that sometimes even I had trouble grasping the situation.

          You may have heard that this was directed by the same guy who directed Akira, don't let this make you think that the animation will be just as good by default.  While, at times, the similarities in character design and overall artwork were striking in their similarity, most of the time, although the animation in Roujin Z was very good, the artwork wasn't the greatest.  This doesn't mean that it was bad, just that it wasn't as good as Akira.  But that's not really fair, since not many animated films can hold a candle to Akira.  Let's just say that the animation kicked ass and, most of the time, the artwork seemed somewhat bland.

          All I can say about the music is that it wasn't bad... but was that good either... it was more odd.  Kinda like Haunted Junction.  Now you'll read about what bugged me.  My main complaint is the voice of that guy, the one who first presents the bed and later negotiates with it.  Keep in mind that this is the dubbed voice, as I have not watched Roujin Z subtitled.  At times it sounded like he had throat problems, like he was talking with a wheeze, which was much different from his 'normal' voice and was quite noticeable.  Also, at times, people’s voices seemed to sound like they went from STEREO to MONO, for lack of a better comparison.  This was bad enough for me to notice it, not that I minded, just thought it should be mentioned.

          Now, for my biggest complaint.  How in the hell does a computer program simulate a voice AND personality completely from a picture?!  I already thought of an explanation for this, and if you don't want to know what I'm talking about, skip this paragraph.  When Haruko gets the picture of Takazawa's wife so the computer that the old men have can simulate her voice, the bed picks this up and begins to think that it is Takazawa's wife.  Not only that, but it copies the voice patterns and personality of the dead wife exactly.  How did it do this?  I have no idea...  I think that maybe, if the bed was hooked up to Takazawa's brain wave patterns at the time of Haruko's first contact with him when she pretended to be his wife, that he thought back to his wife and the bed then read the patterns and was able to find out from his memories exactly how she sounded and how she acted, since every single little thing you do or experience is subconsciously stored in memory.  That is my theory!  Problem is that I had to think of a theory, either they themselves had no explanation for how this worked or they figured it wouldn't work and just accepted it as a fact and let the mystery become a part of the craziness of the movie.

          I do believe this is a movie could get a higher ranking, and I don't like that I'm only giving it a good, but I'm pretty sure I'd regret it if I gave it a very good.  Better safe than sorry right?

Genre - sci-fi/action/cultural analysis?

Animation - Super duper during the action sequences, and always smooth, but the detail was somewhat lacking most of the time.

Sub vs. Dub - the sub is better

the Good - the people were actually shaped like people should be, kinda funny, very well done, good animation, cool action sequences, this anime is very strange but acts completely serious, bad guy robot is really cool, wide screen

the Bad - randomly changing voice man, some pretty unbelievable things happen

Overall - I REALLY don't recommend this to everyone, and I'm not looking forward to the comments that may be made about it when I show it to Josh, for some reason, I seem to take those comments somewhat personally when I like what we're watching.  But, I must say this is definitely worth watching, just make sure you do watch it before you buy it.