Gruesome Megazone 23 Sequence

There’s a really cool anime series from the 1980s called Megazone 23. It’s about (spoilers) a future Earth city where the inhabitants don’t realize they’re actually in a spaceship.

Part 1 was adapted (terribly) into the barely seen Robotech movie from 1986.

Part 2 my brother and I got on videotape in the late 1980s, where our little eyes popped out of our head from a sex scene with giant anime breasts.

I found the scene! Cartoon nudity in 3, 2, 1...

Part 2 also has one of the coolest, and most gruesome, space-battle sequences I’ve ever seen. I’ve been working with a pal on concept art for Sky Fighter (my spaceship movie, that we hope to make expanded from the short film) and said, you gotta watch this!

There’s nothing in our film that exactly compares, but it’s insightful for how terrifying you can make space warfare. Roll ahead to 1:31:21 and watch as an alien tentacle weapon wreaks havoc on a spaceship. (Warning: it’s graphic!)

Curiously I’ve never liked violence in movies. I was never the one to gawk over creative ways to make heads explode—I always found it really disturbing, and depressing when fans thought it was cool.

But for some reason, seeing it in anime I find fascinating. Star Trek never was like this (not even that “Conspiracy” episode)!

It certainly left an impression on me when I was 13.