Duration: 5:20

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Metropolis is a 2001 Japanese animated film (anime) about a future of capitalism where automation and robotics has eliminated jobs from huge sectors of the economy; but instead of creating a paradise in which people are freed from the need to work, this future of capitalism rather plunges all those many millions lost their jobs into a permanent condition of wretched poverty. And this general social background serves as the soil in which a fascist organization called the Marduk Party comes into being.

This video explains how the social forces the Marduk Party rises out of the dystopian capitalism imagined by Metropolis, and I consider what function the Marduks serve within the context of this dystopian future.

Metropolis is directed by Rintaro and it was adapted from a manga by Osamu Tezuka, who also created Astro Boy (the art styles are very similar!). I am planning future videos where I study the character of Rock, who I think is one of the great villains of anime.