This year Zienema will once again be honouring its tradition of screening a movie as part of the Dutch annual architectural celebration, Dag van de Architectuur. And you may have guessed it: architecture has informed our choice. This year we will be screening the Japanese anime Metoroporisu (2001).

In Metroporisu we follow the adventures of detective Kenichi as he makes his way through a uniform society, looking into the background of the mysterious robot Tima. The movie is inspired by the manga by Osamu Tezuka of the same name, which in turn is based on Fritz Lang’s classic film Metropolis from 1926. Lang’s metropolis is divided into different living spaces by social class: the privileged live aboveground in the fresh air, while the working class labours underground, tending to a monstrous machine that the city runs on.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that an anime version of this movie evolved. The original has all of the elements of cyberpunk tradition: gigantic high-rises, poverty, social unrest and tension, and of course robots and machinery galore. And who better to take the helm writing the script than Katsuhiro Otomo, creator of such masterpieces as the popular cyberpunk anime Akira.