▪	RELEASED BY:		FUNIMATION ENTERTAINMENT
		▪	ASPECT RATIO:		16:9 ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN
		▪	AUDIO:		ENGLISH AND JAPANESE DD 2.0
		▪	RUNNING TIME:		120 MIN
		▪	RATING:		TV MA
		▪	RELEASE DATE:		05/20/2008
		▪	REVIEW DATE:		06/04//2008
		▪	REVIEWED BY:		HOLLY ELLINGWOOD

Based on the shooter game by GIGA and Alchemist, the anime begins with a young man and a fight within the Wired World. Toru is a malcontent elite hacker who is part of Steppenwolf, a band of hacking wonders. But one day they run afoul of FLAK, a military organization that polices and eliminates threats in the Wired World. Tragedy strikes and Toru has no choice but to work for the military he hates. But he has an ulterior motive in working as one of them – revenge.

This dark anime has threads that will run familiar with fans of Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix, and LAIN. Toru is a young man who feels more at home in the Wired World than the Real World. Yet at the same time events in the Real will force a confrontation with the Wired that will push Toru to witness untold horrors, most of which lie in his own past. The threat of terrorism and a rival organization known as the VSS reveal corruption in each group. Soon though, those who were enemies may have to set aside their differences in order to face a growing threat within the Wired that could kill everyone in the Real World. The key lies with Toru, his past, and the choice he must make for his and everyone’s future.

The anime has gritty story telling. Right away in the opening story there is an attack from the unknown threat, a ‘ghost’ in the machine, and those caught in the Wired (not unlike in Matrix and .hack//sign) die horrifically because if you die in the Wired, you die for real. As Toru tries to find the person he plans to kill within FLAK, events are set into motion that will force him to face his past and make a nightmarish choice in the present that will affect the entire future of the world (both Worlds) as he knows it. He faces a grim and bleak moment in the conclusion as strange allies help in order to give him an opportunity. But will he take that opportunity to save both the Real and the Wired, or to end reality as they know it?

There is extreme graphic content. The anime doesn’t shy away from violence. Heads explode, people are skewered, and in one particularly disturbing scene, a character is cyber-raped. This is not an anime for the squeamish or the conservative. It has extreme violence and harsh themes from beginning to end. There is quite a bit of 3D CG animation in the anime. The sequences when a person goes from the Real into the Wired World are vibrant and somewhat strobe-like so anyone with epileptic concerns are hereby warned. Although the machines that they use in the Wired are mechas of a sort, I wouldn’t say this is a mecha anime really. It is more one that looks at the Virtual World versus Reality, questioning one young man’s life as he seeks answers to the existential questions that plague him.  It will bring him in direct contact with the ghost that is blamed for the growing number of deaths and cause him to question everything he thought he knew, about reality, about the Wired World, and about himself.

EXTRAS:
Bonus features include original preview, FUNimation trailers, and clean opening and ending animation as well as reverse cover art.

IN SUMMARY:
Baldr Force EXE is an anime tour de force of graphic violence and existential as well as virtual horrors. It will appeal to fans of the more cerebral and gritty elements of Ghost in the Shell, .hack//sign, LAIN, and The Matrix. Although the animation isn’t as strong as the other anime series, the science fiction concepts and fundamentals are quite similar.