Interstella 5555: The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem
So how are you supposed to create an instant pop star band these days? It's simple really... you get a bunch of mercenarys and an advanced space ship. Then you fly through a space dimensional portal, land on an alien planet and kidnap an interstellar pop band. Then you bring them back to earth, paint them beige, give them human clothes and shove them on the stage. Then noone can stop you... unless...
In a galaxy far far away (might as well be an alternate universe), on an alien planet, an interstellar band is having a big concert and everyone is having fun. EVERYONE... even the ones who should keep watch. And, well, they don't notice something is aproaching the planet. The mother ship releases three smaller ships carrying the mercenarys, who land on the planet unnoticed. By the time the gurads notice the intruders it is already too late. The soldiers are in position and use sleeping gas to knock everyone unconscious. Only the band guitarist manages to escape, but even he is caught shortly after. Tho soldiers put the band mambers into some sort of sleeping chambers and transport them to the mother ship along with their instruments. Happy with the catch, the evil manager orders the ship to depart for earth. But before the ship disappears, one of the guards manages to send out a distress call. In a slightly remote region of the alien galaxy our hero polishes his guitar shaped space ship and daydreams about the female member of the band. Just when the dream starts to get "interesting" the distress call interrupts him. After seeing what happened he imediately sets off to the rescue, but he barely manages to follow the mother ship through the space portal. After arriving to earth the mother ship transforms into a Jumbo Jet and safely lands, while our hero only manages a crash landing and faints. The sleeping pods with the band members have now been unloaded and taken underground to some sort of a high tech factory where they are stripped of their clothes, measured and later they even have their memories stolen and replaced with artificial ones. Later on they are styled, have their skin painted from blue to... hmm.. a human tan and finaly dressed. But before they get to meet their new manager, they have some sort of chips implanted. Now it's time to see the new boss.
Interstella 5555 is a musical based on Daft Punk's Discovery album. You might say it's a bunch of Daft Punk anime videos daisy chained together... and you would be wrong. Leiji Matsumoto proved a great story can be told without a single spoken word. And since it's Leiji who designed the whole thing you can expect great character design and fantastic artwork. The story itself is pretty simple... a very popular band gets obducted from their planet and a lone hero, who is inlove with the only female member of the band, is sent to the rescue, whether he manages to do so or not will remain a secret untill you watch the movie. But despite the story being simple, it is filled with emotions of every kind.
You could say the story is a criticism of the modern pop star contests (where a band is cludged together by some jury). Anyway, if you're a fan of Daft Punk this is a must see, if you're a fan of Leiji this is a must see. And if you're a fan of both... I'll let you do the math.