Animated Bodies and Cybernetic Selves: The Animatrix and the Question of Posthumanity

Abstract

In 2003, Warner Home Video released The Animatrix, a collection of nine anime short features based on the world of The Matrix films. This collection brought together some of today’s most prominent Japanese anime directors and animators in collaboration with Larry and Andy Wachowski, the creators of the original film, to produce a stunning and imaginative companion to the phenomenally successful series. As such, The Animatrix provides additional narrative texture and background material that complement and enrich the heterocosm of The Matrix trilogy. But the collection also can be read as a metaphor for the complex and reciprocal relationship between anime and global culture in general. It is no secret that the original Matrix borrowed much of its visual style from the world of Japanese animation, thus becoming a sort of “live action” anime itself. Joel Silver, executive producer of The Matrix trilogy and The Animatrix, claims that the Wachowski brothers originally told him that they wanted to capture the look and feel of anime and “make it with real people.”¹ Similarly, Watanabe Shinichirô, a renowned anime director best known for his successful Cowboy Bebop television series and movie, claims that when he first saw The Matrix, he “watched it as if [he] was watching a Japanese animated film.”²