Metal Skin Panic: MADOX-01 [メタルスキンパニック ＭＡＤＯＸ－０１] (1988)
AKA City of Steel
Starring Yasunori Matsumoto, Youko Asagami, Masayoshi Sogabe, Yukiko Ishida
Directed by Shinji Aramaki
This is a short little sci-fi adventure that doesn’t try to do anything special. I’m afraid I don’t have much to say, but with a runtime of less than one hour there’s not a whole lot to talk about. It’s just a lighthearted romp around town with a cool sci-fi armor suit that sits halfway between insightful speculation and face-palming stupidity. As such, it has some aspects that are pretty good, and other aspects that, well, aren’t.
The premise is that the military somehow loses its cool new prototype super armor during transit, and it somehow winds up in the hands of Koji, a young mechanic, who obviously thinks it’s the coolest thing he’s ever laid eyes on. Of course, he then acts like a complete idiot and decides to try it out for himself. Then he can’t figure out how to get out of the armor, and he is forced to clamber about town to meet his girlfriend at 8:00.