Despite a long career as a manga artist and writer, "Steamboy" was only Katsushiro Otomo's second animated feature film as director, after the cult classic "Akira". The film debuted in summer of 2004, released in Japan by Toho, and at the time was one of the most expensive Japanese films ever made, with the animation having been in the works for almost a decade. The film is a steampunk story set in an alternate-history 1800's London, where a teenage mechanic discovers that his family member had unlocked a new unlimited power supply, and he must now face off against various scientists and agents who want this power for their own nefarious purposes. Although successful in Japan, the film received a much smaller American release, and ultimately went largely forgotten, despite decent reviews. Though the animation is worth the watch, the story itself is very underwritten, relying on the most bare-bones of steampunk cliches.
A surprising addition to the crew was American composer Steve Jablonsky. Jablonsky started his career as an intern at Zimmer's Remote Control Productions, and served as Harry Gregson-Williams' assistant for a few years, before branching out as a solo composer. Although most known for the "Transformers" scores and that brawny Michael Bay sound, "Steamboy" was one of his first solo projects, and it showed a very different side of the composer. The score features a dynamic 90's orchestral style, full of life and color. Thematically, it is centered around Ray's theme, itself a long melody that takes it's time to bloom into a lush heroic tune (with strong inspiration from Horner's "Rocketeer"). There is also a bubbly sound for London's city life, and a motif for the villainous forces. Ultimately, the score is a delight that seemed to come out of nowhere, a young composer who showed great promise, inspired by the best in the business, it's just a shame that his career has rarely allowed him to return to this style since.
Released by JVC Victor in Japan and Domo Records in the United States, the score album features an hour of Jablonsky's music. The film was not a bit hit outside of Japan, and even the score is probably forgotten by many, but the music is well worth revisiting, and the project gave the opportunity to play with some fun animated artwork. So here's a total of seven new covers to choose from.
The first three covers all feature official poster art or home-release versions, with the first cover being from the later Blu-Ray release.
Cover 4 uses the cover art from the PlayStation 2 video game produced by Bandai. It requires some clean-up and filters to make the old cover scan pop back to life.
The final three covers all feature original illustrations by Katsushiro Otomo from his manga version of the story, all of which need a bit of enhancement and clean-up.
Hope you enjoy and let me know your favorites below!
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