Rewatched Memories last night. All three parts are good, but man, Magnetic Rose is just 
I watched this around the same time as you. Same impressions basically.
Edit- For me it was a first watch tho
Memories (1995, dir. Katsuhiro Otomo)
"Magnetic Rose"This is the longest short, and also the only one written by Satoshi Kon (though he didn't direct it.) The basic summary is "Ghost Ship, in space." A blue-collar spaceship salvage crew of four dudes, very much like the one in Aliens (if not in gender composition), get an SOS call from a derelict, rose-shaped space station, that pulls in debris via a strong magnetic field. The lines between scifi (holograms, computers, androids) and the paranormal (visions, ghosts, memories) is heavily blurred as soon as two of the crew enter the station to find survivors.
While the plot is a bit formulaic (like I said, it's a ghost ship story), it's livened up by various stylistic flourishes and constant reincorporation of imagery such as roses. I don't want to give too much away, but this one had me on the edge of my seat as soon as they entered the abandoned ship. Even before then, the script does a great job characterizing most everyone through just short exchanges of dialogue.
The operatic music is extremely thematically-relevant and obviously, works well in a space setting almost by default (thank you, Kubrick.) Some of the images from this one will stick with me for a while, and I actually grew to like a few of the characters despite the truncated short film-length (45 mins.)
The animation...
mwah. Imagine Outlaw Star or Cowboy Bebop but 10x the budget. I was in love with the ships, the depiction of zero gravity, the internals of the Magnetic Rose ship, how flashlights play over the environment, the fluid human animation, hologram warbles and glitches, just everything. Most of the film is shot like a horror film and they completely pull it off.
Is there nothing Satoshi Kon can't make greater? I have my doubts.
5 / 5
"Stink Bug"Spoilers ahead.
This short infuriated me, and also had the least interesting animation of the three. Essentially, a complete moron gets a flu shot because he's really sick, and then
goes into work at a pharmaceutical company the same day. Then he takes an experimental, pre-market drug from his boss's office while his boss is out (his coworkers put him up to it to be fair, but still!) He doesn't even read the label or anything, just downs the pill and takes a nap.
He wakes up to find everyone in his office dead, and his boss's boss orders him to take some paper files (despite the internet existing and live video chat being commonplace??) about the drug he took back to HQ in Tokyo. You can see where this is going. He's essentially become a walking chemical WMD, and as he passes through cities, literally everyone dies. Tens of thousands of people are implied dead, with probably hundreds of on-screen bodies shown. He's so oblivious about this that even when he's captured by NASA at the end, he still doesn't realize how dangerous he is.
And also, nobody told him, I guess? The plot relies on literally everyone, from the 23-year old moron protagonist, to the head of the Japanese military, to the heads of the US military, to be absolutely stupid and incompetent. There's no real progression, and you can see where the short is going after only a few minutes.
The music is jazzy and funky and tries to play everything off like some whoopsie-daisy joke, but it never really lands. The animation is too realistic and the implications are too horrifying to really grasp. To top it off,
this was loosely based on a true story. And that's
without reading any modern-day Corona perspective into things, which drains even more of the potential humor out.
A failed black comedy that frustrated and annoyed me at almost every turn. The animation was still really good, but as I said, not as interesting as the other two shorts.
2 / 5
"Cannon Fodder"This is the most threadbare of the shorts when it comes to plot, essentially putting you "a day in the life of" a family living in a city/nation that's waging perpetual war. The son wants to be a war hero, the dad is doing a 9-5 loading giant shells into giant cannons, and the mom is in the factory making munitions.
Animation-wise, this stands out from the other two due to a heavy Eastern European influence, and a commitment to show everything in one "long take." Obviously, this is trivial to do in animation compared to live action, but it still gives you an interesting "God's-eye view" of this family's day.
Thematically, the messages are "war is bad" and "jingoism ain't it, son," and none of the characters change or grow or question the status quo. There's hints of unrest in the society at large, but it's downplayed and forgotten quickly.
The music is also weird but appropriate here. I really felt immersed in this other world, and it reminded me of the
Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon," just with real war instead of computer-war.
If there were a bit more substance, or even slightly more interesting world-building (there's a reference that "the enemy's" city is moving,
Mortal Engines style, but nothing like that is ever shown), I'd be much warmer on it. A little too much style over substance.
3 / 5
Overall, definitely worth watching. I'd probably give the entire package a 4 / 5.
Addendum 1:
Short PeaceThe director of Magnetic Rose mentioned he was deciding between two different manga that Otomo did: Magnetic Rose (of course), and "Farewell to Weapons."
I looked up
Farewell to Weapons (originally published in 1981), and it itself was later adapted as part of another anime anthology film in 2013:
Short Peace.
You can see two minutes of it here:
https://vimeo.com/167908232That got me thinking... I wonder if the autonomous laser-shooting tanks in this were a partial inspiration for Breath of the Wild's Guardians. Probably not, I assume such tanks may be common in Japanese media, but the timeline isn't completely mismatched.
Fun to think about.
Addendum 2:
Suda51The rabbit hole deepens... Goichi Suda and Grasshopper made a PS3 game as part of Short Peace.
