Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #239: Spriggan (1998).

Yu (voiced by Shotaro Morikubo in the Japanese-language version) is a rebellious young man with a past he would much rather forget. But presently, he is a top soldier for ARCAM, an organisation working to protect ancient artefacts and keep them in safe hands. Yu's professional and personal lives are currently going fine, until he receives several violently threatening messages, culminating in a close friend's suicide, which eventually tell him Noah (yes, the biblical figure) will kill him. He now travels to Turkey and ARCAM's archaelogical dig there at the site believed to be where Noah's Ark is resting. En route, Yu learns the forces that tormented him beforehand are not yet through with him, and that the Ark could have catastrophic consequences for all humanity.

This 1998 adaptation of writer Hiroshi Takashige and illustrator Ryoshi Minagawa's manga, which was published from 1989 to 1996, literally fires on all cylinders from start to finish. Director Hirutsugu Kawasaki and his co-writer Yasutaka Itu take a go-for-the-jugular approach in fleshing this tale out to feature length, infusing it with non-stop action but also keeping a sharp, close eye on protagonist Yu's character arc and internal conflict. Working as supervisors on the production were Takashige and Minagawa themselves, along with Akira creator/director Katsuhiro Otomo, whose fingerprints are particularly evident here as the narrative does share numerous similarities with Akira's, most explicitly in the sidekick Little Boy (voiced by Katsumi Suzuki in the Japanese-language version), who for me paralleled the character of Takashi in Akira.

I blind-bought both Spriggan and Wicked City from a local shop this week and honestly, I enjoyed this more. Wicked City was good, but this maintained its suspense for slightly longer and the protagonist's tale resonated with me more. But focusing just on Spriggan again, obviously I have to also mention the quality of the animation; it's truly some of the most lucidly detailed and ambitious I've ever seen in an anime work and it never shows its 23 years. Additionally, Kuniaki Hishima's score makes the action even more pounding still, and Takeshi Shiyama edited all that action together to make it as fluid and coherent as possible. Spriggan is a firecracker of an entertaining adult animated flick.