Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01

Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 follows a prototype powered battle suit that goes missing during transport and ends up in the hands of Kouji Sugimoto, an engineering student who puts it on and finds he cannot get out. Trapped inside the machine and unable to control it properly, he ends up loose on the streets of Tokyo, just when he is supposed to meet his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Kilgore, a tank officer humiliated during an early demonstration of the suit by test pilot Ellie Kusumoto, sees the runaway prototype as his chance to settle the score and sets out to destroy it, regardless of who is inside.

This 41-minute animated film from 1987 was the first work directed by Shinji Aramaki, who also wrote the screenplay, and it came long before the features that later defined his career, among them Appleseed, Starship Troopers: Invasion and Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 Sustainable War. It was produced by Shuji Uchiyama through Studio ARTMIC and Anime International Company, with Yoko Asagami, Yasunori Matsumoto and Kazuyuki Sogabe leading the voice cast.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 5.8 from 614 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.1 from 40 votes. The two audiences land in similar territory, placing it as a modestly received early entry in Aramaki's filmography rather than one of its high points.