Making racing interesting to those who don’t really like it can be a challenge- one that Redline takes on and succeeds in. There are only two races in the movie, at the beginning and at the end. Good choreography and excellent direction make them really exciting to watch, while in between it delves into relationships- those between racer and mechanic, those between two racers, and even shows a little love blossoming between them.

Those things are what make this fun to watch. You see how people can support each other and still get in trouble over each other. A side plot with the mafia adds a little spice to race, and watching that play out is terribly exciting. Redline adds even more excitement and twists with some politics that play into how the race is conducted- and whether the participants can finish at all. What was nice was that the politics were only mentioned enough to get the gist of what was happening. That was all you needed to know to see how it was affecting the race itself, and that storyline never got pulled off-course.

To top off an exciting film, this goes in for some awesomely amusing characters. JP’s past and drive are brought to the forefront, but the side characters (with various degrees of screentime) are great for a laugh, adding some interesting scenes to something that could easily become tedious. Various shout-outs to other anime genres get tossed in with glee, and things that could easily become groan-worthy manage to bring out smiles instead.

I admit- I’m not much of a fan of the racing genre, but this had so much to it that I really enjoyed it. It’s not in my top scorers of the year, but made a fun watch.

Violence/Gore- Some of the racers are injured in the races, some implied to die.

Nudity/Sexual Content- There is also partial nudity- at one point a girl walks around her apartment topless and there is detail. Other girls wear some skimpy clothing that falls just short of revealing anything.

Other Themes- A handful of swears, that run the gamut from F-bombs to the d-word.

Violence/Gore note: There are two gratuitous scenes which are blink-and-miss them quick. All other violence is not gratuitous. There is a fight scene where a character gets beat up and bloodied pretty badly but the main violence is weapons combat during the race with no restrictions to type and use of them against each other. Oh yeah, and there is a bio-weapon of mass destruction/carnage that gets unleashed...

Nudity/Sexual content note: One scene lasting a few seconds of a brief detailed view of a characters breasts. Other than that is a few more seconds of two other character that at least have underwear on but are more suggestive in their poses, along with pulling of a 'basic instinct' move. Other than that it's mainly just some jostling breasts done in a more natural animation technique for the female racers.

Potentially problematic theological theme note: Two of the racers are from a planet of magic girls, but they vow to not use their magic powers "to be fair". The princess does use magic powers for some recon work.

Other potentially problematic themes: Main character is a chain smoker - almost always shown with a cigarette. There is some alcohol use, and a few instances of drug use shown. The English dub is much more pervasive with swearing and has some crassness/lewdness added in a few scenes compared to the Japanese dub with English subtitles. English would be R for language and lewdness while Japanese w/English subtitles would be PG-13 for language (one F word allowance.)

Final Note: I have watched Redline over a dozen times since it came out on Blu-Ray, with only two of those times being in English. I much prefer the Japanese with English subtitles due to the characters differences and it's not unnecessarily crass and doesn't have excessive swearing added in.