When it comes to the feature-length anime-action stuff, I consider myself a fan of the stuff -- but by no means any sort of passionate enthusiast or trivia-filled expert. My problem with most of these movies is a pretty common one: Despite all the stellar animation, cool characters and mega-nifty mayhem -- most of these movies have stories best described as ... indecipherable. Fortunately the latest by Japanese filmmaker Fumihiko Sori (Ping Pong) is cleanly-plotted and enjoyably accessible. Relatively speaking, anyway ...

Plus it has some of the most eye-popping animation this side of Miyazaki.

Vexille takes place in a semi-distant future in which Japan has hidden itself away from the rest of the world. Expelled from the United Nations and hidden behind a powerful satellite cloaking device, the country is knee-deep in a civil war of sorts. The evil company known as "Daiwa Heavy Industries" has taken to populating Tokyo with a race of humanoid cyborgs -- but here comes a team of do-gooders intent on kicking evil's ass! Most of the heroes are interchangeable gun-toters, but they also come complete with elaborately cool suits of flying body armor. And that's always fun.

After time as a character animator for James Cameron's epic hanky romance Titanic, Fumihiko Sori has been slowly building a solid career for himself. In 2002, he directed a little film called Ping Pong, which followed the friendship of two high school ping pong players, and won him a number of Japanese Academy nominations as well as a win for Newcomer of the Year. Now he's been cooking up Vexille, coming from a script by Haruka Handa, whose other feature is the anime flick Appleseed.

According to a glowing review over at Twitch, Vexille is about a future where android technology becomes forbidden once lines between technology and humanity cross. Everyone signs the UN treaty but Japan, who secludes themselves from the world, kicking out foreigners and masking themselves from electronic/satellite surveillance. After 10 years of seclusion, a Daiwa (Japanese robotic company) executive comes to meet with international politicians. Vexille, a female op based in LA, discovers the politicians dead, that the Daiwa is a cyborg and then must infiltrate Japan to stop the company and save the world. But what really matters in an animated movie like this is the visuals. The film's website has a number of trailers up, and I have to say that it looks pretty cool, and some of the scenes actually look real. (This is doubly important when you have no idea what they're saying.) I could do without some of the cheesy music, especially at the end of the latest, but that's just the trailer. There's no word on international release, but the movie will open this August in Japan.