The turning of gears. The hissing of steam releasing from a valve. The churning crunch of a machine in motion signifying technological advance ment and adventure. A path where human advancement took a different turn toward brass, clockwork and evaporated water power. Hold onto your top hats, we’re diving into Steampunk in animation!
What is Steampunk?
Jules Verne is the first big inspiration for this style of adventures into unknown, unexplored lands. The thrill of crossing the Andes, of diving into a dense amazon jungle to uncover new lands and hidden countries. The advancement of human technology stoking the flames to search for new elements, fuel sources, scientific discoveries and anthropological sites. The thrill of invention and innovation in an industrial age is the backdrop for most protagonists. A desire for freedom to create and discover.
But the genre is also steeped in the negative aspects of this advancement. The subjugation under overwhelming corporate and governing powers. The creation of weapons for battle and the daunting threat of war looming. The crossing of the Rubicon, especially in scientific circles has a lot of real world analogies that hit home with readers and viewers of the genre. But it keeps its appeal with that ever lasting optimism of advancement, invention, innovation and discovery.
These are the tropes of Steampunk and they have been a good standing for animated adventures for a long time.
Steamboy: The Iconic Steampunk Anime
Probably the best example of how animation is a great medium for producing the Steampunk genre is Katsuhiro Otomo’s 2004 theatrical adventure Steamboy. It is his only other directed feature to date and for the time was the most expensive Japanese film ever produced. With a mix of almost 200,000 drawings and CGI sequences it was considered a marvel worthy as the successor to AKIRA and the CG animation flowed seamlessly with the drawn cells especially for the early 2000’s.
All the tropes and themes I’ve mentioned about Steampunk are featured in this movie. A mysteriously powerful mechanism called “The Steamball” holds an element of unmatched steam and pressure, capable of powering massive machines and weapons. This leads to opposing sides of countries, countries and even family members vying to possess this power and transform nations and even the world through the advancement of science.
The markings of Victorian, turn-of-the-century science are all over this movie and the beautiful designs of the contraptions really make the world stand-out. Even if this falls short of its predecessor AKIRA critically, Steamboy has stellar animation and serves as a sort of origin story for a pulp-ish shonen hero Ray. By the end of the movie he has acquired a steam power jetpack and the end credits allude to further adventures with giant clockwork dragons and sinister cloak-and-dagger conspiracies. Honestly it’s the biggest disappointment of the film that we didn’t get to see Steamboy fly off to these other adventures. It would be well worth a watch in my opinion. That said, Steamboy stays pretty much at the top of iconic Steampunk animated content but it’s far from the only example.
Other Steampunk in Animation
There’s a lot of anime that I could point out for this genre so I think I’ll just leave it to some hard recommendations for people to check out if you really want the stuff that holds the adventuring spirit and scientific exploration.
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Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990) Gainax and Hideaki Anno’s first full anime project was a Jules Verne style adventure show about a circus performer named Nadia and the secret of her family necklace. It leads her and her friends (and enemies) on nautical adventures against the tyrannical aspirations of the Neo-Atlantean forces. An anime classic for many reasons and a great example of Steampunk animation. |
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JV: The Extraordinary Adventures of Jules Verne (2007) Nothing says Vernian adventures like a literal cartoon adaptation of a young Jules Verne battling his novel antagonist Captain Nemo in a series of brass and clockwork aided discoveries. Pulling an overall mystery with episodic romps this little known animated series from Rai Fiction in Italy hits all the buttons for Steampunk adventure. |
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Nijū Mensō no Musume (2008) One of my all time favorite anime is a little known adventure show, The Daughter of Twenty Faces. Inspired by the works of detective writer Edogawa Ranpo, the show is set in a pseudo-historical Japan just after the events of The Great War (WWI) where a young bright girl is adopted by one of Ranpo’s most famous gentlemen villains “Twenty-Faces” and whisked away on an adventure to discover lost technologies from the war. A super fun watch and highly recommended. |
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April and the Extraordinary World (2015) A French animated movie that takes a lot of pulls from the Bande Dessinée style of French and European comic books. A fantastical adventure in the style of Tin Tin stars a girl named April whose parents have gone missing along with many other top scientists in the world. It’s up to her and her talking cat to explore this extraordinary world to find her parents and uncover the science behind the kidnappers’ machinations. Check out our Podcast on this film. |
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Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress (2016) The invulnerable zombie outbreak aside the setting of Kabaneri is definitely filled with steam powered tech, including the main heroes base of operations the Iron Fortress, a giant train that rides the rails through a pseudo-historical Japan where the survivors of humanity do battle with dangers and enemies that compromise their survival in this harsh, near post-apocalyptic setting. |
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Leviathan (2025) A book series by Scott Westerfeld that explores the war between two nations. One uses Steampunk technology and the other strange Biopunk animal taming. The World War One style backdrop is a popular ear for the Vernian adventure stories and that’s no exception for this more recent addition to the genre. |
Hullabaloo: An Animated Steampunk Adventure
The most prevalent indie animation project for Steampunk would definitely be James Lopez’s Hullabaloo. The indiegogo project was launched all the way back in 2014 and was actually my very FIRST Animation Recommendation for my podcast. The promise of a Steampunk style world with two female leads aligned with a pencil and paper Disney format of animation was a tantalizing project for a lot of enthusiasts. So far, however, only one episode has been released since the successful funding of the project (at 558% above margin).
The lock-downs in 2020 certainly took a hit on the production, and the use of actual paper and pencil for the animation process has proven to be more of a challenge than the team anticipated. The last update was in 2025 about the release of the subsequent episodes but nothing has come out for backers or the public at large. The disappointment and ire from fans on this has been heavy and hopefully we will get the other episodes released or at least an explanation. That said the designs have been something to marvel at in the meantime
This is a small consultation (if any at all) for those who gave money to this project. All this said, I do believe this was not a scam situation. I think it’s more a situation where their eyes were too big for their stomach on this project. Given time I do believe they will deliver the rest of their pledges and we’ll have one more complete steampunk animation to enjoy. But there is one project that we will be seeing very soon.
BASS X MACHINA Debut is Coming
This week on Netflix, LeSean Thomas’ steampunk, fantasy, pseudo-historical western BASS X MACHINA will be dropping and it looks like everything I want from this genre. Not only is one of my favorite studios tackling the animation and production, but mixing Native American magic and Steampunk tech into an old west setting is scratching all my itches.
I had a blast with Thomas’ Cannon Busters series that sadly only got one season. That was a western cyberpunk affair but BASS leans way into the brass and clockwork end of things and I for one can’t wait to tune into it when it drops on Netflix (which is tomorrow as of the time of this posting). Animation is probably the best medium for such a semi-realistic way to explore different fantastical technology. Especially now that 3D and 2D animation is easier to integrate with each other as BASS has demonstrated. I, for one, am excited for more.
