feathers as the orb-like vessel rises from underneath the ocean. Among the thousands of statues adorning the orb is a new feature: a figure of the girl, sitting serenely on a throne and caressing the egg in her lap. The screen slowly zooms out to reveal that the land of the beach, the forest, and the city is part of a small and lonely island within a vast sea, appearing not unlike the hull of an overturned ship. Voice actors Jinpachi Nezu – Boy Mako Hyōdō – Girl Nezu worked with Oshii once again in Patlabor 2: The Movie and Mako Hyōdō played a supporting role in The Sky Crawlers. Themes Although some publications have indicated that the film is built on director Oshii's supposed loss of faith in Christianity, Oshii himself has stated otherwise in saying that he wasn't a Christian, but he thought quotes from the Bible were cool and had a friend who was Christian. Oshii himself has stated he does not know what the film is about. The film repurposes ideas that Oshii developed for a cancelled Lupin the Third film (which later became Legend of the Gold of Babylon); both concepts focus on a mysterious girl, while the angel's egg is based on the cancelled film's angel fossil. Production and release Angel's Egg was a collaboration between Oshii and Amano. The animation was produced by Studio DEEN, with Hiroshi Hasegawa, Masao Kobayashi, Mitsunori Miura, and Yutaka Wada working as producers. Oshii and Amano collaborated on the script, and Yoshihiro Kanno composed the music. Angel's Egg was released in the direct-to-video format on 15 December 1985 by Tokuma Shoten. The 71-minute OVA would later be used as the skeleton for the 1987 live-action independent film In the Aftermath directed by Carl Colpaert. Colpaert's movie occasionally intercuts with footage from Oshii's Angel's Egg with dubbed over dialogue, which does not appear in Oshii's film. Reception Angel's Egg did not do well with critics on its release, and Oshii stated that "it kept him from getting work for years". However, it is considered "one of the highlights of 'artistic' anime and [his] career as a director." Brian Ruh, a critical analyst of Japanese popular culture, stated that it was "one of the most beautiful and lyric films in the animated medium." Helen McCarthy called it "an early masterpiece of symbolic film-making", stating that "its surreal beauty and slow