Let's be clear about this from the beginning: Yes, Tree of Palme is Pinocchio on crack.

Beautifully animated, chock full of flashy characters, and confusing as hell, it's a movie that has a ton of style, yet chokes on an overabundance of substance.

Palme is a puppet machine, built from a wood that acts like a brain, holding both emotion and memory. If he stays still in the sun for too long, Palme sprouts roots and soon becomes a tree. Quiet since the wife of his creator died, he only becomes lively, for unknown reasons, when a giant air fish wanders by. And Palme hasn't spoken in years.

That all changes when a mysterious woman comes calling, carrying the mystical sap of a rare tree and a strange egg, which slowly brings out the humanity of this wooden boy. She charges the boy with a mission to bring the egg to an underground city, and deliver it to a tree made of the same wood as him. When her pursuers kill Palme's maker, the wooden boy slowly awakens, and begins his journey.

Along the way, Palme hooks up with a rag-tag band of street orphans and an abused girl who reminds him of his maker's wife. They join him on his journey through a world of strange creatures, armed assassins and beautiful scenery.

Director Takashi Nakamura is best known for his work as animation director for Akira and key frame animator for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and his talents are on full display in Tree of Palme. Produced almost entirely of cel animation (85,000 of them), this 136-minute movie is just pretty. The backgrounds are alien yet familiar: a vast, desert-like world is where we spend most of our time, with strange, upright sentient plants that wander the land. Huge, deformed trees spot the landscape, and floating plants dot the sky. The city we come across is chaotic and bustling, designed like a crazy architect had gotten a hold of an old farm town. The characters are varied, from simple girls to rabbit-like kids. Tree of Palme is a visual treat, a wonderful anime if all you care about are the visuals.

But for all its beauty, Tree of Palme is nearly impossible to understand in one viewing, and with the introduction of too many supporting characters, the journey of Palme meanders and frustrates. From the moment that strange woman walks into Palme's life, the movie begins jumping into too many settings, too many people's lives.

People want to stop Palme, but we get only the barest of explanations for why. The woman who sets Palme off on his path plays a prominent part at various points, but her motives are just as murky. Sidekicks appear and disappear, taking our attention away from Palme with no real rewards in the way of character development. The leaders of the underground city are introduced, then forgotten in a series of explosions and mayhem. Even Palme, who's pretty much a deaf-mute for the first half of this movie, doesn't give us any reason to root for him until the end, and even then I'm not sure if I should care whether he reaches his destination, or takes root and becomes a shade tree.

Palme doesn't even question his lot in life as a wooden puppet until the show is past its midway point. Quite suddenly, he decides he wants to be human, and the way he can realize this late-in-the-game dream feels contrived and forced. The soul searching should have started 45 minutes ago, buddy.

Visually, this is beyond excellent, a brilliantly designed alien world filled with plenty of strange creatures, violent and bloody action, and settings that just can't be compared to anything else I've seen.

But it just feels like Nakamura tried to include too much of what he originally planned for a TV series, before it was decided to make Tree of Palme a movie.

Despite a lot of grain at points, this DVD looks very good (16:9 letterbox presentation). I noticed nothing in the way of digital problems (though I didn't even know what "videophile" meant until summer 2004). Great colors all around, though a good portion of this movie, mostly in the second half, is dark and murky. The character movements look fluid and night is deep and dark.

Excellent use of separation in the 5.1 English and Japanese options. Lots of explosions and music shifts toward the rear channels in the second half of the movie, and using the back channels for just the smallest bit of dialogue, mostly during dreams, was a great move. The two language tracks are different: The English option is MUCH louder all around, while the Japanese track shifts dialogue around a lot more. Both sets of voice acting are solid, while the ambient noises and music are detailed and fitting.

There are quite a few special features here, though they're mostly repetitive. There are character, mechanical and prop sketches, story, character, mechanical and world art galleries, all set to different music. All scenes in the features change at an interval of a few seconds, which is much better than thumb-bashing the remote to move toward the next art piece.

The best special feature is the key sequence animations bit, with five, detailed early storyboard sequences, with Japanese audio tracks. They're especially interesting for those interested in the early visual process.

An insert features a couple short interviews with Nakamura, several screen shots with explanations behind the art, and a history of the 2001 movie.

There are also six ADV previews, several Japanese promos and trailers, and DVD credits. Staff interviews or DVD production comments would have been a welcome addition to this DVD, but there's enough here to keep the animation nuts busy.

Mixed emotions abound. On animation quality, it's easily Recommended, though it's probably a Rent It if your anime tastes rest primarily on coherent plots, smart dialogue and people you can care about. Nakamura had a message he wanted to deliver in Tree of Palme, one examining the human psyche and our own impermanence, but it's too easily lost among all the characters and settings. Rent or borrow it first, to see if it's worthy of your collection.