The Running Man by Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Yoshiaki Kawajiri's followed his directorial debut on the Lensman TV series with this, a segment for anime anthology Neo Tokyo. This short reads like a career mission statement. Away from E E Smith's space operatics, Kawajiri crafts a moody smoke piece about a Deckard alike investigating the career of a catatonic race-man. The Running Man prickles with Kawajiri concerns, particularly psychic powers and metamorphosis - the short climaxes with a man-machine hybrid losing control of his meta energies, transforming into a vile, but apparently operational, parody of itself. US readers might recognise The Running Man from MTV's short lived Liquid Television imprint.