A kid on a motorcycle stumbles into a government secret, and by the time he realizes what it means, the ground beneath the entire city dissolves. Noboru Ishiguro's direction in Part 1 builds dread through neon and speed, letting you feel Shogo's confusion before you understand it, you're lost in a cybercity designed to keep you lost. The animation itself is the storytelling: every frame of transformation, every reflection in chrome and glass, every impossible geometry of the setting works to convince you that nothing you're seeing is real. This is sci-fi that knows the difference between explaining a concept and making you feel the vertigo of discovering reality was a lie. It inspired everything you think of as cyberpunk anime, and it did it first, in 1985, when most shows were still figuring out what a motorcycle could be.

Motorcycle fan Shogo Yahagi spends his days riding and chasing women until his friend Shinji shows him the Garland, a secret military motorcycle that can transform into a robot. When the military ambushes them, Shogo takes the bike and flees into the city. With government agents on his trail, he plans to protect himself by revealing the bike on a live television show hosted by the idol singer Eve, who has secrets of her own. Helped by an aspiring dancer named Yui and her friends, he begins to uncover the truth behind the Garland and learns that his peaceful city is not what it seems.