Hailed as the most expensive Japanese full-length animated movie to date, Steamboy is a sci-fi action-thriller animation film directed and written by critically-acclaimed director and mangaka, Katsuhiro Otomo (mostly known for his previuos masterpiece, Akira) Steamboy is set in a 19th century era of steam engines and horse-driven carriages, a perfect setting for a great Steampunk genre style of movie.


In the early 19th century, where steam and animals and manual labor were mostly the source of power for mechanical engines, Dr. Lloyd Steam and his son Dr. Edward Steam, renowned inventors and machinists discovered a well of the purest mineral water. Water which is capable of being harnessed to provide the most concentrated and strongest pressurized form of steam. In pursuit of this innovation, they have found a way to trap the steam by concentrating it into a small ball. In the process though, Dr. Edward Steam nearly lost his life but in return was the creation of the Steam Ball.


A few years later, Ray Steam the son of Dr. Edward Steam, received a strange package containing a weird-looking steel ball. Right after receiving the package, two men came who claimed they were from the O'Hara Foundation who has rightful claims to the ball. Immediately, Ray's grandfather, Lloyd came and told him to run away with the ball and never give it to anyone. Turns out it was the Steam Ball, coveted by countries who have known its existence for the unfathomable pressurized energy stored within. It is then up to Ray to prevent the ball from getting into the wrong hands. The O'Hara foundation intends to use the ball to create despicable war machines and sell them for profit to warring countries. Like what Dr Lloyd Steam who had claimed his son to be dead said to Ray: "He who has crossed to evil is as good as dead", believing that Edward has been working for the O'Hara foundation. He also told Ray that "an invention without philosophy is a curse" knowing that Edward has his own selfish reasons for creating the Steam Ball and intends to give the ball to the foundation.