Steamboy (スチームボーイ, Suchīmubōi) is a 2004 Japanese steampunk animated film produced by Sunrise, directed and co-written by Katsuhiro Otomo, his second major anime release, following Akira. The film was released in Japan on July 17, 2004. Steamboy is one of the most expensive full length Japanese animated movies made to date. Additionally, the film was in production for ten years and utilized more than 180,000 drawings and 440 CG cuts.
In 1863, where an alternate nineteenth century Europe has made tremendous strides in steampunk-themed technologies, scientist Lloyd Steam and his son Edward have succeeded, after a lengthy expedition, in discovering a pure mineral water. They believe the water can be harnessed as an ultimate power source for steam engines (the main industrial engine of the time). An experiment in Russian Alaska goes terribly wrong, with Edward being engulfed in freezing gases, but results in the creation of a strange spherical apparatus.
Three years later, back in England, Edward's son, Ray Steam, is an avid young inventor who works at a textile mill in Manchester as a maintenance boy, often working on a personal steam-powered monowheel at home. While he usually lives
(This is information generated from a Wikipedia article, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.)