With advances in technology, the degree of optical distortion has increased dramatically. Lighting, colour, characters, even entire cities and are now capable of being produced virtually.

From the built sets and models of Fritz Lang's Metropolis to the entirely animated Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis, film has reached an incredible degree of distortion of reality. The difference between these distortions however is blatant in that the former is staged in real space with actors; the latter is completely formed in paper space with only the voice of real people.

Lang's Metropolis understandably manipulates the scale of models to depict a giant city and ominous colossal machines. Tezuka's Metropolis clearly completely abstracts human form into the style of anime.