Bumping this one. I was at GameStop today and came across the nifty 2 Disc SE metalbook of "Appleseed". Granted, I've never really ventured any furthur into manga/anime any furthur than early Robotech and Akira, so this was me just jumping right into the lake. I was so pleasantly surprised with this one. As mentioned before, it was an entirely new approach to animation, with motion as well as 2D, which was flawlessly integrated. Great attention to detail, and the first 10 minutes alone were so insanely gripping that I didn't want to stop.
Very glad I made the decision to buy it, and plan on looking into similar titles in the near future. Great, great science fiction, too.