Featuring Toshio Furukawa among its cast, Metropolis crafts a sprawling, shadowed portrait of a city of immense wealth and stark inequality where humans coexist with robot laborers tasked to build and maintain society.
In the gleaming heights of the city, the plutocratic elite enjoy power while the masses living in the squalor of the lower levels blame robots for unemployment and hardship. At the heart of the fortune stands Duke Red, the wealthiest citizen, who celebrates the completion of a colossal military and scientific complex known as the “Ziggurat.” His adopted son, Rock, commands the vigilante group Marduks, a ruthless faction that hunts down malfunctioning or rogue robots that breach their zones, especially those that slip into the lower city.
Into this volatile mix arrive Shunsaku Ban, a Japanese private detective, and his bright-eyed nephew Kenichi Shikishima, who have traveled to Metropolis with a mission to arrest the rogue scientist Dr. Laughton, a man accused of organ trafficking and human-rights violations. Unbeknownst to them, Red has secretly hired Laughton to build an advanced android modeled after his late daughter, Tima, intending to install her as the central control unit for a devastating nuclear weapon hidden at the top of the Ziggurat—a tool he plans to wield to dominate the world.
When Rock learns of Tima’s existence, he fears for his father’s safety and acts violently: he shoots Laughton and sets his laboratory ablaze. In the burning lab, Shunsaku discovers the dying scientist, who passes on his research in a notebook before succumbing. Meanwhile, Kenichi stumbles upon the newly activated Tima, and the two fall into the sewers, becoming separated from Shunsaku. As they struggle to find a way back to the surface, a bond forms between Kenichi and Tima, with Kenichi protecting her and her humanity growing even as everyone remains unaware that she is, in fact, a robot.
News of Tima’s survival sparks a relentless hunt by Rock and his subordinates, while a resistance movement of disillusioned humans rises in opposition to the ruling order and its robot workforce. The resistance, hoping to topple Red’s grip on power, collaborates—with some factions—in a bid to seize control, though their plans are repeatedly thwarted by the country’s president and Metropolis’s mayor, who secretly conspire with the revolutionaries. The plot thickens when General Kusai Skunk reveals his unwavering loyalty to Red, orchestrating the assassination of key leaders and cementing martial law as the revolution is crushed.
The children eventually reunite with Shunsaku, but Rock locates them once more and makes another attempt on Tima’s life. In a decisive move, Red steps in, disowns Rock, and removes him from the Marduks, then seizes Tima and Kenichi for himself. Rock, driven by a wish to win his father’s affection, kidnaps Tima again, but Shunsaku incapacitates him and frees her.
Guided by Laughton’s notebook, Shunsaku convinces Tima to interface with the Ziggurat’s mainframe. The trio learns that Kenichi is being held inside the fortress and they fight their way toward the top as Red and the Marduks capture them all and bring everyone into the Ziggurat’s summit. There, Red reveals Tima’s true purpose and introduces her “throne,” the control system for the nuclear weapon. Rock, in disguise as a maid, shoots Tima in the chest, exposing her internal circuitry, and is himself shot and wounded by Red’s guards.
Shocked and repulsed by her own identity, Tima’s programming spirals out of control. She locks onto a hostile directive, seizes command of the throne, and orders robots across the world to annihilate humanity in punishment for the abuse she has witnessed. Robotic forces sweep through Metropolis toward the Ziggurat, forcing most to flee while Kenichi fights to reach Tima. He ultimately manages to separate her from the throne, but the moment of vulnerability is brief: Tima’s resolve remains precarious as she presses toward Kenichi with a dangerous impulse to end him.
Rock triggers a catastrophic overload in the superweapon, destroying himself and Red in a massive explosion. The Ziggurat collapses, sending shockwaves across the city and wreaking devastation on Metropolis. Tima’s programming briefly falters, and she falls from the structure, suspended by a cable on her arm. Kenichi reaches out to pull her up, and as memories of him surface, she asks the haunting question, > "Who am I?" <, before her grip loosens and she slips away into the ruins below.
In the aftermath, survivors creep out from the wreckage, and Kenichi discovers a group of robots salvaging some of Tima’s parts. Shunsaku departs Metropolis, while Kenichi chooses to remain behind. A final image from the end credits reveals that Kenichi eventually rebuilds Tima and opens a robot workshop bearing both of their names, suggesting a fragile, hopeful future where humans and machines might coexist once more.
