GENOCYBER

GENOCYBER (1994)
JP
Directed by Koichi Ohata

CAST:
Akiko Hiramatsu (Japanese voice)  Anna McKay (English voice) - Elaine
Akiko Hiramatsu (Japanese voice)  Rosemary Elliot (English voice) - Diana
Shigeru Chiba- Radonekku

PLOT:
     As the nations of the world begin to merge, world peace is threatened by the private armies of individual corporations. The Kuryu Group has just discovered a weapon that will tip world power in their favor.

REVIEW:
      So here we have an anime I watched almost twenty years ago and I still have memories of it. One of the things I wanted to do with the reviews I do is of course let people know about the newer genre films, yet also the older films I watched in the past, and there is a lot of them. But to do the reviews for the older ones justice I have to re-watch them to refresh my memory of them . Hence why there's more new film reviews more than older ones. I am trying to get older films up though so just stay with me and think of when they do pop up to think of them as a treat, or a blast from the past if you will. I still can't believe it's been almost twenty years though and here's to the past.

     While some things age well with time, others do not. Genocyber is odd because it does stand the test of time and at the same time it doesn't. The setup for the series is one of brilliance as there is talk of a alternate universe of shadows and images.  Every so often that universe is shown as a bleak landscape of barren red rock and red skies filled with lighting. Yet there is no shadows or otherness that was talked about. Instead we are shown one of the two main characters stuck in a organic bubble with her head sticking out of it. Nothing else is shown of the others that was mentioned. And the time there is kept to a bare minimum. The one thing that could be the gateway for the series to become something more and interesting is thrown away.

     Another downfall of Genocyber is that there is almost no plot to it that can be followed what so ever. You are introduced to characters that say a word or two or you spend half the show with them that gives hints and says that they've been following one of the characters around for years only to be killed out of the blue for no purpose. The story for Genocyber is one of the worst I've been privileged to watch in a long time. The story is jumpy and inconstancy throws Genocyber against every wall it could find to see what could stick or just to see if they could make a stew out of different stories if they were thrown together. The story of the two sisters if it was given a chance could have been the main story and could have made this a more character driven story. Instead the two main lead's, the sisters,  story is given a total of what felt like one minute, and the gore and violence is given the main story instead and character development is thrown out the window. I wished that this would have held up since it's release but it doesn't and instead it just seems like it's an excuse to kill things in an animated world in a way not possible in live action films.

BEST DEATH:
     The detective's vivisection nightmare. 

BEST LINE:
     I'm hooking a human subject up to a PSI-scanner.......We can clearly see all sorts of images and shadows displayed. This is known as the "Mind Shadow". Withing this shadow lies a still unexplored universe.

FUN FACTS:
     Genocyber is the first part of a five anime OVA (Original Video Animation) series.

     OVAa were known to be more violent and risque than regular anime due to it didn't have the strict restrictions as anime that aired on television in Japan had.

     Genocyber  referenced the cult anime film Chojin Densetsu Urotsukidoji or known in the U.S. as Legend Of The Overfiend.