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. The Genocyber: a nightmarish combination of cybernetics and psychic potential. Many desire to control this monstrosity, but can its hatred be contained... Battle erupts, and the cyberpunk world of the future is about to explode with violence.
(Source: ANN)
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Comentários
Azaraki
Although most viewers who have seen this anime, Genocyber, either degrade it as poor quality or average, I would personally say that this anime can be seen as a masterpiece. It tells of a story of a young girl who forcefully is manipulated by science and her life changes forever. She must face her own internal memories, as well as those who could plunge the world into destruction. Eventually, man is too greedy and in the end, the world is nearly destroyed because of his arrogance and his miscalculation of his own intellect, and that he brought Genocyber into the world. This humanoid would virtuallyvanquish everything because of the young girl's misunderstanding of the world's misfortune. The ending is quite confusing and the main characters' fates are ambiguous, and deems a mysterious atmosphere. Despite that, Genocyber is a great anime. Similar to many of the cyberpunk animes, they consider technology's hegemony as prominent and mankind as extremely dilapidated. Otherwise, this great work of art can be seen to be admired by the sci-fi loving audience.
literaturenerd
Overview: Genocyber is famous among hardcore otaku as being one of the goriest anime ever made! Does that make it good? Unfortunately...not really. Genocyber had decent art, a cliche but workable premise, and a writer that was completely insane, but had some good ideas rattling around somewhere deep in the back of his brain. Unfortunately, this 3 part OVA is one giant train wreck where each portion is progressively worse than the last. The first part was bad, but you can almost see what the writer wanted to do and you can tell he IS trying. The second part is much sloppier, abandons all effort oreven pretension of trying to be decent, and the 3rd is just...WOW did that suck!
Background:
The star of today's review is writer Sho Aikawa. Today he is fondly remembered for Martian Successor Nadesico and the 2003 Full Metal Alchemist. However, in the 1980s he was one of the absolute worst writers working in comics/anime. He penned turd after turd including the Violence Jack trilogy, Legend of the Overfiend, Angel Cop, and finally Genocyber. His stories mixed absurd melodrama, obnoxious angst, generally terrible writing and an absolute RAGING hatred for all mankind. He was in his 20s though, so maybe he was just a decade delayed and going through his 15 year old Holden Caulfield stage. Either that or Sho Aikawa learned the "body swap" technique of Captain Ginyu in DBZ and around the year 2000 he went to the United States and swapped bodies with Frank Miller, who inversely was beloved in the 1980s and became a joke around the exact same time Aikawa mysteriously started writing 10,000 times better. With Genocyber we see Sho at perhaps his worst, or at least his least consistent. His other 1980s works are fucking terrible, but they are at least consistently bad and keep the same tone throughout. Genocyber on the other hand is not only frustratingly bad, it isn't even entertaining to watch
Plot: 3/10 for part 1, 2/10 for part 2, and 1/10 for part 3
The plot honestly starts out more generic than uniquely terrible. Scientists are performing horrible tests on a young girl to make her into the ultimate weapon, but she breaks free from the lab and now the scientists must get her back. See also: Akira, Baoh, Elfen Lied, Gokukoku, and 10,000 other anime! The powerful psychic girl befriends a homeless child after a long and uncomfortable sequence of said homeless child getting raped by generic bullies because...Sho Aikawa. The bullies are brutally massacred and Aikawa actually tries to write a touching friendship between the deadly psychic girl and the homeless kid. Considering how critically acclaimed the movie "Let the Right One In" is, this part actually COULD have worked if Aikawa knew what the fuck he was doing. Unfortunately he doesn't and we just get bloodbath after bloodbath, China getting completely destroyed by psychic girl, and a pointless time skip. The narrative in the next 2 portions becomes far less coherent and you can really see Aikawa struggling to even fill out the run time. At this point he has completely given up and just doesn't give a fuck! Just through in some explosions, some pointless religious symbolism for no reason, and call it a wrap.
The art is actually decent for most of it. The soundtrack isn't good, but it isn't notably horrible. The English dub is SHIT, but it does add a bit of nostalgia for the early bad days of English dubbing. On a technical level, this isn't a great anime, but it isn't THAT bad. The gore is at least disturbing and if you are a gorehound that simply wants to see blood and guts, this DOES deliver the goods in that department.
Overall: 2/10
Genocyber is oldschool, Ultra-violent, and has the production values and voice acting of other anime of its time period like Mad Bull 34 and Otokojuku. However, Genocyber is NOT the unintentionally hilarious title that you want to watch with your buddies over and over again. Genocyber takes turns being: boring, frustrating, downright unpleasant and hard to watch, infuriatingly stupid, and plain WTF?! Genocyber is an absolute CHORE to watch, but isn't that movie that is "hard to watch, but really worth watching". Something that is profound or emotionally moving and actually really good like: Barefoot Gen, Schindler's List, Come and See. Those movies are really hard to watch, but everyone should watch them at least once! Genocyber is both unwatchable and extremely terrible with really no value whatsoever. It does have plenty of gore though, so if you REALLY want to see old school gore, just watch one of the many Genocyber gore compilation videos on youtube.
GasmaskAvenger
Released in 1993, Genocyber is a heavily reworked adaption of a short lived and abruptly cancelled manga of the same name. Although the series itself as a whole is a fairly unwieldy, inconsistent mishmash of episodes, the arcs split into their own selves result in some shades of genuine genius clashing with unfortunate mediocrity. The first (and most well known) episode consists of two sisters, one that has artificial limbs and the other incapable of speech. Although there are elements of Akira and other grim dystopian works of fiction, this particular episode succeeds in creating a gritty, nightmarish vibe with easily the nastiest and most violentusage of on-screen splatter in an anime, something many have yet to trump. It also has a nihilistic yet well made soundtrack that echoes Brad Fiedel's soundtrack work in James Cameron's 1984 smash hit The Terminator at times and quite possibly the single greatest end theme ever seen in an anime. There's also an interesting use of live action and still paintings that while i'm not a big fan of, gives the episode a unique atmosphere. The English dub, which adds an absurd but acceptable amount of profanity, actually helps add to it unlike the dull original Japanese audio.
Unfortunately, this episode is marred by underdeveloped characters, quickly picked up and dropped plot lines and a somewhat overtly compressed story. However, the rest of it is so strong enough, it helps raise this very episode to a pretty good 8/10.
The second and third episodes, while a little bit of a regression from the claustrophobic urban decay of the first one, has it's own fair shares of strong points, mainly in a sympathetic lead heroine, the nurse that treats her like a daughter, decent antagonists and one of the most out of control, goriest opening sequences that kicks off Episode 2 (Episode 3 doesn't have such an opening though). Like episode 1, the English dub is an improvement to the original Japanese audio,
However, the decision to turn the eponymous character into a superhero figure is a bit silly, the rest of the characters aren't nearly as interesting as those in the first episode, the naval setting less interesting than the urban nightmare presented in the first episode and overall feels like a somewhat hamfisted, cashed in attempt to turn what seems to be intended to be a sole OVA into a series of sorts.
Despite those negative aspects, the music remains good, with a new, fairly good end theme and the overt violence is still as much of a highlight as it was before.
Had these only been the episodes in this so-called series, I, overall, would've given it a 7/10, but unfortunately, the final two episodes are where the series takes a massive, tragic nosedive into mediocrity.
Set decades after the last three episodes, the final two episodes attempt to return to the sights and sounds of urban decay, this time with a post-apocalyptic flavoring.
These final two episodes follow a young couple that arrive in a so-called paradise in a hellhole of a world that is actually bathed in corruption, poverty and religious fanatics that, oddly enough, worship the eponymous character in a Christ-like parable.
On paper, these last two episodes sound okay but the execution is incredibly awful, with the animation largely inferior to the previous three episodes, a very cashed in feel that makes these two episodes a bit unnecessary, a sense of tiredness to the pacing, largely uninteresting and at times unlikable characters, a severe lack of the series' famed on screen gore and a general unsatisfying sense of finality that really sinks the series hard with these last two turkeys included.
Even worse is the English dub, which is just flat out terrible. Before the English audio helped the mood, but here it simply makes things borderline unwatchable, so watching it subbed in this case is actually mandatory, though watching these last two episodes to begin with shouldn't be required but rather avoided.
These two episodes, forming a flat out terrible conclusion to a once promising series brings the rating down, for me at least, to a 6 out of 10 (mainly because of how strong the first episode is), with these episodes isolated a 3 out of 10.
Despite the last two episodes, I do recommend watching the disturbing but memorable debut episode and if you liked that, watch the second and third ones just in case you need more Genocyber, but whatever you do, stay away from the last two episodes. In fact, read the sadly unfinished manga, then hunt down the excellent soundtrack albums instead.
narciso_mendoza
It's a shame that Genocyber is seen as a single series of OVAs when there are three separate stories told over the five of them (1, 2-3, 4-5). If I were only reviewing the first OVA, i would give it a score of 9/10, because I think it's incredible. I saw it when I was 10 or 11 years old the first time and it marked me for life, and seeing it again recently some thirteen years later I can appreciate its awesomeness. Not only is the animation superb and the transformations of characters gruesome and original, its occasional use of CG and live-action footageof a brain getting crushed inside a skull was ahead of its time. I love the music, I love the characters, the premise is great... The only thing I've seen that might surpass it in over-the-top devastation of a city and its denizens is Akira, but here it's all being done by the main character, with whom you sympathize until she destroys everything indiscriminately. Watch it. Really. It's incredible.
The second story arc is entertaining, but really nothing special. The best part of it is the shot of a little girl flying out of an exploding airplane, which is a flashback to an event in the first one anyway. It has its own moments, but I'd give it maybe a 7/10.
The third story arc gets a 4/10. I liked the protagonists, and the underground ruins of the world look cool, but the story's pretty weak and it looks like it was made before the first one as far as quality of colors and animation is concerned. It's sad to say, but only the first OVA has passed the test of time.
And there you have it. I would have loved to have been able to continue to call Genocyber one of my favorite animes and give it a 9/10, but my curiosity got the better of me and made we watch the other four OVAs. And, with my ratings for all of them averaged, we get 6.2, which I'll round down.
I hope somebody reads this and watches the first OVA. I really do. It's excellent. But you might want to spare yourself the rest.
LIQfilms
On the first day of Christmas, I reviewed a shitty show... Since Christmas is fast approaching I thought I would spread some festive cheer around MAL and what better way to do this than to make 12 consecutive reviews on terrible shows from past years and decades! So gather around kiddies; Papa LIQ is gonna tell you a tale of a little show called Genocyber! Genocyber was a short five episode OVA from the early 90s and is often considered to be one of the goriest anime ever made! Way before Elfen Lied or Akame ga kill made death and bloodshed popular for mainstream anime narratives, Genocybermakes both of these shows look like pussies with no shortage of people being ripped apart, blown-up or cut into tiny pieces. While this does sound great for anybody who loves bloodshed in anime, the script is far from perfect and is the most nonsensical thing I have ever watched.
For starters, the plot is incredibly indecisive and it's hard to understand what the writer is attempting to do in regards to characters and narrative. The show is about a young girl who has physic powers and has the ability to transform into a machine-like creature which seems to be clearly going for a Guyver design but it fails horribly. She escapes from big bad scientists (totally not generic at all) and these guys want her back. She makes friends with a homeless boy before crap happens and the show turns into a huge bloodbath. This may sound like a really lukewarm plot summary, but the plot is so inconsistent and random that it becomes difficult to summarise. The writer attempts to write a heartfelt relationship between the homeless boy and the psychic girl but it comes across as forced as the puns in the latest Ghostbusters film. After China gets reckt, we get a time skip in which the story threads don't even connect what so ever and the psychic girl finds herself on a battlecruiser.
This second story arc is even more stupid than the last and the plot is even more contrived. Here, the writer seems to have given up attempting to develop themes or characters and simply went for the easiest route; a bloodbath. Hell, the first shot of this arc features military helicopters shooting and ripping apart children with their bullets. I don't want to see that, man! You can argue it's my fault for being a pussy but the last thing I want to see are images of children's eye sockets being shot out of their head.
The second arc can be entertaining at best for it's over the top gore, but it's not like it's even the best example of gore in anime. For starters, the art and animation aren't nearly good enough to convey all of the blood and mayhem which is taking place and most of the shots are just stills of people running away from monsters and the such. The entire sub-plot surrounding one of the newly introduced characters felt even more forced than the relationship with the homeless boy. The writer, again, attempts to build a relationship with the main character and a woman on the battlecruiser, as the main protagonist bears a striking resemblance of the woman's daughter who had died in the previous arc (this is literally the ONLY plot continuity from the last arc). This idea could of gone somewhere but is massively underdeveloped and the ending for the arc makes no sense. The girl transforms, flies into the monster, it explodes and both her, and the sub-character I mentioned before are perfectly fine.
The third and final arc is where I gave up entirely. Not only is it the most boring of the three arcs with hardly any schlock action, it comes across as pretentious as it shoves these strange themes of religion and government down our throats. Again, the continuity from the second arc to the third arc makes no coherent sense and the physic girl doesn't even play a part in this arc until the final episode. Instead, the main characters for this arc are a blind woman and her boyfriend who are living in a corrupt government and escape into an underground religious cult for safety. These ideas could have been interesting if the narrative developed more in regards to the conflict between religion and the government systems and the such but the writer clearly didn't care. The art for this arc falls even further than what the standard was for this miserable excuse of an animation and the ending it so insane that it's hard to wrap your head around. Clearly, the writer had to fill up a certain amount of screen time but he had no idea what to do so he threw everything into a blender and out popped this deformed piece of crap. And it's not like the OVA is entirely without any good ideas, it's just that the execution of these ideas is done so terribly it makes me want to hook my nipples up to a car battery.
The animation, dear lord, was a mess. The first episode was okay; nothing special but the rest feels so badly done and awful. OVAs typically look better from an aesthetic standpoint than most TV anime since the budget is not as big of a problem, but what the hell happened here? The voice acting for this show is also terrible, especially the English dub for this show. It's not like it's one of those things you can laugh at and pop a couple of beers with your friends since that would lose all fun within a few minutes since everything is so droning on the ear. The music... was surprisingly good in my eyes. While most of it is forgettable 'meh' two tracks stick out: Genocide and Confrontation. Both are generally great tracks that get me pumped up to watch the show. It's jarring and sticks out like a sore thumb as everything else is so awful. It's a shame too; both are wasted on such a terrible show.
Even as a gore fest I find it hard to recommend this show. It may have a lot; more so than most but the novelty wears off by the second episode and when you do actually get to the gore, it's so short it's almost not even worth the wait. Terrible script, awful characters and everything else makes for a terrible example of an atrocious OVA series.
Well, join me tomorrow as we go through another terrible show in the rundown to Christmas!
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
One Gorey, edgy piece of shit!
Hush
Okay how can I put this, my first impression was aw my ending impression was blah! Does that pretty much sum it up for you? First of all, the story is similar to an H.P. Lovecraft story, so I was hoping for a really great anime. I guess if I had no expectations I might of, this is just a maybe, liked it in some way. They took a great idea for a plot and did nothing with it. There just wasn’t anything to it. The series is divided into different stories and only the last part I didn’t have to force myself watch. Iguess because they brought in these two characters, Mel and Rin, for some reason I liked. To me they brought a little something special to this nothingness anime.
The character development was bad. I didn’t really feel anything for the characters except for Mel and Rin. Not even that they where all that great of characters, I just seemed to like them the most. Mel is a blind girl who has some type of psychic power and Rin is her boyfriend.
The animation was the best part of this anime. The designs for the Genocybers aka cyborg thingies and characters were pretty solid. The gruesome graphics was done well. Some of the action scenes was well choreographed and had a smoothness that I liked.
Should I say avoid this anime? Yes, even though I believe some might like Genocyber. After all there is gory action throughout the anime, but in the end this anime just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Drakestalker
Genocyber is considered to be the most explicitly grotesque and gory anime of all time. Having now seen it, I can't say I disagree. It was produced in 1994 by studio Artmic, best known for producing most of the Bubblegum Crisis franchise. It finished airing just a few days after yours truly was born. It's another product of the 80s era of ultraviolent cyberpunk OVAs. The premise is pretty simple. Man creates some kind of new bioweapon, the Genocyber. It unsurprisingly gets out of control and the End Times™ ensue. I've lost count of how many 80s OVAs I've seen at this point where humanity meetsa gruesome end with little to no redemption. It's amazing the kind of nihilism that gets instilled into the psyche of a people when they've got 2 nuclear cataclysms in their national history.
Among other things, Genocyber is part of the transforming hero craze of the 80s and early 90s. I don't quite understand the apparent obsession the Japanese had with drawing these nightmarish scenes where machines meld together with flesh into these horrific and disgusting displays, much like in Akira, but here we are. There is plenty of that, but also no shortage of exploding heads, chests, flying intestines, eyes, spines, the whole 9 yards. One guy is shown somehow still alive while on an operating table, his torso all cut open, and his ribcage and intestines all exposed. You witness him gain consciousness and scream in terror upon seeing himself that way.
Funnily enough, I got the distinct sense that, although completely gratuitous in its depiction of blood and guts, Genocyber displayed an obvious unwillingness to show female nipples. There are several shots of nipple-less naked women in the show. Just felt like a weird thing to be prudish about, all things considered.
Unless you have a dread fascination with this sort of thing, I can't say I recommend it. I am hard-pressed to describe it as time well spent. It's not that it's sickening or offensive or anything. It's as straightforward as shock value gets. That's not the issue. The issue is that it's largely just boring.
fullmetaljo
I’m going to avoid arbitrary numbers since that doesn’t help you understand what I watched or what I’m trying to say. Genocyber is a series I picked up from a list of anime (I don’t remember where) and usually when I go digging for obscure series I’m met with mixed feelings. Often times this digging will lead to hidden gems that I get a chance to appreciate now that I’m an adult. Genocyber isn’t really a hidden gem so much as it’s a fossilized turd. And by that I mean it aged poorly and I’m not too sure if there was any meaning buried inthe tremendous amount of gutting and violence. It can get bloody at times.
I found that there were moments that were legitimately uncomfortable for me to sit through, due to filming, audio engineering, etc. That’s something I will add to its credit, is that it still has the capacity to make me uneasy at times, despite it aging like a bottle of coke in my dresser drawer. Perhaps you might find a deeper meaning in it than I did, but it honestly confused me. No character survives from beginning to end of the series, most characters are unceremoniously killed offscreen (and shown to you later), the plot feels weighed down by the attempted shock value (which is still there at times) and it’s hard to get attached to something with such a broad idea and/or lore surrounding it when I never get that chance to immerse myself. Take it for what it is and watch it to form your own opinion.
GreatRumbler
I'm not a big fan of Koichi Ohata. I thought that MD Geist was laughably bad, that MD Geist 2 was horrible, that Cybernetic Guardian was forgettable, that Ikkitousen was laughable but a bit of a guilty pleasure, and that Burst Angel was mediocre but had its moments. He has yet to do anything that I truly enjoyed, nevertheless, I have derived some enjoyment from his works, on one level or another. Nothing, however, prepared me for Genocyber. The story in Genocyber is...poorly told, at best. Scenes skip around with reckless abandon, never staying too long on any single point long enough for the viewer toget a feel for what's going on why its worth caring about. It also skips ahead, in the last two episodes, about two hundred years.
Considering that this is an OVA from the mid-90's, I'd expect it to at least have decent animation. There are a few scenes with decent animation, but most look like they were pulled directly from a cheap OVA that came out ten years prior. Now, I'm not a stickler for animation, but I do ask that it's at least accompanied by something interesting in the art. Genocyber doesn't have that either and it leaves the whole affair looking rather generic and boring. Some of the action scenes look okay, but those are few and far between. And very short.
Now, the characters. There are characters in Genocyber, I know this much. Unfortunately, there is not one character that is developed beyond a single line of description. You've got an evil genius, wait, scratch that, TWO evil geniuses that want to rule the world or something, a super-powerful girl that can't talk, her super-powerful sister who's sole purpose is to complain to her father about her sister, hard-nosed detective looking for the truth who disappears after midway through the first episode, and a host of others who serve no reasonable purpose. All five episodes have enough character development to fill a thimble halfway. The only characters that are even remotely likable are the two mains from the episodes 4 and 5, but, as with every other character in the series, they have little development.
Enjoyment? I didn't enjoy it. At all. The two and half hours that this OVA ran were beyond painful, easily amongst the most depressing and bloated I've ever put myself through. The shows takes everything it does with the utmost seriousness. There's no humor here, even unintentionally. At best, you can chuckle a bit at how bad the dub is, which I attempted to, but that really didn't last long since it the horribleness of the dub slowly bled into the horribleness of the rest of the show and succeeded in only making me feel more depressed about the whole affair.
I don't know why I gave this a 3 instead of a 1. I really don't.
subtledemise
A lot of people seem to hate this for some reason, but I personally loved it. Sure the story is confusing and almost non-existent, and each story arc is pretty much completely stand-alone, which is sort of reminiscent of Heavy Metal, in which the only thing tying the stories together is the Loc-Nar (or in this case, Genocyber). There is an overall story arc but the connection is tenuous at best. What I really enjoyed was the art direction, especially in the first episode. The cost-cutting techniques like the still images and clay models actually enhance the atmosphere and make it unique and one-of-a-kind. Not tomention the explicit detail in the blood and gore (again, pretty much only well done in the first episode).
And then we move on to the sound...the sound effects are those very fake 80s anime effects, but where the sound design really shines through is in the music. Haunting, atmospheric, heavy industrial, it's got everything and it's great. The song Vajra: Wind From the Virtual World sets the mood perfectly, and then there's the first episode's ending song, Fairy Dreamin' which is a pretty catchy rock song, albeit a little out of place.
Overall, the entire OVA series doesn't really stand up well, but as individual episodes, each one has at least one redeeming factor: For instance, despite episodes 4 & 5 being steaming piles of complete crap, there's the scene from the beginning of #4 that's pretty awesome, like a mix of Metal Gear and Terminator, and the finale in episode 5 was pretty cool to watch, which unfortunately is ruined by the nonsensical ending. But beyond that, they really are non-salvageable and not even US Manga of all companies would pick those two up for dubbing, which just makes them even worse, considering the voice acting in the first 3 episodes is absolutely fantastic for an early 90s dub.
I don't recommend this for anyone who wants deep storytelling and character development. But it's great for cyberpunk fans and anyone who likes the really gory anime, or anyone who just wants to watch the first 3 episodes and say "holy shit!" when it's all over.
Devilloc
Genocyber, the missunderstood masterpiece. I'm not much of a reviewer, but seeing the low score that this OVA has on MAL, I couldn't help but put my own opinions down in words, in hopes that I get at least one other person to actually watch this. If you want an incredibly deep and well thought out plot, save yourself the trouble and go watch something else. However, if you enjoy violence and horror, please give this a chance. The plot, while somewhat interesting, is barebones and pretty much just an excuse to move from one bloody scene to the next. Genocyber offers an incredibly violent and dystopian vision of cyberpunk,in the vein of oldschool 80s OVAs.
Make no mistake... While it was released in '94, Genocyber is 80s as hell, from the cyberpunk aesthetics and drawing style down to the rock-ish soundtrack.
It's the kind of anime that would be impossible to release in 2019.
It's violent, hateful, bloody, unforgiving.
In our current lingo you could say it's "edgy as f...", but in an incredibly honest way. Unlike many other violent animes that were made to shock and appal, Genocyber actually feels honest in the way it depicts its violent moments. It knows what the crowd wants, and it delivers it. Not to shock, but to quench our bloodlust.
Far away from the more mainstream and "acceptable" animes, there is a mountain made of blood and guts.
At the top of that mountain, Genocyber stands glorious, hating all beneath.
BAYAMANACO
i wish i could just review the first one, because the first is real nice and then it gets worse and worse so the score has to be down, it would be a 9 if it was just the first one, so i recommend watch the first one, n not any of the others, the first one had a solid script, nice animation and some freaky stuff that will make u wanna romance urself.
coolfreeman
Another OVA that (allegedly) was cut short in production, loosly based on an equally cut short manga by noted mangaka Tony Takezaki; this time directed by the man behind M.D Geist. Of the alleged planned 9 episodes, what is here is another beautifully violent slice of animated fiction. Over the course of the five episodes, Genocyber racks up what could possibly be the highest prospected kill count of any Animated feature, i assure you the title is no exaggeration. I would of course be be-miss to not mention the soundtrack, which leads to probably one of the most jarring disconnects between visual and audio youwill probably ever see; its really good however, put it on your workout mix. If you're unsure, just watch the first episode, its the longest of the series and works rather substantially as a one-off. The stories after are both Two-Parters and really do not connect outside of Genocyber itself and a theme of mass destruction. Overall i would however recommend it in full, especially if you love high detail violence.
young_kappa
After seeing both of Kouichi Ohata's infamous "cult classic" OVAs (this and MD Geist) I am convinced that they've either missed their target audience by a landslide or are just something of an acquired taste. Genocyber, much like MD Geist, is a pretty solid, up-front and down to earth OVA featuring tons of gory bits and a somewhat hamfisted story. If this, along with a plethora of body horror sounds good to you, you should have a go at Genocyber. Genocyber's story is cut into three acts. A ridiculously powerful bio-weapon, the eponymous Genocyber, is created by a military research organization called the Kuryu group.The fused consciousnesses of two young girls lying within this beast are (for the most part) eager to use its devastating power to rebel against the whole world, and the world bites back. The first two acts are set in a modern-ish era and are immediately subsequent to each other, but the final act of the OVA changes the narrative to a young couple in the post apocalyptic world of AD 2400 where Genocyber has gone dormant and humanity's size is shrunken to one small corrupt city known as Ark de Grande. Some find this narrative shift and time skip to be too forced but they did not impact the enjoyment for me, even taking into consideration the somewhat boring lack of gory action in the final act. Despite this and some nasty plotholes (It's lazy on behalf of the writers, but you can easily fill in the blanks) I believe Genocyber's story is overall reasonable enough, and its ambiguous but interesting ending is worth watching all of the OVA for.
One aspect of this OVA that I appreciated was the characters. While they aren't all likeable and certainly not relatable their actions mostly make sense and/or are reasonable given their situations. I personally enjoyed Elaine's characterization - she is beastlike in personality but has the thoughts and feelings of a normal human and the events shown in the first episode of the OVA sets her goals and motives in stone quite well. You'll know what I mean when you see it.
The thing that draws most people into watching Genocyber is of course the gore. Not to sound like a serial killer, but the way it's animated is beautiful. There's tons of detail in every little giblet. You can tell that they put a lot of their animation budget into just the gore scenes alone. The designs of the characters and machines are also fantastic. And even those who hate Genocyber can't deny that the soundtrack is a banger that perfectly captures its ultraviolence.
All in all, Genocyber is a chilling experience - whether you hate it, or enjoy it like I did, it's not something you will forget anytime soon.
SRMcQuillan
I think there's a place for transgressive art. Two of my favourite books fall solidly within this description - 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis, saturated in extreme sexual violence though it is, is compelling and engaging; Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita' (to which the anime community owes a dubious debt for the terminology) is a beautifully written, if thoroughly disturbing work. One of my favourite anime, 'Made in Abyss' portrays a number of instances of absolutely horrific violence inflicted on children. So I firmly believe that the presence of transgressive themes and content - including extreme violence and gore - need not preclude a work frombeing deemed worthwhile or even of being deemed great.
And believe me: 'Genocyber's reputation for being one of the most extreme gore-anime ever made is well earned. It is not a viewing experience for the faint of heart. However, what separates it from other examples of transgressive art I mentioned above or might otherwise enjoy is that each of those were thematically dense, original, and demonstrated significant qualities above, beyond, and entirely removed from the presence or otherwise of very high impact violence.
This isn't to say that 'Genocyber' has nothing to say - it tries to say something. The issue is that it fails in doing so. There's the hint of an interesting idea here and there, but ultimately the entire premise and execution is too blandly unoriginal and uninspired to amount to much of anything. Beyond the cheap thrill of the schlock (which gets old pretty quickly) there isn't much here that makes it worth the investment of time.
The three interlocking arcs never manage to really take the time necessary to engage the viewer in their stories or characters and all of them are rather forgettable.
There's also the issue of the visuals. The artwork is perfectly passable and I'm not one to mark a work down just because of its age, but when one compares the visuals here to those of that other, older cyberpunk dystopia, 'Akira', the inadequacies of 'Genocyber' become all the more apparent. It's hard, too, to ignore the over reliance on stills in many action sequences that really hamper the vibrancy of those scenes.
The voice work is fine, if unremarkable, but perhaps the one area this OVA does manage to rise above the pits is in the music department. It's really a shame that the atmospheric soundtrack didn't get to accompany far more engaging cyberpunk fare, but oh well, at least there's something to enjoy here.
Ultimately, if you're curious about this given its reputation, check it out. As I said before, it's certainly gory - it makes more modern anime such as 'Berserk' or 'Elfen Lied' look positively tame by comparison. But once you've got your fill of creative dismemberment I suggest you don't bother enduring the whole thing. There's a lot to watch out there and this just simply isn't worth the time.
StrengthMonk
Genocyber...Where do I even begin? This is a show that is the definition of ambitious...but not in a good way. It's so convoluted that it goes beyond the realm of comprehension. It gets wrapped up within itself to an extent where it seems that most of the show was full of incomplete ideas. Don't try looking for an overall plot, as there's no coherent plot tying this series together whatsoever. The only thing remotely keeping this together as one series is the main character, Elaine, who has some sort of power to turn into a robotic-mutant thing of some sort. It is actually explained what thisis in the show, but it's so poorly explained that I don't even remember what the name of the power to begin with. Apparently other people have this ability as well, including Elaine's sister Diane, who works for some unexplained government agency that researches people with these abilities. Diane is trying to protect Elaine from the government officials...I think, but Elaine is defiant and just wants to live a normal life with her friend who's name I don't think was ever introduced into the show. Meanwhile, there are 3 bounty hunters that don't have any clear objectives, and one of them dies immediately after being introduced. Diane eventually dies somehow and fuses with Elaine or something, then they fight the other two bounty hunters that turn into robotic insects and bring no plot development to the show whatsoever as they die within a matter of seconds of transforming. Then the episode ends, and we're treated to the second episode which begins with Elaine running on a beach with some new friends she's made and who's ethnicity's are unclear. The kids are all gunned down by some helicopters, and Elaine somehow winds up on a battleship in the ocean, where she finds probably the most genuine character in the show, a soldier named Myra, who lost her daughter but takes care of Elaine as her own. Then a scientist makes a robot or something and Elaine transforms into her bug form and fights it in episode 3, then leaves. Lastly, the final 2 episodes deal with a random desert city where two people, Ryu and Mel, who is apparently an unexplained sister of Diane and Elaine, are living in poverty and trying to better their lives by becoming street performers. Mel somehow gets involved with a cult, and the government running the city sees the cult as a threat because they are involved with some sort of rebellion, so basically every poor person dies as a result in a massive fire fight. But Elaine shows up to save the day and destroys the city and brings Mel and Ryu back to life.
This is quite possibly the most mind-fuck of a plot that has ever been conceived. I'm not sure whether it deserves massive amounts of applause or condemnation. Either way, there's at least something you will find decently enjoyable despite the nonsensical plot, lackluster character development, and (if you're brave enough) horrifically cheestastic English dub.
Gamer1995
Genocyber is one of the animes, movies, TV shows, and video games that sounds interesting but once you watch or play it, you find out that it's really bad. The story is about a young girl named: Elaine, who can turn into a super android-like being known as: Genocyber. But as you watch the episodes, they start to have different stories and I could tell you but I don't want to spoil parts of the anime. The problems with the anime are character development, the english dub was horrible, and the OVA series is really boring. The character development is bad because they don't have thatmuch development nor any background, most of the characters I saw in the show made me say: "He's gonna die", and I don't even know the names for most of the characters with the exception of Elaine. Yeah, it's that bad.
As I watched the OVA series in english, I noticed that the voice actors and actresses don't put a lot of emotion into there characters and there were times where the voices are laughable.
I will give the film a bit of credit for it's animation because I thought it was good nothing special and I thought having a couple claymation sequences in the first episode was pretty cool.
Overall, Genocyber is a horrible OVA series that's filled with lots of gore, bad character development, and it's boring.
DenpaSan
MAN, the first few episodes of Genocyber are so good. They just ooze with that early 90's over-the-top cyberpunk goodness. (A heads up about that: some of the violence is ALOT and might make some queasy. I'm talking people getting torn apart in slow motion, organs pouring out, the whiole nine yards) I love the city setting and the designs of some of the cybernetic mechs are so freaking cool and memorable. After that the series changes setting and completely drops the ball because of it. The desert is so forgettable, the plot, which was absurd to begin with, got even more convoluted andharder to follow. The characters have no personality. It was an absolute chore to finish. alot of Genocybers shortcomings were forgiveable in the early episodes because of how fun it was to watch, but once that fun factor took a backseat, I stopped caring. It's short, so i still say watch the whole thing. I just wish the whole series was more consistent.
The character designs and art by Tony Takezaki absolutely shine here. Something about the way he draws is so appealing to look at. He's just someone who's style can be spotted from miles away. Absolutely an artist who doesn't get enough recognition.
Ninjakillzu
Genocyber is a polarizing anime. It's filled with gratuitous gore, especially in the first two episodes which people are most likely to watch first. It's also insanely low budget with a dated looking art style (even for the time it was released) and even cheaper looking animation. The story is confusing to say the least and has a huge time skip which doesn't help. In my opinion, all of this only adds to the charm of the show! I'll admit I am a sucker for exploitation and low budget films/TV shows, and this also carries over to anime. Give me trashy schlock and I ampretty much guaranteed to unironically enjoy the heck out of it. If any of this show's "flaws" bother you a lot or you can't handle it, than don't watch it. Otherwise, try Genocyber out and be prepared for mindless fun!
