A definitive re-write

Is there really much else that can be said about M.D. Geist? It's an inglorious title of the direct-to-video animation market of 1980s Japan that has been regularly dug back up to play havoc on the anime community much like the titular character himself; he is less so on life support as he is a poltergeist, causing anime fans everywhere to groan with the racket he makes while a minority loyally support him. He's more than likely to keep coming back; in a way, if you love anime, you will hate M.D. Geist. If you hate anime, you may hate M.D. Geist, or you may love it! Though to be frank, generalisations are of poor taste. Japan's home video market for animation (Original Video Animation, OVAs) carries slightly more positive connotations than "direct-to-video" ever will in the west; the restrictions of TV serial anime were not to be found in the OVA market, which opened up far more doors for various creative forces, giving anyone the chance to do what they wanted without fear of censorship and with a strong target audience willing to buy, buy, buy. There was a bit less focus on the long-term money-making possibilties of a product and more of a focus on the overall creation process. OVAs allowed everyone on the production side to make a bit more money, even if the overall output in the long run was not entirely good. Regardless, pop stars and voice actors would keep themselves circulatory, while designers of any sort would give themselves more curriculum vitae ammunition.

M.D. Geist itself is a 40-minute outing by then-rookie Koichi Ohata, a mechanical designer first and a storyteller second, concerning the reawakening of a super-soldier on the war-torn planet Jerra. The proceeding events in Geist's misadventures on a planet much unlike the earth in Fist of the North Star feature commonplace mistreatings of the English language (frankly standard for anime) and acts of violence against the entire human form. The 'story' that was ultimately decided upon for the feature is really a springboard for Ohata to show off his drawings, animation is ropey throughout and fragmentary plot-expanding dialogue is ultimately bombastic and adds to the incoherence. Ohata, a man whose voice is unfortunately not often heard on the topic of his creations, said in the commentary of the thankfully fruitful US DVD that the original version of M.D. Geist is pretty damn poor, but hey, he was young and at the end of the day him and writer Riku Sanjo are still in the business, Hironobu Kageyama launched his singing career through appearing on the soundtrack to M.D. Geist and Norio Wakamoto walked away with a bit more money in his back pocket from voicing a character with not many lines. M.D. Geist's poor qualities stem from Ohata's youthful arrogance back then; his relatively low-budgeted animation team were often at odds with him over his mercilessly complex designs, which he refused to tone down because this project was his baby.

Geist is a product of a time long gone by in Japanese animation, and this is one reason why his popularity persists; if anything, Ohata created Geist to be antithetical, and antithetical he was. Appearing on a different end of the anime format spectrum for one, Geist was a protagonist designed to go against the grain of teenage heroes in shows coming out in the success of Mobile Suit Gundam, he was designed as being someone who took total glee in battle and the whole production has a somewhat nihilistic touch in that nothing nice EVER happens. However, we follow from Geist's side with his theme songs and background guitar solos highlighting his destruction. With this in mind, the overall unpolished quality of the production can be factored in as well. Being a representation of all of the above, the character and the title are now only more of an antithesis in today's anime industry, in which new fans have sprung up to defend Geist as someone and something fairly atypical of anime. Granted, there are still many naysayers, in which case, how has M.D. Geist's widely-known negative reception come to be? Aside from everything about it pissing off the highest elite of anime snobs from the 1990s, CPM's saturated promotion of the title is essentially what did people in. President John O'Donnell became infatuated with the title and it led to him licensing the character as his company's mascot for their U.S. Manga Corps division, meaning that every tape, Laserdisc and DVD under them greeted their viewers with a stiffly-animated CGI Geist The constant ballyhooing certainly garnered the title its interest as something new and exciting, but as time went on the propaganda became tedious, with great emphasis placed on how Geist was somehow a particularly artistic and deadly serious title, in reality it was a cartoon about a lot of people dying because the director thought his country had too many fictional lead heroes.

Without John O'Donnell though, the title would just be a relic dug up only by animation enthusiasts and regarded with a "hey, look at this" attitude. O'Donnell's love may have been for better or for worse, but through his actions he was able to publish a prequel comic to the original OVA and even gathered the money to fund a director's cut of the original and a sequel. The funds were raised from a customised Harley Davidson being bought off Marvel in their promotion of their Ghost Rider franchise and being used in motor shows to promote M.D. Geist and CPM; with "Geist" meaning 'ghost' in German, it was an amusing tactic. The director's cut touches up on several animation errors seen in the original (while rather frustratingly, inserting diabolical digital zooms that blur the image), adds several new short sequences and features an entirely new audio track. This cut doesn't so much add to the story (it slightly expands the opening sequence primarily, and in a flashback of stills draws a parallel to the prior prequel comic) as it does increase the gore quota. The sequel on the other hand, being made ten years after the original for one, is seemingly made with an entirely different mindset and focuses less on Geist, offering a fairly more serious and sombre story (that works to an extent), its biggest flaw however is that the animation in it is intensely limited. Regardless, despite what CPM had launched Geist into, their (or at least O'Donnell's) efforts have to be thanked for boosting the title's longevity.

Perhaps Geist is just unfortunate for being stuck in the harshly critical anime community, never entirely getting the dues he deserves. While the overall title is something very flawed it's not something I would regard with venom because of its bad qualities, nor would I really call it so "so bad it's good". However way you watch it though, all three animated incarnations of the character are entertaining, or at the very least feature some fantastic artwork and have incredibly good soundtracks, something which is oddly overlooked in many reviews of this anime. This writer would also like to stress that viewers perhaps try watching the director's cut and the sequel in the Japanese audio if possible; both of these audio tracks feature incredibly good VA work that has been sadly overlooked in favour of the 'entertaining' (to me, it's unbearably atrocious) English dub. Yeah, it makes it so bad it's good bla bla but the original production should be entertaining enough, so try enjoying it with the Japanese audio track. Ohata has been lucky getting the recognition he has gotten as a mechanical designer who began his career by working on some fairly unknown shows, and it's a damn shame he no longer seems to release things fully overseen by him. His fanbase is small, but dedicated; the fact that Ohata himself has seen a customised Revoltech figure of Geist is testament to this.

On that note, I have to come own the original title's soundtrack on vinyl, have framed the poster that came with it, I also own the OVA in book form, the Japanese complete works book, the UK and US DVDs, the sequel's soundtrack on CD, an autographed copy of the US graphic novel and the jewel in the obsessive crown would be two sketches of Geist himself signed by Ohata, with one of them sent to me by him. Writing my umpteenth take on the production is only further indication of my infatuation with this anomaly of an anime. If I had the option to fund Ohata for a full-fledged reboot of M.D. Geist though with the right money, you can beat your intestines I would.

Some trivia about M.D. Geist...
Those guys have names!
Believe it or not, the bikers have names. Aside from Mash, there is Golem, who Geist promptly kills, Gista who promptly dies on his motorcycle, and Beast, who possibly dies after hurtling off his bike when Geist jumps aboard a mech (he returns momentarily in the Director's Cut). Their names are all in the credits, but only Golem is referred to by name in the US comic, the rest are only named in production materials.

She also has a name!
And it's not "Vaiya", it's "Paiya". It's seems that for all this time, CPM mistakenly used the name Vaiya without correcting it. To be fair though, it's an easy mistake to make; the katakana characters for ba (what can be interchanged as 'va') and pa look similar but are not identical. A simple oversight is all, it's just that it persisted for so long.

At the same time, she doesn't have a name...
Just like the bikers, Paiya is never actually referred to by name in the original Japanese audio. If you listen closely, she is referred to as "nesan", which means "big sister". CPM tried to do the good thing by helping create familiarity by inserting her name anyway, but the truth is the only way you would be able to tell she was called Paiya is through the credits! On a similar note...

All the names of the 'big players' are from the horror genre
Geist is from poltergeist, Paiya is from vampire, Golem is from (what else?) golem, Crutes is the Japanese pronunication of the Spanish word cruz, which means cross, as in holy cross. The associations are obvious, but only Geist and Crutes actually have meaning, Paiya and Golem are mostly named that way for aesthetic value.

That also has a name
The robot Geist fights at the end is called the Final Striker, and manages to be referenced that in the concept art book and in the sequel. Interestingly, the CPM comic calls it the "Final Terminator".

Confusing credits
Ohata was never initially billed as the director M.D. Geist in 1986, that billing went to Hayato Ikeda, someone who seemed to help out with some of the production. His name was used as it was feared a first-time director (who was really a mechanical designer) would look bad. Hayato Ikedia makes a cameo in M.D. Geist, he is the President Ryan character, who is dead.


Further reading...

• Defending the Indefensible: In Defense of the Previously Undefended M.D. Geist
• The Truth About M.D. Geist

-James

The lyrics to "Violence of the Flames"

The lyrics to the end credits song from M.D. Geist have actually been scarcely reproduced in Japanese over the Internet, while the lyrics can be found in English if you look hard enough. To my knowledge a partial translation exists in the CPM release of the original OVA, as well as a non-professional translation seen in an AMV, and an entirely different translation in the official CPM releases of both soundtracks. I took the time today to write up the lyrics completely in Japanese using the original lyric sheet that came with the soundtrack as a guide, and my own translation to boot. My translation is slightly liberal, opting to try and sound close to the song without losing any meaning. Below are the lyrics, followed by them in English as translated by me, and finally in romaji...

Original Japanese:
世界は永遠の戦場さ
Never, never, never... 止まらない
聴こえる破滅への    あのメロデイー
Come on! Come on! Come on! もう戻れなり

It's the only crazy game
It's the only foolish game
気がつけば　逃げられない おまえも...!

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
燃やせ！　炎のバイオレンス
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
地獄に堕ちた　戦士たち

あのときふりむいた肩越しに
Lover, lover, lover... 呼んでいた
冷たくひびわれた　胸の奥
Come on! Come on! Come on! 今よみがえれ

It's the only crazy dream
It's the only foolish dream
この腕て　抱ましのてもやれずに

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
燃やせ！　炎のバイオレンス
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
地獄に堕ちた　戦士たち

It's the only crazy game
It's the only foolish game
何もかも　滅びるだけさ

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
燃やせ！　炎のバイオレンス
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
地獄に堕ちた　戦士たち

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
燃やせ！　炎のバイオレンス
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
地獄に堕ちた　戦士たち

Translated English:
This world we have always known, is an endless war
Never, never, never... Ceasing never
It's in all that pain and death, I listen to that melody...
"Come on! Come on! Come on!" No! We cannot flee

It's the only crazy game
It's the only foolish game

Just coming to, in a place where you cannot flee, you've got to be...!

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Raging fires of violence!
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
These warriors have plummeted to hades

It was in the middle of all of that, that I chose to glance behind me
"Lover", "lover", "lover'... I heard it called
This frozen heart of mine, it is cracked and split
"Come on! Come on! Come on!" Now, return to life!

It's the only crazy dream
It's the only foolish dream
Affection cannot hold me back, my skills as a killer have got to be...!

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Raging fires of violence!
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
These warriors have plummeted to hades

It's the only crazy game
It's the only foolish game
Everything you know, is going to completely die!

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Raging fires of violence!
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
These warriors have plummeted to hades

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Raging fires of violence!
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
These warriors have plummeted to hades

Romaji:
Sekai wa eien no senjou sa
Never, never, never... Tomaranai
Kikoeru hametsu e no ano merodeii
Come on! Come on! Come on! Mou modorenari

It's the only crazy game
It's the only foolish game
Kigatsukeba nige rarenai omae mo...!

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Moyase! Honoo no baiorensu
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Jigoku ni ochita senshi-tachi

Ano toki furimuita katagoshi ni
Lover, lover, lover... Yonde ita
Tsumetaku hibiwareta mune no oku
Come on! Come on! Come on! Ima yomigaere

It's the only crazy dream
It's the only foolish dream
Kono ude te daku mashi note mo yarezu ni

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Moyase! Honoo no baiorensu
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Jigoku ni ochita senshi-tachi

It's the only crazy game
It's the only foolish game
Nanimokamo horobiru dake sa

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Moyase! Honoo no baiorensu
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Jigoku ni ochita senshi-tachi

DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Moyase! Honoo no baiorensu
DANGEROUS! MOST DANGEROUS!
Jigoku ni ochita senshi-tachi

-James

Goku Midnight Eye - Part 1

Judging from the various films and animations I have reviewed for this website, you would be right in assuming I am an advocate for the anarchic, exploitative days of the 80's and 90's where anything seemed to pass and noone played safe. Now, especially so with animation that trend has reversed. I admittedly hope I am not the only one who is somewhat exasperated by the glut of flashy 3D CGI toons chock full of inane pop culture references, yawn-inducing kid underdog stories and animation that no matter how detailed each polygon looked made me rather admire a gorgeously shaded cel crafted by hand any day.

Furthermore, practically no animation director seems to want to make the decision to create movies that tackled dark, unconventional narratives all while wrapped in worlds draped with hues of blue and black. Where women were not ungodly bobbleheads voiced by washed up celebrities, men were charismatic badasses with laser magnums and cyborgs fought psychics in battles that would bring multiple dimensions to their knees. Good thing Yoshiaki Kawajiri is their to delight me with his warped spins on reality. Kawajiri is mainly well known for his 90's gorefest Ninja Scroll as well as his recent take on the Highlander franchise in The Search For Vengeance; I myself was actually introduced to his work through Lensman, his debut in 1984. Eventually I also saw 1987's Wicked City which to me is honestly one of the finest animated films I have seen (something which I rarely say about most animations) with it's creative blend of horror and film noir supported by gorgeous animation and character designs along with a wonderfully macabre atmosphere. 

But out of all of his works, the one that seems to have slipped through the cracks is his two-part OVA series from 1989 Goku: Midnight Eye. This short lived animation was adapted from a three volume manga by Buichi Terasawa famously known as the creator of the kitschy space opera Space Adventure Cobra. So what happens when Terasawa's kitsch blends with Kawajiri's demon-encrusted imagination? The setting is a futuristic Tokyo, extensively rebuilt after a second great earthquake nearly wipes the city from the map. In this crazy world teeming with reprobates and criminals is the leather jacket sporting, no shirt on underneath (but still has a tie), hardcore private detective known as Goku. Immediately off the bat we know this guy is no ordinary cop (his dress sense notwithstanding) when he tangles with a cyborg accountant whose arms can stretch out like bubblegum. Goku with the help of a tiny metal rod, bashes one of the man's arms in half and stabs him through the stomach, all to retrieve a small key for the guy's turquoise haired girlfriend. The woman offers to repay him (*cough*sex*cough*) but Goku being a man refuses politely and requests for a payment to his account. 

Goku cruises into the brightly lit city ahead, driving the point home that no matter how many times Japan rebuilds itself it will come crashing down again one day. Naturally this leads to the title card. We cut to a bar featuring possibly the craziest looking erotic dancer known to mankind; a woman with motorbike handlebars and a gearbox protruding out of her back while an engine revs in the background with the music. Just for effect her breasts our jiggling too, just to make the place more 'adult.'

An observer in the bar stares in the direction of a shady looking man sitting motionless with a glass of red wine, his reflection clearly showing in a window next to him. The other man prepares to strike when all of a sudden, peacock feathers with glowing pink eyes stretch from behind the two way window. The glow transfixes the man who consequently commits suicide through a shot to the head. Is your mind boggled now by the way? It turns out that this is just another in a string of mysterious deaths that are decimating the ranks of the police's Special Investigations Section. Goku is informed by the police chief that the possible next target is his former partner Yoko, naturally Goku immediately disregards the chief's order to stay out of the investigation. Meeting up with Yoko at the firing range, Goku proceeds to catch up with old times and learn about who might be behind these obviously suspicious deaths.

While cruising across the city highways, Goku learns from Yoko that these deaths are most likely related to a notorious arms dealer by the name of Genji; if you havent guessed that the shady bar dude with wine was Genji, you clearly need to watch more 80's action movies. We are also shown that Genji also actually owns that same bar hidden insidea skyscraper with a design aesthetic akin to two massive glowing testicles. Manly indeed. Two other Special Investigation members are seen playing peeping tom on Genji's fortress, noticing straight away a voloptuous black-haired woman baring her shapely chest. With the two officers distracted, the woman (who bears a striking resemblance to Wicked City's female spider demon) bears a smug grin and shock horror, unleashes her peacock feathers of doom stretching out of her back; Genji certainly has an odd fetish for unnatural female protrusions.

One of the guys decides that before killing himself to chuck his friend out the window, plunging down to a bloody death on a car window. His eyes gleaming white, the second dude also takes flight to the streets below. Convenientely enough, Goku and Yoko turn up to watch the second guy splat against the sidewalk leaving our resident Kawajiri female protagonist the last one in the unit alive. Goku decides to take action and with scuba gear in hand proceeds to inflitrate Genji's abode, Yoko is left behind to provide support (in other words, nothing to taint his manliness). Soon after being flushed into the system, Goku rips his gear off to reveal he still refuses to conform to a sensible dress code. Alluding a few guards, Goku is a few minutes later cornered by a giant who bashes his face into a piano, as well as Genji and his growling (no joke) woman/motorcycle pet. Genji warns our wounded hero that his interference will cost him dearly and tests his latest weapon on him, a mosquito that paralyses humans after absorbing their carbon dioxide. This anime makes Metal Gear's technology look plausible. Goku faints, waking up dazed in his car and drives straight ahead; but out of nowhere, Goku's bad luck strikes again as the evil peacock lady hypnotizes him. In a desperate bid to escape, Goku proceeds to stab out his own left eye and promptly crashes into the sea. Now thats what I call a 'Riki-Oh' style getaway.

Goku slowly begins to return to consciousness, lying naked in a dark blue void. An ominous voice outlines that Goku now has a few alterations to his body inluding a new left eye. But this is no ordinary left eye, it's the most advanced computer terminal on the planet. What this means for Goku is he now with just a thought can access any computer system from any location as well as perform scans on anything and anyone. Goku has now officially replaced Bruce Wayne as the world's greatest detective. Adding to his omniscience, Goku also receives a new crime fighting tool of badassery. A metal pole that can extend to any length and can fire lasers, by decree I think this weapon should become a standard household accessory. Goku then proceeds to wander about the city testing out his new toys on various thugs throughout the city until realising that he left Yoko behind like a dimwit. He breaks into her apartment with his god-like eye, Yoko naturally not questioning where he went and proceeds to want to shag him, cue lots of boob shots and groping. Surprisingly with this wonderful erotic display in his lap, Goku refuses the sex (twice he has done this now) instead seeing to an invisible thug he spotted a moment ago with his eye.At the same time, Yoko tries to stab Goku after briefly spotting the peacock lady and is promptly knocked to the floor by his rod. I can't keep track of all of the 'rod' euphemisms I have used thus far. 

The thug is promptly blasted by Goku's thick rod laser (homoeroticism has just gone off the charts) and he tends to bringing a still nude Yoko to her feet. The nightmare hasn't ended yet though as the evil paralysis mosquitos swarm into the room and knock our hapless female out cold. Goku grabs her and rushes to the nearby elevator holding his breath to avoid the mosquito's deadly weapon. Kawajiri not wanting to stick to being remotely classy deicdes to also do a full on panning shot of Yoko's naked body in Goku's down to her crotch. Goku and Yoko leave the elevator in time to be immediately confronted by Peacock Lady who in the nick of time is blasted through the stomach by Goku's laser pole killing her instantly. Yoko is soon rushed to a hospital but due to the numerous mosquito bites, she does not make it though the paralysis and dies leaving Goku a solemn loner out for revenge. The police chief now forbids Goku entirely from taking down Genji knowing fully well the damage he may cause. Ignoring this entirely, Goku takes control of a television satellite broadcasting in the middle of the city his threat to kill Genji in cold blood.

Our villain rushes back to his base to finalise a new arms deal on a weapon with some shady businessmen. This weapon is beyond ludicrous and keep in mind this anime already has a lady with mind bending bird feathers. Genji's diabolical plan is to inject swans with a virus that is secreted from hormonal glands during sex. So that when the swans migrate and mate in the spring season, the virus spreads over the country they are in. At this point, I think any plausibility with this show is now completely non-existent. Oddly enough the businessmen agree to this bizarre weapon choice wihtout much questioning. Goku in an equally stupendously implausible entrance controls a helicopter (no build up to how he got it) and with his pole, vaults over an ENTIRE city block and crashes into a window on Genji's base alerting his guards. Genji is confident in his victory over Goku though despite his entire detachment of troops being battered and eluded by Goku's gleaming metal stick of awesomeness. Why is he so confident? Well moments later Goku is attacked by the crazy motorcycle woman now complete with pink mouth laser and an armoured midget driver. To be honest, nothing surprises me anymore with this show.

Goku defeats this concoction of WTF-ness by zapping the woman's head off. Controlling the disembodied head he scorches the midgets head as he cowers on the floor. Genji now can't stand Goku winning so he floods the entire floor hoping that he drowns and proceeds to finalise the deal with the businessmen over the swan virus (two words that shouldnt go together). Long story short, Goku uses his eye to direct the water through the building corridors and into Genji's office creating a tidal wave that sweeps Genji and his cohorts out of the window and into the sea below. Not just yet though, Genji still has a little fight left in him. He clutches for dear life on the window edge and aims his golden gun (subtle bond reference for the win) at Goku; in return Goku shows no remorse in using the motobike lady's severed head to blast a hole right through Genji's head. After making a good old fashioned cheesy death cry, Genji falls into the water below his headquarters and business in ruins. Goku regrets in a monologue how he can never love a woman without her being killed and pole vaults into the city to dispense some more manly justice.

Phew, you thought that was crazy? Well that was just the first half. Check out Part 2 for more insanity.

M.D. Geist II

The M.D. Geist Overview article, which launched this site, was effectively a work-in-progress as it was one of the first things written here, I didn’t really entirely imagine how things for this would run. While I think it’s still a valid article, I felt some things in it could have been evaluated upon, such as the actual core OVAs; I have already written about the 1986 original, so I think it’s time go in depth about the sequel that technically shouldn’t exist, Death Force. As we all know, the original title was achingly characteristic of the 80s OVA scene, from Geist’s mullet to the amazing soundtrack, it was cheesy, a bit poorly made but fun with a few genuine hints of awesomeness, and was well-liked when shown to the right people. As a massive M.D. Geist fan though, I will say the title’s status as a genuinely good classic was forcibly raised and held high for many years, which is what earned it so much animosity from others. CPM head John O’Donnel’s love for the title got him a Redux of the anime, in which it went from being laughable and awesome due to age, to being halfway between something you could take seriously and something you could laugh at (if you were watching the dubbed version, then all chance you had of taking it seriously was gone from the outset). This director’s cut did away with the gloriously exaggerated 80s sound effects that were like an additional layer of the OVA’s incredible soundtrack and replaced them with more hard-hitting realistic ones, beneficial no doubt, and made the story just a bit more cohesive. Personally, all I would have wanted was the 1986 version without the animation errors.

If a sequel for M.D. Geist did not come out in the 80s, what chance did it have of coming out in the 90s? A sequel to an OVA that ends with a man effectively dooming all living things on the planet he’s on sounds haphazard at best, it’s something you can’t really do. Regardless, ten years on, a sequel was produced to John O’Donnel’s undoubted happiness with a perfectly concocted plot that could be tied easily to the original; the only thing was the massive gap between both OVAs, in which many things had changed since then. M.D. Geist’s strength was in the fact it was a ludicrous 80s title, and none of those elements really carry over; there’s no mullets, no Mad Max-inspired biker gangs, and no lambently good guitar work. What is in Death Force, is an attempt to create something serious, that is restricted by budgetary constraints, a limited runtime woefully typical of OVAs, as well as perhaps even a shaky history, and to lengthen this list out, one of the worst dubbing jobs ever.

Death Force is not so much about Geist this time, who is living in his own world wiping up the same Death Force robots he released on the soil of Jerra, as it is about Krauser, another super soldier of the same category as Geist. Instead of being a mindless killer, he has a god complex, and is shown ferrying survivors to his mobile fortress while giving faux-religious speeches of the “steel demons” outside. Like any religious fanatic, he’s a bit ignorant about certain things, for him it’s Geist, who he refuses to believe is out of his satellite prison, and trouble stirs when Geist gets involved. Krauser and Geist’s creator, Dr. Breston, is essentially Dr. Frankenstein, with his two creations being the polar opposites of each other and their existence ultimately lead to his and their own destructions. Other characters include Eagle, a cyborg created by Breston who functions as his Igor, Vaiya is also around, but doesn’t do much of anything, other than suffer from a repressed fear of Geist and share a small romance with Krauser (in one scene she’s naked while he’s shown buttoning up his uniform).

There is a scope to this sequel that is never touched upon, so the plot never really makes any advances, even the original at least went forward and onward, this one just seems to sit around until something happens. There is a great chance for Krauser to give his people the god delusion, but it only really happens in the background, we never see into his regime or the propaganda he could feed the people of a world that is ready to give up. Such a decision would have given Geist more purpose in this, rather than have him be an aimless villain, as if he takes on someone who is controlling his subjects and dividing them between believers and non-believers, then he would have technically been something of a hero come the end of the feature (after all the blood spatter). At worst, expository dialogue appears at every turn and Geist’s signature armour (the one thing that really connects this to the original) seemingly comes out of nowhere at the end, but I guess Eagle built it in preparation for him. The ending is also a confusing mess, in which I can only guess it’s meant to be Krauser faltering between reality and his own delusions about whether he’s winning or not.    

Adding to this OVA’s serious approach is its soundtrack, which is a major departure from the outrageously cheesy (yet fantastic) soundtrack of the original, and has gone for something a bit less contemporary and a bit more evocative. It’s an excellent soundtrack and fits the OVA well, but falls on its face just a bit because of the title’s sloppy execution. Animation often takes a backseat to money-saving still shots and pans that really hurt the overall production, it doesn’t entirely make the thing feel static, but it does make it feel very slow and stiff. It’s far from being the worst animated product to come out of Japan (especially for standard domestic anime) and it’s saved just about by the pleasing artwork; commendable background details abound, along with decent character designs and excellent mechanical designs (as to be expected of Ohata). Visually, it’s a hell of a lot better than the first Power DoLLS OVA, but could really do with looking like the sequel. Besides, it could be a lot worse...

For all its faults, the OVA is watchable when watched in Japanese, solely because the English dub is painfully unbearable; terrible voice actors read from a disjointedly translated script that makes for an awkward listening experience, it’s not even funny to hear as well, everything about the dub brings the title’s average state down to an even bigger level of mediocrity. At best, there’s a decent amount of creative gore to be had, with squishy parts getting chopped up beneath machinery, but that’s all really. Death Force tends to have even less fans than the original M.D. Geist and is a good reason why the character as a whole is so loathed, but if you’re like me, you just have to enjoy the fact the naysayers of Geist got a second helping upon the world. For something that was never really supposed to get a sequel, the concept is good enough to work; it’s just that it’s held down by other problems. There’s plenty of other average-ranking anime I’d watch this over, people who will enjoy this know who they are.

Just make sure to watch it subtitled.

• Animation: 2.5/5
• Music: 4/5
• Infamy: 5/5  

-James, 19 March 2010 (original date)

Review source: US DVD

Screenshot source: US DVD

Title information

• Production company: Zero-G Room
• Year of release: 1996

Alternative titles:

• 装鬼兵MDガイスト2 デスフォース, "Sokihei M.D. Gaisuto 2 desufousu" <Soldier-garbed demon/Demon in soldier's skin: M.D. Geist 2 Death Force> (Japan)

Makyou Gaiden Le Deus

As we've seen through such titles as Baoh, M.D. Geist, The Humanoid and others, the Original Video Animation was a sub genre of anime that usually worked to promote a manga or to act as a vehicle for artists and vocalists alike, very often they were no more than one-offs that had enough budget to make for a decently-animated 40 minutes or more, which typically jeopardized story in many cases. OVAs were a bit like mini-movies in that regard, and were much more digestible than full-fledged anime series, they were good for the video crowd. Cybernetics Guardian left me wanting more, while The Humanoid simply embellished the fact some OVAs could have done with being much longer, let's see which of these the 1987 release Makyou Gaiden Le Deus/魔境外伝レ・ディウス falls into.

Opening to an abstract depiction of water ripples and a neon outline of a tree, we learn that we're looking into the Eye of Zalem, an ancient lens that has fallen into the hands of treasure hunter Riot and his two twin female companions, Spica and Seneca. This lens is needed for a treasure called Rido, that lies in Zalem, however, there's another Eye of Zalem, that someone in Zigoa is holding on to. Cue what must be the most simplistic title sequence ever, which is nothing but the Eye of Zalem spinning on its axis, at least the shading on it is utterly gorgeous, and it's set to a catchy song. Riot meets his target, a girl called Yuta la Caradeen, the granddaughter of a man called Randall, who he got the first Eye from. However, they are hounded by a group of demons known as the Demsters, who previously murdered Randall, and are the foot soldiers of Kaiser, a heavyset brute who wants to use the powers of the Rido treasure for evil (obviously). During a break at the beach, Riot tells Yuta that Rido is the treasure left behind by the Quall civilization, and it has the power to rejuvenate life. Riot is only searching for it so it doesn't fall into the hands of Kaiser and his Demsters, plus, he wants to use its powers to bring his sister out of suspended animation.

The next morning though as they arrive at the ruins of Zalem, they are ambushed by the Demsters and their giant robots, who successfully kidnap Yuta and steal the two Eyes of Zalem. With Yuta in the grasp of Kaiser, Riot makes it his mission to rescue her and to stop Kaiser from abusing the power of Rido as he gains access to it. However, he's too late, and Kaiser's damage is too much to be undone as the underground realm of the Zalem collapses in on itself, Spica and Seneca call for Riot's giant robot, Le Deus, to combat the last of the Demsters in their own giant robots.

Directed by Hiroshi Negishi (the same animation director who worked on Roots Search of all things) and penned by Hideki Sonoda, Le Deus is a decent little piece that is very characteristic of late 80s Japanese fantasy, but with a myriad of problems. Like with many OVAs, Le Deus suffers from a case of having too much in too little time; the world the title takes place in feels more deserving of a bigger exploration and the sci-fi elements feel tacked on to give this thing more advertising power, as the giant robots have only been added in to give this thing some fanservice for the mech crowd, the titular Le Deus robot not appearing until the final ten minutes, making it feel very useless. Additionally, this same robot appears to be docked inside of some kind of giant alien whale, without so much as a few words on why. Worst of all though is how the subplot with Riot's sister is completely painted over after it's mentioned, and Kaiser's unknown boss essentially has no reason for appearing at all. I'm all up for Riot's magical bandage though, which he can even turn into a sword. Characters themselves are derivative with Riot being the fiery and cocky young adventurer and Kaiser being bad for the sake of being bad (at least he's not Governor Proud of The Humanoid, who took the archetype to stupefying levels of badness), but that's not to say they're unlikable, though much like the sci-fi element, the Demsters are near-pointless additions, with the three most important ones not even being named.

Voice acting is all well and good with the casting containing among its ranks Norio Wakamoto as Kaiser because he was in just about EVERYTHING in the 80s, and Kazuki Yao as Riot who has quite a list to his name, as does Yuko Mizutani as Yuta (she was the Japanese dub voice for Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Like with just about every OVA, Le Deus feels more like a pilot that is a giant compressing of every idea that was meant to go into a longer series, it's not bad at all and it's frankly nice to watch with its brightly-coloured, decent artwork and animation, music is not outstanding but it does contain three good J-Pop songs. It has to be said though the cover is a bit of a lie, showing a naked Yuta, when there's no real in-your-face nudity at all. It should be noted that this title was only released in the UK in 1995 and was called "Ladius", same thing phonetically really. Recommended for lovers of 80s anime, there's far worse that's been done with OVAs.   

• Animation: 3/5   
• Artwork: 4/5
• 80s shading: 5/5

-James, 04 March 2010 (original date)

Review source: Japanese Laserdisc

Screenshot source: Japanese Laserdisc

Power DoLLS

Power DoLLS: Detachment of Limited Line Service (パワードール) is a Japan-only series of turn-based tactics videogames released for PCs, the last sequel was released in 2004 while the first game came out in 1994, given how it's already enjoyed ten years of sequels, it can be assumed that the series is now dead. As with lots of videogames in the 90s, there were anime spin-offs made to promote them in the form of OVAs, usually the best of these OVAs were only just good, while the rest were typically bad. As I've never played a Power DoLLS game in my life, I can't really judge this two-episode OVA in similar contexts as I would with its games, as I have no familiarity with the characters, story or representation. With that out the way, let's see if there's anything good we can say about this.

As our text prologue states, in 2535 AD the Earth Government has been declared war upon by the colony world Omni because of their oppressive immigration regime. Omni converted their Power Loader work labour machines into combat units for use in the war, these adapted weapons would be picked up in 2540 AD by the elite all-female task force, DoLLS (in case you didn't notice earlier, it stands for "Detachment of Limited Line Service). This 27-minute episode primarily follows one of the DoLLS, Commander Yao Pei Lui, who rescues two kids from enemy territory because of her bleeding heart ways, despite the by-the-book ideals of her ally Phan. While this OVA by no means reaches any deep cinematic level, it pays a fair bit of attention to the opposite attitudes of these two characters, and we learn that Yao's empathy for the war orphans stems from how she grew up in an orphanage herself before going straight into the military.

After being behind enemy lines, Yao and the DoLLS are given their next mission; the recapture of Bukaju City from Earth Forces, which are using it to manufacture weapons. However, Phan's tactic does not involve going near the city, instead her plan is to explode a nearby dam to cut off all power to the city. However, in the path of the dam and its river is the evacuated Chateau Village, where Yao grew up. The DoLLS are ordered to launch their operation at midnight and drop into an enemy area to clean up and secure the dam, before going into the hot zone, Yao recalls back to how her father died in the construction of the dam after promising it'd keep them both safe. Phan teases her over how her kindess is likely to get her killed in combat, what a nice friend.

As they touch down in a small town, Yao's Power Loader crashes and loses mobility, but insists they continue the operation while she makes a break for it, leaving a present for the encroaching enemy forces. As the rest of the DoLLS go to detonate the dam, Yao finds her old to reminisce on the good times. Thinking she's an awful daughter, Yao decides to stay in the cabin to let the flood from the dam take her away. Her commander however, saw this mission as a good opportunity for Yao to put her personal problems aside, and knows where she is, instead of being at the rendezvous point. Just as the dam explodes, the DoLLS pick Yao up from her father's cabin and head back home.

This first episode actually isn't too bad, for what its worth with its short run time and limited cast, it squeezes in some decent characterization; Phan is not as cold as she first comes off and shows some real concern and warmth to Yao, and the commander (Captain Hardy) isn't a bad character herself. We don't see much of the other characters, they were probably just stuck in to please fans of the games with cameos essentially, but Yao is a decent focus character. However, the artwork falters a bit at times but isn't ugly, though the animation is fairly average and slightly awful at times. The music is nothing special either, but the dub is actually quite good, featuring dialogue that's better than the original Japanese script as well as including a few slightly funny moments (I like how the Power Loader's computer says "goodbye" just before it self-destructs, I also like the surreal nod to Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I'm not sure as to whether it makes this thing feel a bit more reality-grounded or whether it takes it out of its own world). For an anime with an all-female cast, I like how it doesn't go down the pathetic route of forcing fanservice down your throat; a bit of a disappointment for those into that, but it certainly helps the overall quality of this thing. 

The mecha and character designs aren't bad but probably aren't best depicted here and probably look better with the games' artwork, this is not a must-see. If you do watch it, make sure to watch it dubbed, it will make it more enjoyable.

• Art: 3/5
• Mechanical design: 3/5
• Action: 2/5

I would make the ratings for this one humorous, but there's not much to say...

-James, 26 January 2010 (original date)

Review source: US DVD
Screenshot source: US DVD

Mars of Destruction

In our quest to disprove M.D. Geist as the worst anime ever like the biased fans we are, we have been looking for some of the truly worst that Japan has to offer for their animation medium. Among Roots Search and The Humanoid, as well as a number of others we are yet to review, we have another addition to the list; the blinkingly short 20-minute Mars of Destruction/破滅のマルス. At the very least, our aforementioned examples of brain-achingly bad anime at least had production values, Mars of Destruction on the other hand? It's not 20-minutes long for nothing you know.

Taking place in the far distant year of... 2010 (wow it feels weird when you're reviewing something like that now), we're treated to a static shot of a shapeless space ship re-entering the earth's atmosphere. Of course it doesn't really move, it just seems to hover above the earth as the pilots chat about unimportant things. Apparently this ship is the Mars Exploration Vessel (if Koichi Ohata was behind this in his 80s mindset it'd probably be called "MARS PENETRATOR"), they're apparently taking some artefact back to earth because it holds secrets, somehow. Unfortunately, their ship burns to a crisp unspectacularly.

A text crawl reveals to us that several months have passed since the debris of the ship fell to earth and strange incidents have been happening in Tokyo, it then cuts to three VERY badly-drawn girls in unimaginative uniforms pointing guns at two creatures covered in black with red glowy bits, they're apparently called "Ancients". Why? This anime is too half-assed to give a reason. The Ancients fire yellow energy beams, and take one of the girls' heads clean off, but it's just a hilarious-looking geyser of static blood shooting upward; anime often gets a lot of shit for its highly-unreleastic depictions of the human body spurting too much blood, but this one just takes the cake, the fucking thing doesn't even arc out or rain down, it just keeps shooting up! But enough attention to pathetic detail, the two remaining girls take on the Ancients in a pretty un-stunning fight thanks to how the limited animation makes M.D. Geist 2: Death Force look big budget. Suddenly, an armoured being called Takeru appears to try his hand at dispatching the Ancients (the muffled voice of Takeru inside the armour sounds really pathetic).

He's wounded and taken into the hospital, as is the girl who just had her head blown off, to which the doctor says "this one is totally gone" and puts a blanket over her, gee I never would have guessed that a beheaded person could still be alive. The anime takes this opportunity to give us some expository farting around and reveals that the armour Takeru was wearing was called "The MARS" (as ordered by his dad, but this is never referred back to), it's never mentioned why it's all in capitals by the way (another parenthesized mention is that Takeru's unseen dad apparently hits him in his flashback but we only hear the sound of his arm swinging, no connection, and he still feels pain it seems). Takeru and the girls work for AAST, the "Anti-unidentified Ancients Special Team" (because that rolls right off the tongue and makes perfect sense right?), which is made up of various police organizations (so I guess in 2010, police forces are made up of teenage girls), this extra bit of sloppy exposition still doesn't tell us why the monsters are called Ancients, instead it just shows more embarrassingly-dull clips of the girls trying out different weapons. Takeru is mentioned that he used to be a "typical high student" (I'm groaning just at how lazily this is written) before he joined ASSED, but for some reason, no one knows why he wears MARS or why he fights with them, because when you're in a special task force, you don't keep note of your squad mates, correct?

ASSED have to escort the remains of the ship or something, we get a solid minute of filler until one of the police cars is blown up by an Ancient's laser. Takeru steps into some crucifix-shaped chamber (because I bet that totally represents something relevant to the story) to get suited up in the MARS armour and is dispatched while some cop is torn up by the Ancients. Their leader is with them, and so joins in on the fun of killing characters as nameless and as faceless as they are. Takeru joins in at failing to do anything against the enemy, until it's defeated thanks to a gun being pulled out of the big hole of Deus ex Machina. Elsewhere in America presumably, some doctor with a crazy hairdo and a wrinkled guy talk about how humanity's development was influenced by the DNA of the homo sapiens that originally lived on Mars, the wrinkled guy says something about humans originating from Japan, I have no idea. Meawnhile, the alien leader gets up and tells Takeru that "no Takeru, YOU are the invaders", because he was one of the original earthlings released by the virus that wiped out the martians (it's not specified, I don't know what you should expect). He's shot to shit by the other girls, which makes his top half explode, and it ends.

In all fairness, this OVA was made to promote an equally low-budget PS2 game that never left Japan, but if you're going to make something so risible and uninteresting, why bother? Unless I have a dire need to learn about the terribly dull and air-thin characters, this thing would not persuade me to pick up the game, nor does it intrigue me about the mystery of the enemy. The animation is only a step away from being entirely static and acting as a slideshow, with much of the visuals being made up by garish digital effects that just make it even more of an eyesore. The character designs are the epitome of generically done anime characters and have to be the most un-fascinating pieces of artwork ever, with each female character lacking any real charm other than how they're just a lazy stab at trying to appeal to the crowd who like 'cute' 2D girls while Takeru himself even looks like a girl. The music is unnoticeable except for a few (a few is the entire soundtrack) that are just MIDI versions of classical pieces and the voice-acting is plainly bad.

• Animation: -1/5
• Sound: 0/5
• LOOK IT'S FUCKING BAD OKAY?

-James, 20 January 2010 (original date)

Review source: Fan-subtitled Japanese DVD
Screenshot source: Fan-subtitled Japanese DVD

Dog Soldier: Shadows of the Past

I love Tetsuya Saruwatari, the man has consistently provided some of the most imaginatively violent manga ever with great artwork, and has never succumbed to the ilk of cute art styles, he's very underrated, and I almost like how the standard anime and manga fans don't know of him. The man did the artwork for the manga Violence Hero Riki-Oh, which is most famously known for its Hong Kong movie adaptation, Riki-Oh: Story of Ricky. Saruwatari has a great mastery of surprising the reader simply with how outrageous his depictions are, and if there's ever a moment of bad writing, good god the man can be forgiven for his works being so supremely awesome. The best part is, he still works today.

Perhaps his third most well-known franchise in the west is Dog Soldier/ ドッグソルジャー, and that's only because of the vaguely known 1989 OVA, so yeah, not a lot of people really even know it. It also doesn't help that searching for it online will most likely bring up the horror movie Dog Soldiers, or if you're lucky, another movie called Dog Soldiers about actual soldiers, which is also known as Who'll Stop the Rain. The manga has never been translated but I have been looking through it in its original Japanese; while I can't really decipher the plot, I can tell it's about two elite soldiers known as John Kyosuke Hiba and his friend Masami Fudou being routinely hired by a guy called Takechi to do little dirty jobs all around the world, Takechi regularly gets punched in the face by the two and they usually provide comic relief together when things aren't being serious. The manga is extremely violent and follows a bit of a villain-of-the-week format, and is also quite stupid. It contrasts a bit to the predominant seriousness of Riki-Oh (even though that manga is fucking crazy), it's still highly enjoyable.

The OVA on the other hand? It's a disappointment, and I really wouldn't care for its flaws if it was overly violent, but it really fails to emulate the energy of the manga, and Saruwatari's token extreme violence is nowhere to be seen. In fact, the whole thing is a mess; a cheaply-animated, uncompelling mess that really knows how to make a basic story sound difficult to follow.

The story is about a former green beret called John Kyosuke Hiba and his friend Fudou who are trying to make a living as blue collar workers, but they're called back into action when an American scientist is kidnapped along with her briefcase that contains the cure for AIDS by an arms dealer. The scientist is an old friend of John, a woman called Cathy, but his interest is really sparked when he learns that the arms dealer is a man called Makoto Allen Takamura; in "the slums of LA" when they were just children, these three all stuck together. How Cathy and Makoto ended up in such high positions with this background I'll never know. Makoto, going under the pseudonym of Phantom, sets John and Fudou up on his island while he attempts to auction off the cure for AIDS to all atendees representing third world nations. John and Fudou of course, beat everything Makoto throws at them, but the Americans arrive to start levelling the island, so the representatives attending Makoto's auction all make an escape.

This of course rubs Makoto the wrong way, who makes his own escape with Cathy and the vaccine, only to be halted by John (no Fudou here). Makoto and John engage in a knife duel, but to stop Makoto killing John, Cathy in traditional tragedic character fashion, runs in front of his blade. This leads to her giving a dying monologue on how the two were apparently both the objects of her affection. Being the speech-giving villain, Makoto laughs maniacally and tells them both that the vaccine was a fake all along. Furious, John charges toward Makoto while being fired at, leaps and lands on Makoto's shoulders to thrust his knife into his forehead. It is at this moment Makoto makes a hilarious noise that makes it sound like he's being sick. John pulls out the knife and walks away, only for, Makoto to start talking...

In a dying monologue that's flat-out unbelievable compared to all others, Makoto tells his old friend that he became an arms dealer because Americans killed his Japanese mother and white father, so his plan was to make it look like the Americans have a real vaccine, in hopes that it would turn all other countries against the US. In all honesty, the plot to this is not all that bad, but there's so much going on in the space of 45 minutes it's all been ham-fisted together, and is therefore a bit difficult to all take in at first, especially when it feels like there's just way too many holes in this thing. It's really begging to provide some intrigue and character depth, especially with the history the three central characters all share together, but it just can't. I'm not sure whether to blame this on Saruwatari or the writer of this OVA, Shou Aikawa, as I have not gotten very far into the manga. Aikawa has apparently been accused of being anti-American over this, and I can see why, but still, I'd rather clarify first. The fact that John is meant to be the very best of the best is barely touched upon in some overly unimpressive battle sequences, and Fudou is almost entirely purposeless. Oh yeah, "death merchant" must be a real occupation as Makoto is referred by it ALL THE TIME.

The whole thing is wonderfully dated as it is, what with the whole theme of AIDS being something that will kill us all and Cold War, and how John Hiba is such a blatant copy of John Rambo (as if the name wasn't enough). As well as the richly stereotypical idea of him growing up in America's rougness overlooking the glamour of Beverly Hills. Of course, a lot of this all comes from how Saruwatari used to be in the 80s with a fairly amusing view of America, it should also be noted that stupidity like Makoto's death was also a trademark of Saruwatari, in fact Makoto's body should have just given away if he was holding the full weight of a man on his shoulders. By the way, Fudou's stupid haircut originates from the manga, in which it's sliced down the middle by a bladed boomerang. Clearly, this was aimed strictly at Japanese fans, but due to a possible lack of regulation when things like this were being released overseas by the likes of CPM, background research probably didn't happen, meaning things like this were sold to an uninformed crowd.

The animation is very bad for 1989, recycling several pieces many times over and looking generally lifeless, even the colouring is bad, everything seems to have a pale, blue-ish or washed-out tint to it (notice the running theme in these screenshots already?). Fight scenes are poorly laid out and are not eye-catching, and even though violent things are happening, they just don't feel violent. They lack the gore and 'HOLY SHIT' factor that were both quite abundant in the manga. Much of the music is not memorable, some of it is good but the best piece is the end credits song that kinda fits the solemn mood established at the end. The voice cast of this features some notable stars of the anime business, such as Akira Kamiya and Norio Wakamoto, a dub of this exists and if you are interested enough you can purchase it here, I have never seen it myself but am somewhat interested to do so. Dog Soldier is a title that has been completely swept under the rug and will most likely stay that way, it is an extremely weak OVA, but as a Tetsuya Saruwatari fan, and someone who just loves older anime, I can't bring myself to fully hate this. By all means check out the manga online even if it is untranslated, it's highly recommended for fans of things that draw heavy influence from Rambo.

• Music: 3/5
• Knife usage: 3/5
• Being as good as the manga: 0/5 

-James, 13 November 2009 (original date)

Review source: US Laserdisc
Screenshot source: US Laserdisc

The Humanoid

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of modern anime; the fascination I had with how anime was it all seemed so new, dark and more inspired in the 90s, it's something of a nostalgia trip. Hence why I prefer older anime in general, plenty of classics and nothing as embarrassing as the content that's pumped out today to feed the scary otaku stereotype of modern times. That's not to say all old anime was good though.

The Humanoid was shit, is shit and forever will be a load of shit, much like Roots Search, but I'll be damned if I let this festering piece of trite go to waste without giving it the attention it deserves, because it has a charm. Let it be known that there is nothing good about this OVA, but it's not like the bland title was an indicator of anything good, if anything it was something of a herald of the crap in store (ザ・ヒューマノイド 哀の惑星レザリア apparently translates to "The Humanoid: Sorrow of Planet Lazeria", a step fancier).

Opening up marvelously is a prologue text crawl that's done in the style of Star Wars, at least my ears have not been assaulted by obnoxious trumpets. This useless bit of exposition tells us that on the planet Lazeria, humans live alongside this race of people called the Megalosians, this plot point is pretty purposeless however as the Megalosians are pretty much just humans and the fact they're Princess is there is not touched upon at all, at best these people sound like an old genus of shark.

We're soon introduced to Alan, a guy whose intro tells us he may as well have been in charge of coffee commercialism because it's pretty clear throughout that he fucking loves coffee, enough to put it on a philosophical pedestal. Alan is part of the two-man crew of ship unknown with a mullet-toting guy called Eric, the two of them are bringing supplies back to a scientist called Dr. Watson who resides on Lazeria and Eric can't wait to see his girlfriend there.

Upon this, I'm attacked by what may be the most hilariously garish multi-colour title card ever with mundane footage set to the epitome of generically uninspired 80s pop songs with equally bland gratuitous English. We're introduced to more characters we'll never care for, it doesn't help that their designs are appallingly dull, with all the male characters looking as realistic as can be for this thing's artwork while all the girls have this Magical Girl look about them in which their eyes are unattractively huge. It's distracting and opposes the art style of the male characters, because it makes it feel like you're watching them in a separate world of exaggerated cartoon women. Oh, more coffee fetishism to end the scene.

After remarking like idiots at how temple ruins apparently shouldn't exist in the jungle, Alan and Eric are chased by fighter planes as they leave their ship as it plummets to make a crash landing, it's funny that one of the planes breaks its wing by hitting tree foliage. Meanwhile, some evil brooding asshole called Governor Proud reveals that he wants to dig up an old ship known as the Ixion to one of his ministers called Libero so he can use it to travel back to Planet Megalos, the bald old Libero tells him that last time he explored the ruins of this ship all life was destroyed in the area because of a disaster, even though he's still around to talk about it.

Alan and Eric eventually reach Dr. Watson's lab on foot and we finally meet Antoinette, the robotic star of this snoozefest. She's meant to develop human emotions and have a personality but she's really just pushed aside, also, there's quite a lot of bickering scenes between Eric and his girlfriend Sheri that hardly moves the plot at all.  

The next day, Alan and Eric leave to repair their crashed ship in the jungle. Eric, being a curious gimp, leaves to go check up on the ruins only to find they're occupied by General Proud's robot forces. He's taken prisoner, as is every other character in this because Proud is a dick and wants nothing to get in his way of re-activating the Ixion (which appears to literally be a load of blocks from these ruins). With this, it's up to Antoinette to save the day. Proud makes a getaway to the ruins of the Ixion with the two keys he needs to activate it. Unfortunately, the moment it is activated, all hell breaks loose and he dies, it's all up to Antoinette and the only good 80s song in this OVA to shut down the Ixion. Doing so (sadly, I guess) kills her, and all the characters who aren't dead go home. The thing ends with some poppycock read by Dr. Watson about how machines have life too.

It baffles the mind how so many OVA directors simply slipped up in telling a good story, but the odd 40-minute time frame that appeared to be the norm for these features must have definitely been a drawback. The Humanoid's story however, is a meandering mess that could have been a good tale of a robotic creation learning how to be human with it only to end in tragedy. It doesn't though, thanks to the very vague and incredibly sluggish plot, so Antoinette is essentially a side character. It's almost hilarious how Eric breaks into tears at Antoinette's death, as if we're meant to have accepted these two really knew each other when they hardly spent much time on screen together. Oh yeah, Antoinette cries somehow too. Proud himself is the stockest of stock villains complete with an evil cackle and a motivation that's never really explained other than to be a bitch for everyone else, the most compelling character in this is Alan with his coffee obsession. 

This one is not as outright atrocious as Roots Search, but it's near there. The artwork varies from being interesting to being overwhelmingly dull; none of the locations are intriguing or eye-catching, the shading and the mechanical designs are probably the best thing about this, and even then, the latter of the two still isn't very captivating. Antoinette is the best-looking thing in this, being designed by Hajime Sorayama of robot pin-up fame, whose art is generally excellent. There are a few moments in which the animation is smooth, but for the most part, it's incredibly rough. Colouring is never consistent, as the tints of scenes repeatedly change, much like the oppositional character designs, it's very distracting. Worse, you will often see black borders, largely at the top of the screen, where the animation cuts off with the badly adjusted framing, it reeks of sheer poor quality. The music excels in how average it is, with the song during Antoinette's final scene being the only good thing on the soundtrack, in fact, there's not even a lot of music in this, which would explain the apparent absence of any OST release (I actually found out there was one, interestingly it contains early artwork of its characters). The dub of this however, isn't too bad, but it's pretty much the only thing making it really good.

This thing apparently had the distinction of being "released for the first time in the UK" when it got its Region 2 release as if it was a good thing, it's also funny how the back states that footage of this anime was apparently used in Madonna's Drowned World tour, so I guess it got lucky to be used in such a way, too bad no one seems to remember it. Upon doing some digging, The Humanoid was actually pretty fortunate to get quite a few follow-up releases in the form of books, particularly art ones, I would strongly suspect this thing looked a lot better in its conceptual stages, as bad as it may be, at least it's still a good step above Roots Search.

• Mechanical design: 3/5
• Story: 1/5
• Coffee: 5/5 

-James, 12 December 2009 (original date)

Review source: US DVD
Screenshot source: US DVD

Southern Cross

Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross is one of those shows which seems to dwell in the greyest areas of anime limbo; The devout fans of the show are few and far between and its legacy as part of Carl Macek's legendary Robotech has given the show somewhat of a bad reputation. When I was an impressionable youth at the age of thirteen, Robotech for me was like a breath of fresh air in amongst my quickly dying interest in current television which still persists to this day. This could also explain why my taste in media is not very diverse. Admittedly, the Macross portion of the show was my personal favourite and I subsequently went on to adore its Japanese counterpart as well as the movie Do You Remember Love? which currently stands as one of my favourite animated films Japanese or not.

Despite the universal admiration of Macross, there was little if any fanfare for the middle portion of Robotech created from Southern Cross. In fact even in Japan, the show was a flop and only through Carl Macek's intervention the show had potential to be somewhat profitable. The history of Southern Cross is fragmented and sadly little information on the show has been published in and outside Japan, however I will do my best to explain its origins.

Southern Cross was released in 1984 and was the third instalment in the 'Super Dimensional' trilogy of TV shows (which are all unrelated apart from staff similarities), preceded by Macross and Orguss. It was the least successful of the three with low ratings making the show last a fraction of its original and much longer intended length at only 23 episodes. It was later adapted and edited as part of Robotech in 1985 as 'The Masters Saga' bridging the gap between the newly edited Macross and Mospeada story arcs. The unfortunate failure of this show remains somewhat of a mystery as their is next to no information on why it failed. Its a crying shame too, as I believe Southern Cross to possibly be the most misunderstood mecha show that was released in the 1980s.

The show takes place in the year 2120, mankind has colonized new planets in order to escape from an apocalyptic war that waged during the end of the 21st century. Leaving the Sol solar system, mankind now resides on two worlds known as Liberte and Gloire the latter planet being the setting for the show. Our main protagonists are individuals in the vast Glorian army of the Southern Cross as they face their first great adversary. An alien race known as the Zor prepare for a full scale invasion of Gloire in order to take back the planet of their birthplace which they themselves polluted originally. The main objective of the Zor as well as reclaiming the planet is obtaining a plant which is the race's power source known as the Protozor; despite being technologically advanced they are slowly dying both in a physical and psychological sense.

One of the things that right off the bat seperates Southern Cross from its contemporaries is that the most predominant protagonists in the show are strong willed military women. Firstly we have Jeanne Francaix a brash and reckless liutenant with a distinctive blonde afro. Throughout the series she grows and matures in character from a likeable if very abrasive girl into a capable and very much mature commander of her squad, the 15th Tactical Armoured Corps.

Secondly we have our resident tough chick with black mullet, Marie Angel once a former biker gang leader now ace fighter pilot. Right from the start of the show she rivals Jeanne in terms of power constantly teasing her ability to command. The most spirited of the three female protagonists, Marie never has quarrels in dealing with airborne alien foes nevermind her notoriety as a 'man-eater' (or Cosmo Amazon if you go by the show).
Thirdly we have duty-bound law enforcer Lana Isavia, another young woman but a high ranking officer in the Gloire Military Police. Defined very much as a no-nonsense spook, she regularly oversees much of the 15th squadron's activities particularly Jeanne and the two have a friendly relationship evern if their ideals however tend to clash on various occasions. Seeing as how distinctive hairstyles are the norm with these women, Lana sports gigantic, waist length blue hair (sometimes green on certain artwork) and a similarly dark uniform with red cape to boot.

The rest of the characters are mainly made up of the rest of Jeanne's budding squadron and tend to fit in with various mecha character archetypes. Firstly we have the youngest cadet Bowie Emerson who would have preferred to be a musician than forced into the military by his calculative father Rolf, one of the chief officers of the Southern Cross. Secondly we have our resident techie Louis Ducasse who comes complete with giant goggles. Charles De Etouard is the groups ladies man and Andrjz Slawski is the experienced, muscular giant of the group often being bewildered by Jeanne's actions.

Behind the scenes of the war with Rolf is the stubborn supreme commander of the Southern Cross, Claude Leon a man who would never risk giving up Gloire and wishes to annihilate the Zor at all costs. Later on in the show we are also introduced to a soldier hypnotized by the Zor and used for their own ends as a spy named Seifriet. He begins his role in the show as the main commander of the Zor mecha known as the Bioroids, interestingly enough his Bioroid colour is red similar to Char Aznable's Zaku in the original Mobile Suit Gundam which might have inspired the mecha designers. After failing numerous times in dealing with the Southern Cross, Seifriet is sent down to regain his former memories and infiltrate the planet unwillingly extracting data for the Zor commanders. After forming a close relationship with Jeanne, he eventually seeks revenge against the Zor for their experiments and endangering the Glorian populace. Along with Jeanne, Seifriet is undoubtedly the most developed character of the series and could be considered the show's tragic hero. Even though his purple glam rock hair will never be taken seriously.

In terms of the protagonist character development, Southern Cross is admittedly a little mixed in this regard. Jeanne, Marie and Lana are mostly well developed throughout the show playing off one another well. Each of them were for the time unique in that they were military women in control rather than on the sidelines catering to the male characters. In particular these characters grow in personality so that by the end they have become different people by the end of the conflict. Although Jeanne gets the spotlight more here than her rivals. The other characters while mostly on the side are interesting in how they react to Jeanne's actions even if some of the characters aren't very three dimensional. For example, Bowie as the youngest cadet over time seeks counsel with Jeanne in a relationship similar to that of two siblings. However along with the relationship between Jeanne and Seifriet, Rolf and Claude also form a rift in ideals. Rolf on one hand is a tired military general who wants to end the war without resorting to brute force and wishes to learn more about the Zor. On the other hand Claude believes that the protection of Gloire means the utter destruction of the Zor.

The Zor themselves also have a few main characters at their side, however I thought I would explain as to what makes them alien. In terms of design they are your standard humanoid aliens characterised by pale skin and odd coloured hairstyles; a common feature in most space opera anime. Their main distinction from the humans however is that each Zor has two clones of themselves and thus they act as a trinity; each Zor has a role within the trinity that if broken would cause a psychological collapse. These attributes are: decision, action and information. Firstly we have the Zor commanders who resemble elderly monks, they are unemotional and draconian ceasing to care about anything other than their races survival. The commanders also have various assistants that are mainly scientists once again striking odd designs and many of them are androgynous adding to the alien aesthetic. In fact as observed by the human characters, the Zor architecture is very much akin to a blend of alien cybernetics and ancient Rome right down to the various coliseums and civilian robes. Going back to the characters, the last main Zor character is a young, green-haired female named Musica who naturally has two identical sisters named Musiere and Muselle. As the name obviously implies, Musica is a musician for the Zor who at one point meets Bowie and falls madly in love with him creating an all important relationship between the Zor and the humans.

The overall design in Southern Cross is pretty unique as well as inspired and innovative. The mecha designs were created by a first-time studio called Ammonite who before only worked on television commercials; some of their concepts are interesting if pretty flawed in parts. For example, the Spartas hovertank is probably the best one of the bunch, transforming from a tank, to a gun emplacement and finally a robot form. The Spartas in general is like a futuristic chariot, bulky but by the same token articulate and powerful. However the lack of a cockpit for pilots has always puzzled me. Same can't be really said for the first few Space Corps fighters, the first type is just your average space fighter with no transformation and the other jet is the Logan which can only be described as a flying boat. It has a guardian mode but it looks incredibly goofy, later in the series it is replaced by the far better if also rather implausible space helicopter vehicle the Auroran. There are other mecha sprinkled throughout the armies of the Southern Cross such as reconnaissance mecha like the Salamander and GMP units which look similar to designs from Votoms and Gundam.

The Zor have less variants in mecha but their main mecha the Bioroids have various forms. Aesthetically as stated before they look not too dissimilar to biomechanical Zakus complete with bulging robo muscles and cockpits with breathing apparatus. They even come with a hoverboard for transport adding to their arsenal. As the show goes on especially towards the end, the Bioroids change models increasing their power and enhancing their pilots. Unlike human vehicles, bioroids are powered through their pilots transmitting their thoughts through the mecha's nervous system. The Zor also have pretty much one kind of ship, an enormous vessel which is like a mile long metal slab that is almost impenetrable as well as a magenta coloured bioroid carrier.

However arguably the best part of Southern Cross's design is the incredibly nifty and badass personal armours for the soldiers (also referred to as Arming Doublets). The army of the Southern Cross is split into several divisions from the Armoured Tank Corps, Space fighter pilots, Police officers and even marine troopers however many of the divisions outside of the main characters are rarely seen but can be found in a lot of related artwork. The armour comes across as a form of futuristic samurai uniform right down to the feudal looking headcrests and helmets on some of the outfits. Originally Southern Cross was supposed to be more of a space opera based in a futuristic version of feudal Japan so you can see where the inspirations for the personal armour came from, many of Southern Cross's more elaborate designs that were abandoned would be featured subsequently in Robotech art books based around the aborted series Robotech II: The Sentinels. As well as that some of Ammonite's work on Southern Cross and ideas for The Sentinels were also used in the Zillion anime series.

The character designs by Hiroyuki Kitazume (Gundam: Char's Counterattack) and Tomonori Kogawa (Ideon, Dunbine) once again are strange but well drawn and are memorable because of how odd some of them are. This can include Jeanne's puffy blonde afro, Marie's scruffy mullet and Lana's elegant blue wave of hair. Characters are decently proportioned so that like most good character designs kee p their shapes semi-realistic without being too lifelike nor too cartoony. No crazy post-2000 watermelon breasts here. The animation for an early 80's mecha show is mostly consistent in quality and in some parts looks rather smooth; out of the three shows that helped to create Robotech, Southern Cross was probably the best looking.
Now in terms of plot, Southern Cross is relatively slow moving; in fact this appears to be one of the main reasons why a lot of mecha fans have distanced themselves from the show. However I believe the slow pace actually helps the story rather than hinders it; this allows more room for the rather large cast of characters to be likable enough that you care for them. In fact one of the main reasons why I enjoyed Southern Cross was because of how likable the characters were and that there was far more emphasis on the planning behind the war rather than sacrifice the details for more action and fan service.

That does not mean that Southern Cross lacks action (there are several shower scenes in the early episodes aswell), as there is a decent amount and the last few episodes in particular have several large scale space fights. In terms of plotting and characters, Southern Cross actually bears many similarities to Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor in terms of laid-back but interesting characters as well as a ponderous yet intriguing story. 
Another reason why I found Southern Cross interesting was that while the show starts off with several comedic touches, the overall narrative becomes rather dark and dare I say bleak. Many of the battles in the show have massive body counts and as the story progresses, it is obvious that our protagonists are fighting a losing war against a dying yet technologically superior race.

However the main flaw of Southern Cross is quite simply it's length, particularly the ending. Now this is due to the show having low ratings to begin with and unfortunately leading to an early end. Because of this, certain plot points along characters are only expressed and explained in minor detail or analysed to quickly. Examples of this include the orgins of the Zor and Lana's relationship later on with a pilot named Brown. The ending which I admit felt rushed at points was not necessarily bad, more bittersweet than anything else. It was the kind of ending that while in some ways was satisfying, it's bleak atmosphere made me want to learn more about the fates of the characters (which in my eyes, is one of the signs of a good drama).

As stated before, Southern Cross was edited heavily in terms of plot in order to fit as the Masters Saga in the Robotech chronology. Apart from the standard name and sound changes, the overall plot was changed drastically to fit in resulting in numerous plot holes and quite frankly odd ideas. For example the character of Seifriet instead of a kidnapped human spy, is now a clone of the creator of Protoculture (see the Macross Saga part of Robotech) and Robotechnology known as Zor. The Zor are mainly referred in the Robotech chronology as both the Robotech Masters and Tirolians and come from a different planet altogether as Gloire in Robotech is considered to be Earth.

Many of these plot points clash with Southern Cross's animation which makes the narrative feel jumbled and confused. (While considered non-canon, the Robotech novels iron out a lot of the animation deficiencies). However a lot of the sombre atmosphere and well established charactes are still present in the Robotech version. The Southern Cross portion of Robotech in its animated form is a good transitional chapter however it does not hold up especially well on it's own. Even after that though, Southern Cross was used again by Carl Macek in 1986 when Cannon Films requested he would splice footage of the show with Megazone 23 Part 1 to create the rare and often hated Robotech: The Movie. But that's another story.

Little merchandise came out of the show in Japan apart from one artbook and a few model kits that are now growing fairly scarce; the Robotech toy line by Matchbox though did manage to have a small selection of the mecha including the Spartas and Bioroids. There has been no sequels or related OVAs produced after the original show. Only small continuations of the Robotech story with Southern Cross characters can be found, specifically some of the comics including the Invid War and Antarctic Press published series.

Even with all its flaws, Southern Cross is a show that I personally have a huge soft spot for. If I had the chance to finish one show that was canceled, it would be this one. The plot to me is one of the better and more engrossing examples in the medium; as well as that the characters and themes that run through were rather unconventional for the time and still hold up surprisingly well for me. At times for me the show even felt ahead of its time in its design and narrative execution. Like Macross, I even felt the romantic elements worked well with in the narrative too. Put simply it may not be a masterpiece, but to me is a misunderstood relic that begs to be rediscovered. I am not afraid to say it, I adore Southern Cross.

• Characters with funky hair: 4/5
• Transforming hovertanks: Badass
• Chances of otakus giving it another chance: Sadly not likely 

-Oli, 03 January 2010 (original date)

Review source: US DVD
Screenshout source: US DVD