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

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)

M.D. Geist (original)

You might be wondering why I have chosen to write a separate M.D. Geist review, when already I have written an article that talks quite thoroughly about the entire series. I didn't really review anything, and for a while I've wanted to. If you really want information on this title, go check out my other article, as this is going to be a straight-up review of the untouched 1986 version, warts and all.

Our story begins with a text crawl stating that the "Christian Era" (AKA Anno Domini) has come to a close,  additionally, humans have taken over many planets, but political unrest is still alive, especially on the planet Jerra. It's comforting to know such thought has been weaved into this story already, but let's stop for a moment and skip ahead; M.D. Geist is a 40-minute one-off OVA in which setting and scope has had to be compressed to allow some of the more exploitative elements run freely. Given that, the thin plot is almost entirely acceptable, but let's move on.

The title opens to a bombed-out road literally strewn with skeletons, much like in The Terminator. An aircraft patrols overhead, later revealed to be part of the Nexrum forces, its crew are a bit nervous about the next battle. Suddenly though, a grappling hook attaches itself to the hull of the aircraft, and the pilots find they have an unexpected visitor hanging on. It is of course, Geist, who hurls himself up to the cockpit (funny thing is they make mention about the area being haunted with ghosts, and all of a sudden a man with the German word for ghost as his name pops up to say 'boo' with a rocket launcher). Yes, Geist, grinning, fires a rocket into the cockpit, decapitating one of the pilots (actually his face is probably just being consumed by the blast, but isn't it funny to think of a rocket taking someone's head off?) as it shoots through the ship, blowing up a load of passengers and then he starts blazing bullets into the falling wreckage! Did he really have three guns in one or is it just bad continuity? The reality is something most people miss, and it's that Geist had the rocket launcher on his back all along, it's just seen too briefly, the machinegun also had a grappling hook attachment. The ship starts blowing up and descends while Geist falls freely through the air, the ship eventually becoming engulfed in fire as it crashes. Walking out of the flames is of course, Geist, but with a bullet wound in his head. Either he's just that invincible or he used some sort of make-up. What has to be noted here is the close-up of him is quite obviously just an animator sliding a cel of him up and down until his expression changes, oh dear.

As Geist grins at the camera, synth music and some guitar begins to kick in, as a fairly stiffly-written English display reveals that Geist is a super soldier as created in a genetics experiment, and even though the whole purpose was that he was meant to have extraordinary fighting ability and to be the most dangerous, he was just more hardcore than all the other soldiers and had to be imprisoned in an orbital satellite. This opening is written better than most Engrish eccentricities in anime, but still comes off as a little silly. For whatever reason (probably because of Jerra's undoubtedly eroded atmosphere), Geist's satellite is falling to the surface after the many years he's been away, all the while the awesome Hironobu Kageyama song "Merciless Soldier" plays in the background, its lyrics summing up Geist fairly well. What an entrance this guy has gotten so far; first blowing the shit out of a plane in the most insane way possible, and then by us being shown to his naked ass.

Cutting from that is a biker gang cruelly chasing down an armoured soldier and firing chained spikes through him, before their leader, a huge, nameless Barry White-lookalike hurls a spear through his throat. By the leader's side is his honey Vaiya, but we'll see differently in a minute. The gang want the dead soldier's armour, but stepping out of the blue to claim ownership like any predatory beast, is Geist, who has probably already killed someone to get his clothes. The big boss of the gang offers to let him in or let Geist beat him in a fight. In a single move, Geist slices off both of the guy's hands before shoving the knife into his opponent's skull, he even has enough energy left him to spit out a shocked "you bastard!" before falling down (I actually really like the small details here, such as how the boss [who is actually called Golem according to the comics] is so stiffened with shock that his upper body doesn't move as he falls on his knees, I genuinely mean that too).
Geist helps himself to the armour, only to catch the attention of Vaiya, who offers him a place to stay; yes, she has no time to mourn for the loss of a companion and instead kicks him in the head, she's all about electing the new tough bastard as leader. Geist is swayed by how she has contacts with both sides of the army (the other side being the Regular Army, that Geist was part of), but it's probably obvious that his leadership of the gang is the last thing he gives a damn for. Later at night, the rest of the gang don't like the guy at all, for Vaiya it's different, as she tries to bed him. Interestingly enough, it's quite evident that Vaiya does not see attachment through feelings and more through physical strength, so with Geist's sheer invulnerability, she can't resist herself. This is seen throughout, and in particular a bit more in the Director's Cut, I actually do consider it a good character point and that it reflects Jerra's current social standards among the hoodlums who have no restrictions and just need to stay alive. Despite her attempts to arouse him, Geist has gotten what he's needed out of her, and promptly hurls her off the bed.

Moving onward, Geist is now clean-shaven with freshly cut hair, but looking badass as usual. A massive Regular Army landtank is under fire from Nexrum mechs and Vaiya's plan is to help out either side in hopes of them receiving some money, so it looks like there is at least still a surviving economy on Jerra. Vaiya thinks Geist should go side with the Nexrum's new machinery, but he thinks they can get more out of helping the weaker party, and opts to aid the Regular Army tank. Heading the tank is Col. Krutes who is trying to fight off the enemy machines that are clinging to his ship and ripping it apart. Geist zooms past on his motorbike and shoots down a few of the Nexrum mechs, and just as he passes Krutes' turret, the old colonel seems to recognise Geist immediately, particularly by spotting his dog tag. After knocking a female biker off her bike for no reason, Geist pretty much abuses all the other gangmembers to see to it that the Nexrum machines are destroyed, be it with spears being thrust their cockpits or by breaking in and stabbing the pilots with knives that have grenades attached to them. It's crazy, gory and the music is awesome.

Krutes invites Geist and Vaiya on board to thank them, but refuses to give them any money, which is only a blow to Vaiya as Geist couldn't care less. Krutes actually doesn't want Geist helping them as he tells his men about the MDSes, a.k.a., the Most Dangerous Soldiers, and that they were just too much to handle. Regardless, the men see Geist as a massive boon to them and Krutes has no choice but to bring him on to the mission. In a fairly strange sequence, Krutes explains that the men must invade a complex they apparently built to shut down a doomsday programme that has initiated thanks to the assassination of a president on Jerra; with this, I can only assume the complex (unforgettably known as the Brain Palace, sorta like a mangled translation of "headquarters" to me) went into total lockdown mode and wanted to ensure that no one could stop it. The doomsday weapon is Final Program D: DEATH FORCE.

In all honesty, as much as I love M.D. Geist, it feels like it falls apart a little at this point, but then again it's just trying to be an entertaining 40-minute OVA, my problem is that even for its own standards, things start slipping apart and continuity goes to shreds. Geist seems to have fully customized and gained new parts for the armour he took off the dead soldier so it looks nothing like it did previously (and looks like one of the coolest suits of armour ever), and the battle at Brain Palace is just an excuse to make quick use of his weapons, as his polearm promptly disappears after one use and he only ever uses the grenade launcher on his rifle, sticking mainly to his rocket launcher. Then again, it's most likely things were just cramped in the running time so they had to be used, that, and all those weapons like the polearm may have caused a problem for Geist. I can't fully complain though, it's an entertaining sequence with kick-ass music and Geist in his armour is so cool, it's just a shame he never got to do more with some of his weapons.

Krutes' men all die in the battle, and in a bizarre exchange between him and Geist (it's perhaps the subtitles), Krutes claims that "they're all dead! Again!", is the "again" meant to allude to something from the past? Anyway, Krutes reveals that he set up Geist up and pits him against an unstoppable robot while he goes off to be the hero, it's an interesting fight scene as the robot goes through three phases like the Final Boss of a game, and all of its forms are nicely designed. Geist defeats the last form of ripping off the power cables to his suit's engine and burying them into the robot's circuits, causing it to explode. Krutes shuts off the countdown in time, and is the big hero, he is even greeted by the smouldering, trembling robot he used against against Geist, only for it to fall over and reveal... Geist! Suspenseful this title is not. Geist crushes Krutes' face and is embraced by Vaiya, but as most people might already know thanks to the Internet, he re-activates the countdown, just to see the world burn. I have to admit, this ending is handled a little nicely, it's fun hearing the alarm sound as Geist's eyes twitch scarily when the announcement is made that the Death Force robots are being released.

Okay, I've discussed most of what I liked about the entire M.D. Geist series in my other article, so I'll just talk about the flaws with this one; the biggest of its problems is that it's obviously a woefully low-budget production, with very little revision to certain areas of animation. Some pieces are even recycled more than once. It also doesn't help that this was director Koichi Ohata's first ever feature, who was only 23 at the time and was a mechanical designer, not a director. This original episode was released with director credit being paid to Hayato Ikeda, who was apparently brought in just to assist Ohata, and that the company behind it didn't want to look bad. To me, Ikeda may as well have been a pseudonym, as he had done no work previously and he has never worked after, so it can only be assumed that he was just someone with a smidge more directorial knowledge than Ohata. There's actually a fair amount of background detail in some scenes and the animation is not too bad, though it does get ugly at a few parts.

For the record, I don't view anime any different from how I view other entertainment mediums, so I have no subconscious need to rate this one lowly just because the rest of anime is "high art", it really isn't at all. 
Amidst his fledgling ability and lack of refinement, Ohata's apparent aim at the time was to create the antithesis of typical anime, and it would appear that he's succeeded; Geist is stoic and designed to kill, thrown into the role of protagonist while being incapable of caring for anyone, therefore rejecting the token damsel and dooming the world. Vaiya is a jackal and Krutes is just barely holding together a failing platoon at the end of the world. No one is sweet and innocent; Geist kills because he was made to, Vaiya exploits and Krutes is part of the reason why Jerra is in such a mess. It's egotistical to the character and Geist's antithetical behaviour of typical heroes is celebrated; when the ending kicks in, the Kageyama song "Violence of the Flame" pretty much glorifies his beligerant style, contrasting to what should be dark. Vomited back into a nuked-out world where biker gangs kill remorselessly against a backdrop of two dying forces just killing each other for domination's sake, with only what the military programmed him to do inside his head, is there any reason for Geist to try and save it? Compared to everyone else, he's just vying to keep himself occupied. He's not so much evil, he's just killing whatever gets in his way, and with no military instituion holding him back, he may as well just make more battle for himself until he has completely ran his course. If you scratch the surface a little of its limited characters, you can find a lot.

If you love 80s OVAs, you've probably already seen this and made your opinion, but if you do like these dystopian stories set in the desert that share similarities to many exploitation movies of the 80s, of if you just want a 40-minute actioneer, check this out, it's miles above the standard of modern 'cute girl' anime today, trashy as it is.

Cybernetics Guardian

Having just come off the massive article that was G-Saviour, this one is going to be short and sweet, though I'd honestly love to make it longer.

The title of this OVA is actually Seijuki Cyguard/聖獣機サイガード, "Seijuki" meaning "Holy Beast", the "Cybernetics Guardian" part is actually a subtitle stuck on the Japanese release explaining the abbreviation. For whatever reason it became the name of the OVA when released outside of Japan, for this article it will simply be called Cyguard.

Make no mistake, Cyguard, like many 80s OVAs, is as braindead as they come (just not to the same excessive lows as Roots Search), but for that reason, it's a pretty harmless display of violence and sci-fi, the general norm of 80s OVAs, though it's not bad at all. This is one that I think is quite underrated, being the second directorial feature of Koichi Ohata, the man who will forever be notorious for angering anime fans everywhere with M.D. Geist (<3), it seems to have a bit of a negative rep against it. Being released in 1989, three years after M.D. Geist, it's a polished improvement, but not without a few faults. Most importantly though, it's entertaining, doesn't play itself up to be any bigger than it is, and delivers on being an enjoyable watch, it's just a shame this title isn't as well known.

Taking place in 2019 A.D. in the city of Cyberwood (a city that is as literal as its name makes it out to be, though it honestly looks good), a new material has been discovered (back in 1995 no less), known as Astenite, which absorbs human psycho-wave energy and is greatly beneficial when infused with technology, so things like medical treatment have greatly improved. SGC ("Central Guard Company", but oh well, Engrish prevails, I'm surprised the dub didn't alter this to something like "Sentry"), the primary user of Astenite technology has been able to harness the instinct to survive as physical energy.

John Stalker of SGC is testing the Astenite Guardian, a mechanical suit designed by his girlfriend Leyla, which will perform bloodless and non-violent arrests on the citizens of the city's slum sector, Cancer (DEEP SYMBOLISM). Rival Adler, a rich snob with crazy purple hair (if you couldn't tell he was the villain from his pale skin tone and unusual name, then you're pretty stupid) just wants to kill all the violent paupers. With that as his motive, he has hired a cult to use their supernatural forces to deal with John; his suit is exploded while he is in it. Fortunately, John gets off with only being hospitalised with a few burns while Adler is furious about how he never died; in the night though, John is kidnapped by members of the cult, which gains the attention of a rough cop named Gordon.     

Gordon drops a tip off to Adler and Leyla that John is somewhere in Cancer, Adler believes there's no hope for him, but when Leyla shows that she's confident he's alive and tells him he grew up in Cancer, Adler makes his way down there in shock; he made the grave mistake of asking the cult of Doldo to deal with John and Astenite Guardian, the same cult who implanted the "seeds of evil" into John and several other children, in hopes of one day being able to awake their god of violence and destruction, Saldo. These other people however have consequently died, and John seems to be the cult's last choice, so Adler has ultimately led them to him by asking them to dispose of him, instead they landed him in a place in which he's easy pickings. Adler, being the ignorant sod he is, just wants to kill John for coming from Cancer; he fails to, as John has already inherited the entity of Saldo and is now going on a rampage, while Leyla must find a way to purify him before Adler can go all out with a weapon of his, the "Genocyber".

The plot thankfully does not feel jammed together though certain things are not so obvious at first, its biggest downfall is that it is paced so that the silver-armoured "pure" Saldo starring on the box does not get a lot of screen time, instead we mostly see John in the evil version of the armour; granted, this is just as entertaining, but it still would have been nice to see more of the abilities of the pure armour. It feels as if the whole thing is really setting up for a bigger story (as the ending heavily hints toward), but unfortunatley, Cyguard never got a follow up (if Geist got one, this surely could have too, but alas). There really isn't a lot of characterization but that doesn't harm it too much, especially as this is a one-shot OVA. If this was a full series, I would have liked to have seen the characters be more devloped, particularly the cop character Gordon, just because he seems so cool. Despite this, Cyguard is an entertaining 40 minutes of violence, nicely original character designs, some superb art direction and smooth animation; much like the original M.D. Geist, there are some fantastic mechanical designs at work here, the Saldo armour is brilliant. The dub isn't too bad, there's nothing great but there's a few decent performances, I'm just glad it's not as bad as the dub in M.D. Geist II: Death Force. There's quite a funny scene of a mayor during his campaign in this, in which he gives quite a blatantly ridiculous talk of how Cancer needs love, only to his have head torn off.

While there unfortunately was no sequel, a model kit of the pure Saldo armour was sold in Japan. Also, this review cannot be ended without mention being made of its music; Cyguard features a gloriously awesome, 80s heavy metal soundtrack by Trash Gang that sounds utterly fantastic, I had to buy their album. I'm pained to say though it appears to be their only work, even though there is a song in the OVA that does not appear on the album, as it's some truly great metal material, I can only hope they formed into some other band. Additional music in Cyguard sounds pretty good too, but it looks like none of it was ever released. It's a shame there's not a lot on this OVA, it should really be recommend to fans of cyberpunk and anyone just looking for a quick, enjoyable title.

• Mechanical design: 4/5
• Heavy Metal: 5/5
• Strikingly obvious symbolism: Yes we get Cancer is a shithole Mr. Ohata

M.D. Geist - An overview

I am probably the biggest M.D. Geist fan in the world.

I own a Japanese poster that was packaged with its original soundtrack release on vinyl, the US release of the sequel's soundtrack, an autographed version of the graphic novel by artist Tim Eldred, the US and UK DVD releases, a Japanese book that "comic-fies" screens from the OVA, the original Japanese making-of book, and a drawing of Geist signed by its creator, Koichi Ohata himself. Now I am writing an article on it.

I am probably very much obsessed, and my love for the series is probably second only to John O'Donnell, the man who made M.D. Geist known (I am still convinced he is the only owner of the unreleased Geist resign statue). To those entirely new to the name "M.D. Geist", it has been long considered the worst anime ever, but let me explain that.

To the uninitiated, Sokihei M.D. Geist/装鬼兵M.D.ガ イスト ("Soldier-Garbed Demon") was a prominent title in the OVA boom in both Japan and America, the latter more so than the former. When it was being introduced to the west, “Japanimation” kicked the doors down upon entry and shoved animated nudity and violence in your face, to a lot of people it was fairly new stuff. For better or for worse though, Akira set the standard for anime to westeners, meaning that most titles following in its wake fell very, very short, M.D. Geist being one of many in an eager catalogue by now-defunct Central Park Media.
M.D. Geist was originally released in Japan in 1986, other than perhaps kicking off Hironobu Kageyama's singing career, it wasn't too special, being the directorial debut of Koichi Ohata, it was essentially just a vehicle for him to show off his mechanical designs with a story sewn in (as it was with almost every OVA). Even though I am a big Geist fan, I will admit that this original version is very poorly made; the animation lacks revision in some areas and some of the sound effects feel off (a metal pole falls to the ground and makes a sound like a pencil), and the music (while KICK-ASS) just about misses the mark with some faulty cue timings. To release it five years on in the west, which had already seen Akira by this point, was a bit of a recipe for disaster, regardless, M.D. Geist sold as CPM's flagship title. The reception was polarized however, with the negative slowly outweighing the positive as time went on, yet M.D. Geist was one of the most popular-selling videos in the US.
Many of the arguments against Geist nitpicked the animation, the lack of characterization and the wafer-thin story that was made up of trimmings of what felt like a bigger plot. For the most part, they have a reason to be angry, but they took it to the heights of anime elitism, which is overly a bit annoying and anally retentive. M.D. Geist's conistency for being the worst-reviewed anime seems to stem from how heavily the title was promoted, as many far worse 80s OVAs were released but never got the same amount of attention at all. It probably didn't help that Geist's presence was a bit force-fed, appearing as CPM's mascot everywhere.

John O'Donnell was the head of CPM, and his love for the title is probably what made and broke it at the same time. If it wasn't for his US release, Geist would have remained an obscurity, possibly appearing as something cool to only those digging deep enough for rare, internationally-unreleased OVAs. O'Donnell pretty much raised it to appear as if it was more than a 40-minute showcasing of violence made for the home format market; in 1995, he got the funds together to produce a tidied-up version of the original title, as well as produce a sequel. A prequel comic was created with illustrations by Tim Eldred, expanding the world of M.D. Geist just a tiny bit, along with a comic adaptation of the original OVA, that served to refine the story a bit more. They're mostly overlooked, and are fun reads with decent artwork, nothing outstanding in either areas though. The revised edition of the original, known as the Director's Cut internationally and as the Perfect Edition in Japan, contained a new prologue and epilogue, tweaked animation, as well as some entirely new minor scenes, as well as more realistic sound effects and some improved music cues. The results are technically-speaking much, much better than anything in the 1986 version, and it looks like Geist may have gotten away with a better reception.

Perhaps if O'Donnell did not commission a dub of it, because no matter his love for the title, it wasn't enough to make this dub good. Really at this point he should have just avoided making Geist seem like high art.

The Japanese re-dub that was actually done for this edition was actually terrific, with its new voice actors putting in a lot more effort for their roles, while the only good thing to really come out of the US dub was Jason Beck's awesomely deep voice. The dub uses the same script as the translated Japanese one, and therefore sounds extremely awkward. They were better off doing a whole re-write, just as long as they were getting the same message across. It also doesn't help that many of the lines are mismatched and none of the voice actors were actually conversing with the dialogue, so it just feels uneven. That said, the dub is terrible, Manga Entertainment should have really turned out something for it.

The dub only got worse however, in the sequel; M.D. Geist II: Death Force. Along with some bad casting, it uses the same directly-translated script, so all the dialogue just sounds strange coming out of an English-speaking character's mouth; there's too much emphasis on the demonization of Geist that it all sounds like old-fashioned Japanese talk, along with how the odd utterance-structure only adds to this. Whereas the original is stupidly fun, the sequel's dub is actually painful to listen to.

Death Force itself is a completely different can of worms than the original, it is usually regarded as worse, because it is mixed between Ohata's grindhouse stylings and some total pretension brought on CPM's marketing. Death Force actually has a good concept, but suffers because of its run time; it feels as if the story it is trying to tell is too big for forty-five minutes. There's a lot of characterization and plot development to be had here, but none of it really gets off the ground, and the end of it feels very rushed. At the least, Death Force visually looks brilliant throughout, with fine backgrounds along with character and mechanical designs that bring the series into a new world, and in still shots, it looks really damn good. The biggest problem with Death Force is that it was funded on scraps, and the animation really suffers from it, to the point it's almost non-existant.

Why do I like M.D. Geist so much though? I went into watching the first one expecting the very worst, but never got it, and even though I still found it to be quite poor, many of its elements were so cool. Because it was largely victim to many anime critics and there was so little over information on it, I chose to research it as much as possible. Primarily, I liked it because of the imagery it's steeped with; looking at certain promotional artwork is like looking at heavy metal album covers, Geist is an armoured bringer of death, armed with brutal weaponry and ready to send anything to hell. I wouldn't call M.D. Geist so bad it's good, because the bad elements I actually dislike, but I like it because it's so ridiculous, so atypical of anime and because its title character is so damn cool.

Furthermore, I absolutely love all the designs in this entire series, be them character or mechanical, all look good. It has to be mentioned too how the first OVA's mechanical designs appear to be a mix of different themes in a sci-fi setting; Geist's customized armour is reiminscent of a knight's suit, with a look that fully embodies Geist's barbaric nature as someone who wears the armour exclusively to celebrate battle. The Nexrum battle mechs are also worth mentioning, for how functional they appear, almost like massively heavy versions of the Scopedogs from VOTOMS. Leaving industrial territory are the likes of the robots guarding the Brain Palace, being very streamlined and looking a bit more alien in comparison to previous designs, and being overly bird-like, and the final guardian robot's three forms all look radically different, going from ornate and imperial-like to appearing alien and finally appearing skeletal, with some unique features in each form. It has to be said too that both OVAs have brilliant music; the original is fueled by blood-pumping rock that is so damn good to hear, and features two fantastic songs by Hironobu Kageyama, the mysterious-sounding and mellow "Merciless Soldier" and the crazy, hot-blooded "Violence of the Flame", a song that perfectly glamorises Geist's battlefield habitat. Death Force on the other hand feels welcomingly new, with certain tracks feeling more animalistic and its songs contributed by Yoshiaki Ohuchi fit excellently with the mood and imagery of the OVA.

M.D. Geist is far from perfect though, but it's still far from being the worst anime ever, and it does make me wish Koichi Ohata and Riku Sanjo spent a lot more time when they originally working on it to produce something much more memorable; with enough refinement, both OVAs could have probably been very good stories. Recently though, the character has seen a slight popularity resurgence, notably with him being used as a counter against the likes of K-ON and moé anime. As pretentious as CPM's promotion for the title was, it's still cool that it was the first anime to have motorbike shows advertising, along with being the first anime in the US to have phone cards produced for it. It is awesome that they also released one of the best DVDs ever because of it, but they really could have laid off of making Ohata seem like a genius auteur, realistically he was just a good artist with a penchant for making things spray blood exotically.

That said, CPM's DVD is easily the most complete source of M.D. Geist, packaged with an overwhelming amount of special features, and containing an incredibly entertaining and insightful commentary by Ohata and Sanjo themselves. ADV's DVD re-release toned down the pretension given to it by its former US distributor (their blurb is a hoot) but unfortunately, it's a very barebones release, so just get yourself the old CPM disc. It's funny that ADV picked it up anyway, as if the character has become too prominent to be allowed death yet, and now Manga Entertainment seem to hold the rights to it (even if all they've done is just host both OVAs on YouTube in their awful dubbed forms).

M.D. Geist is a charmingly memorable piece of OVA trash, but its prominence has really been a double-edged sword.

-James, 08 August 2009 (original date)