Notorious for its over the top gore, the Cyperpunk-themed Genocyber is let down by some poor creative decisions, but redeems itself by the end.
Made up of five episodes, the first is the 45-minute-long ‘A New Life’ which follows the common format of a lawless dystopia ruled by large corporations, with amoral characters and a heavy helping of over the top violence to boot. The storyline follows two psychic sisters Elaine (who has the mind of an animal) and Diana (who is missing limbs), both possess strong ESP like powers. A huge corporation known as the ‘Kuryu Group’ is attempting to fuse the two sisters together, to create the ‘Genocyber’ which is a humanoid creature with overwhelming destructive power.

Well... at least that’s what I was able to piece together from what I watched. The problem is that the pace is so fast that the story can’t catch up. I had a very vague idea of what was going on and I was left confused about the characters actions, major plot points etc. There was no breathing room whatsoever, it felt like there was gaps in the story that were filled in quite poorly by extended action scenes. I was left scratching my head at the end of this one.

The episode uses a mix of live action, real-life photographs and pencil drawings. It’s an interesting combination, and it works very well. I don’t know if it was done for budget or creative reasons but in any case it was a great choice. Easily one of the highlights of the first episode. I attempted to watch this at first using the English dub, but as is usually the case with niche OVA’s from this period it was horrible. Bad voice acting, constant F bombs… the usual. The Japanese dub is perfectly fine, I don’t understand the concept of watching a bad dub for the ‘comedy’ factor when the show itself is trying to be serious. The music ranged from good to great, with some memorable themes occurring in the big battles. The sound designers made smart use of the soundstage too, some really solid and effective sound effects throughout; their effort really shines.

The second episode takes a different approach and is set in a smaller location with a few core characters. Thankfully, the pace has slowed down and it also brings in a more low-key horror element. It also begins with one of the most sickening sequences I've seen in an anime: kids being shot in incredibly graphic detail. This episode was surprisingly short however, clocking in at under 20 minutes but it was a step in the right direction in some ways. The creative art present in the first episode however is nowhere to be seen. Episode three follows straight on from the ending of the episode two and starts ok, but unfortunately crashes and burns by the end. The pacing very quickly becomes erratic and the new characters are all squandered for the sake of showing more graphic violence and action scenes. A very disappointing end to this one.

The last two episodes are completely different. Here, we learn that the world has mostly been destroyed by the Genocyber and the small society that remains is now under police state control. We follow two brand new characters (Mel and Ryu) who attempt to raise money to pay for Mel’s eye operation as she is blind. Mel also possesses ESP/Telekinesis powers, which eventually leads to a religious cult group recruiting her as their new leader. The Genocyber is revered by them as a kind of ‘God’ who caused destruction of the earth to begin life anew with the followers as the ‘seeds’ of its creation. The atmosphere is changed completely in this arc, its more grounded and almost feels like a completely different show. There’s far less graphic violence, sympathetic lead characters who are given decent backstory and even a shockingly tasteful love scene; all of this is barely comparable to the more unbelievable storyline elements and content of the first 3 episodes. The world design is also influenced more by Steampunk versus the Cyberpunk setting of the first arc.

Now I can understand the complaints folks have had about the change in tone, as this is a far cry from the previous over the top B-movie chaos and destruction. Personally, I thought this was an interesting creative decision and my main complaint here is that there weren’t more episodes to flesh it out. Look, it wasn’t anything amazing and plenty of flaws are still present, but I was more invested here and it’s a shame it all wrapped up so quickly. I can’t give Genocyber much praise as a whole due to the abundant problems it contains but its still decent entertainment, and the last arc is unfairly maligned.