I'd like to commence this review by jotting down two important notes about it which may help you understand where I am coming from with some of the opinions written herein.
NOTE 1:
I watched this movie as a part of a bet/challenge with my friend. I think this is important to note because Genocidal Organ is not something I would watch on my own time, considering military movies are scarcely my interest. This may either color my opinions in a more positive light (the fact that some of these plot threads are new to me, hence making the story less predictable) and a more negative light (I really did feel my disinterest towards these type of military sci-fi stories held it back for me).
NOTE 2:
This review will actually be a review/analysis hybrid. Meaning it will contain spoilers (although I will not spoil the ending, just certain dialogues), so, if you wish to go into this movie without knowing absolutely anything about it, please refrain from reading further.
The Story:
Before I start, I'd like to note that I dislike story summaries, I think that if you want that, you may as well just hit up the wiki, so for this review, we're diving straight in.
The story of this movie, I felt was a hit or miss depending on what was happening on screen at the time. On one hand, you've got the boring name-dropping and exposition dumping that is the government related stuff, but on the other you've got these poignant dialogues about literature and philosophy and the power of language. This movie hit a very niche spot for me with its discussions about classical literature, given that I am a keen reader of it. As for the absolutely boring government related dialogue and scenes, it unfortunately ends up being necessary given how many topics the movie tries to breach; this shows one of its fatal flaws, Genocidal Organ stretches itself too thin.
Now, you must understand something, the amount of focus a story needs to convey its message properly is dependent upon many factors, but one of the more important ones is the type of media you're using to do this. Genocidal Organ is a movie, a piece of art that has the extremely limited runtime of 2 hours, and considering most movies are of this length, they do not have the luxury to dawdle around, and should instead strive to fill each scene to the brim to make sure the plot flows nicely. Other mediums, like manga, books, anime, TV shows and such are unconstrained by this, as their runtime is potentially much longer, meaning they have more time to hit on a wider range of subjects. This is why a manga like Berserk can afford to prod your mind on many various philosophical quandaries, while Genocidal Organ cannot, but it tried anyway, and all things considered, it wasn't an absolute failure. I think this is mostly due to how well written the dialogue is.
So let's talk about it, the key thing I enjoyed about this movie- dialogue. You see, given that Fate/Zero is my favorite anime of all time, I am naturally conditioned to appreciate good dialogue, in fact, this niche which Fate/Zero satisfied so long ago for me has also led me to be disappointed with many of the other shows I watched, because in most of these, I've noticed, they use dialogue as a means to an end- a way to convey the plot and nothing more. Not so for Genocidal Organ, it understands the importance of well written dialogue, which makes the fact that language itself is a major theme in GO that much more fitting. Just to lightly spoil here, the first conversation of note occurs somewhere near the 40 minute mark when the main character starts discussing literature with his professor of Czech language. They have a discussion on Kafka (and mention his prominent novel, the Castle, which is alluded to once more near the movie's end) and move onto linguistics which peaked my interest highly.
The story as a whole suffers from poor pacing juxtaposted by uninteresting sci-fi mumbo-jumbo which brings down the overall experience, but it is when 2 characters are just sitting and having an exchange on the merits of humanity, its inherent nature, literature, linguistics, civilization and genocide, that this movie is at its highest point. All of this adds up to make the story a scattered mess that has a few interesting ideas here and there.
Characters
Before I start talking about characters, do let me mention that I think the makers of Genocidal Organ were not aiming for either likability or relatability, meaning I will not be judging them on these grounds. Most of the characters are far too morally grey to be likeable, and too much larger-than-life to be relatable.
That being said, this is my favorite part of GO. All the characters feel so unique and distinguishable that they are already etched in my memory, so let's take apart the 3 most important characters and say something about each one of them.
So to start of, we have our protagonist: Clavis Shepherd.
Through out the movies runtime, he seems to be in this weird limbo of being emotionless but also, showing emotion. I know it was technically stated that he is supposed to show none but he definitely displays things like fear and camaraderie, and in Lucie's case, admiration. I've also noticed that he is the character who is frequently "talked down to" or given new knowledge. This is a very standard exposition format where the movie plays to the ignorance of its protagonist to deliver you, the viewer, knowledge on how its world functions. I think it was done nicely in this case. However, it is pretty weird how ignorant Clavis seems to be on the inner-workings of this dystopian world. Through his character, we can see the idea of struggling to find one's identity, and this is where I believe referencing Kafka becomes crucial, for Clavis too, is "loitering away in a castle, endlessly".
Next, I will elect to tackle Lucie Schkrupova.
I think Lucie can vaguely be called the love interest of this story, although she serves a more important purpose. Not only is she the one on whose account Clavis starts having heretofore never contemplated thoughts, but there is also this aura of mystique surrounding her character. The theme of sin is well endowed within her, but I will not spoil how it relates to the plot as a whole. However, I think it was well done and worthy of note.
Finally, John Paul, the arguable villain of this story.
So, John is an interesting character, or at least, his motivations are. I could get into it, but that's high spoiler territory but I will say that, around the time where we witness his thoughts on the world is the point where the movie peaks in quality. I found a lot of what he has to say coherent except the fact that he draws this weird analogy for why genocide is necessary with the concept of food scarcity. Trying to accurately sum up John Paul is difficult because, like the movie itself, his character is stretched too thin and tries to broach so many subjects at once that listening to him somehow becomes both, entertaining and overwhelming at the same time.
The rest of the cast is much more straight-forward but they do their job.
Animation and Art style
The overall animation work is pretty solid but it's nothing ground breaking. There isn't that one shot which is going to keep sakuga fans discussing this show for eternity and beyond (simply put, it's no Akira, but of course, that's both, an unfair comparison and an unfair expectation). However, the animation is nice, and in some cases, quite smooth. The sections where there is shooting look really nice and smooth so there isn't much to dig in here. It's a movie that's animated just well enough for me to have no complaints, but also not well enough for me to praise it especially.
Art style is a different matter, in my humble opinion, it lacked any sort of creativity which you'd expect to naturally lend itself to a work as original as this. It looked all sorts of boring, all sorts of dull and I honestly thought I was going to fall asleep from the sheer amount of un-creative displays before my eyes. The movie does nothing special with its visuals, setting or set pieces. It's just there to feed you visual information and I think this is the least passionately made aspect of Genocidal Organ.
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Music/Sound Design/Voice Acting __
There are 3 components to a good soundtrack:
GO's soundtrack hits the mark on all 3 of these. The music itself is quite nice, and lends an oppressive tint to this piece. The quite and subdued tunes naturally lend themselves to a dark movie of this sort and give it a memorable audio polish unseen in its art style. It is also played at appropriate times and appropriate volumes.
Sound design is also quite nice, especially anything related to guns (shooting, reloading or just tinkering with the tool). There's also a vast variety of futuristic beeps and boops which sound nice and give another layer of credence and immersion to the world.
The voice acting (watched this movie subbed) is also well done, but not ground breaking. I think the main character's was done best, being calm but also betraying a keen sense of candidness, but other performances do not lag far behind.
SUMMARY
Genocidal Organ finds itself in a weird limbo of distinguishing itself from other things on the market, while also spectacularly failing to cement itself as its own thing, making it an average experience, which I would still recommend just for brain exercise.
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