Cyber City

Overview: The German phrase Zeitgeist translates to "spirit of the age". This anime perfectly captures the zeitgeist of the 1980s even better than Fist of the North Star...despite the fact that Oedo was actually released in the 1990s and was laughably dated upon arrival. Despite how goofy it often gets, Oedo is freaking awesome and well worth checking out! Background: The 1980s were a truly bizarre decade in terms of film. The year 1980 saw the release of Heaven's Gate, one of the most boring, pretentious, shitty art films ever made. It bombed so hard it is legendary to this day! At the same time, the wildly popularAmerican President Ronald Reagan placed value on the average American Joe and showed disdain for snooty elitists. The European film critics of this time were busy hyping up art films from France, Sweden, and the USSR that Americans and frankly most average folks neither appreciated nor enjoyed. It was time for a revolution! It was time for a massive backlash against snooty elitists and "highbrow" taste. The 1980s were the decade in which no writers were saying things like, "let's cut that out, people will find it too corny and cheesy". We embraced the corn! We embraced the cheese! Having shit taste basically became a badge of pride in those days! It meant you weren't a god damned Communist! People came out in droves to see big, cheesy, idiotic action movies like never before or since, despite what ALL the critics said. Films that in any other decade would be scorned or laughed at were cheered un-ironically. Rocky 4 became the highest grossing sports film in American history adjusted for inflation. It was this background of over the top excess, style over substance, and complete lack of care for snarky nitpickers that forged anime like Fist of the North Star, MD Geist, and today's topic of Cyber City Oedo. The visual aesthetic of Cyber City Oedo is ENTIRELY inspired by early 80s/ late 70s Glam Rock. Expect tons of Jerry curls, mullets, and FABULOUS nails. The 80s were the decade in which the flamboyant, metrosexual look was all the rage. Just look at Michael Jackson, Prince, Def Leppard, Queen, Sweet, Kiss, Wham, Michael Bolton, Rick Astley, and almost everyone popular during that decade. It was like you had to look at least X percent gay in order to be cool. The final piece of background you need to be familiar with is a dub company called UK Manga Corp. They were the British subsidiary of the infamous Central Park Media. UK Manga Corp saw all anime as “adult cartoons” and tried to add as much swearing as possible to reflect “maturity”. This often led to some of the most forced and unnatural swearing sessions in the history of the English language. Let’s sample some of the many gems from Cyber City: Terrible Brooklyn Accent: “Heeey Benton, don’t shit ya pants if ya see a vaaampire out there!” Monotone voice: “Get lost…you wouldn’t recognize a goddam vampire if one jumped up and fucking bit you on the end of your fucking dick!” Terrible Brooklyn girl: “Eat this ya dick splash!” Whiny Voice: It’s past your bedtime MOTHERFUCKER! Plot: The plot is that 3 criminals are given the opportunity to reduce their sentences by killing other criminals. The trio of criminals are fitted with explosive dog collars by the government so that disobeying isn’t an option. It’s basically a shameless ripoff of the late 1980s comic series Suicide Squad. Each episode features 1 of the 3 criminals and explores a bit of their backstory. However, there is no resolution to the main plot and each episode can be watched independently or out of order without any issues. Characters: Sengoku is the pompadour wearing goof who drinks heavily and provides some of the funniest swearing dialogue. He isn’t that bright, but he can fight and always finds a way to win. Gogol is the brains of the trio and is an expert hacker in addition to being a badass cyborg. Benton is the pretty boy who has the most impressive fight scenes. He is sort of like if you combined Kurama and Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho…I don’t mean in THAT way fangirls! Hasegawa is the dickish government guy that makes life hell for our 3 heroes and constantly threatens to kill them if they don’t complete the mission on time. That’s pretty much all you need to know for these characters. Soundtrack: It has some gloriously cheesy synth music, but I was VERY disappointed by the lack of glam rock! Central Park should have spent the money and licensed music like “Poor some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard or “The Action” by Sweet! Art: The art in this anime is actually pretty top notch. Who the hell animated this obscure nonsense anyways?…Studio Madhouse!? Well that explains it. Overall: Cyber City is quite cheesy and goofy, but it provides some great action and plenty of laughs. It is a great anime to watch with friends or alone if it is late at night and you want to watch something ridiculous.

Great 80s animation (yes it's 90s, but is very 80s)! Full on over the top cool cyberpunk action! Enjoyable swearing! Highly highly trashy! Enjoyable heavy rock soundtrack! Inventive architecture! Over the top dubbing! Stuffed full of attitude and one-liners! Excellent yet laughably bad! If that sounds amazing, go watch now and have fun. Seriously, you can work out if this is for you from what I've just said. This is not a complicated anime. Go watch the UK dub now if it appeals. 3 cyber criminals in space prison (they literally call it that) are offered the chance to do dangerous police jobs in exchange for theirsentences being shortened. If they fail, their hated boss will blow up the rings round their necks. Each episode focuses (not at all exclusively) on one of them. To give you a sense of how fun each character is, I have had each of them as my favourite at some time. First there's Sengoku, who is grumpy and very enjoyably foul mouthed. I fell for his profanity. Then there's Gogol, a huge man with amazing hacking skills and the most enjoyably hammy american accent possible. He goes with the flow, and I fell for his really nice personality... and the way he says 'cocksuckers' and calls people he hates 'limp dicks'. His swearing is less frequent but it's probably the most pleasing. Then there's Benton. Oh Benton. He is a straight-talking cool femme guy with a razor wire for a weapon. He's just so femme. I'm down with that. I'm very down with that. And the razor wire is very cool. I like robots. Varsus, a sassy yet straight edged supporting robot character, is my 11th favourite fictional character of all time. You won't feel similarly, but just know that. This is 80s trash at its coolest and best. The animation is very 80s, vaguely similar to Goku Midnight Eye and Golgo 13 The Professional (my favourite kind of animation). If this style of animation is your thing, you will love this. Upon the first watch you'll think the episodes get progressively worse, but for me rewatches reversed that. It is very cyberpunk, but for the most part on the trashy end of cyberpunk. Watch the UK dub. It has riotous swearing, dubbing equal only to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (good for very different reasons), and the UK version of the dub has a heavy rock soundtrack which fits the series perfectly. Don't believe me about the swearing being enjoyable? 'Get lost. You wouldn't know a goddamn vampire if one jumped up and bit you on the end of your fucking dick.' It's all like this - just lots of unnecessary swearing. It's beautiful. Not convinced? Right. Watch the second episode - there's a pun off. If I haven't enthused you, probably don't watch this. (please do let me know yours feelings about this review via private message!)

Cyber City Oedo 808 is another one of those great ideas that ended up being completely wasted. I remember coming into this one with very high hopes only because it was directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. The mastermind behind well known classics such as Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. My fascination increased once I learned this was one of his earlier works, because that was when he was really creative. Anyone remembers Neo Tokyo? Right from the very beginning, I was immediately hooked to the style of the series. The series began with an introduction to the three main characters named Gogol, Bentan, and Sengoku.The intro had me believing this would be something special. These three men were introduced through the shadows. They were foul mouth and mysterious, with a rap sheet of crimes that only the worst criminals could possibly have. I mean these guys were serving sentences in the 300 year range, with murder and assault being at the top of their crimes. They just had to be top of the line nasty pieces of work. Unfortunately, outside of how much they curse. You don't really get a feel on how "bad" they are. The characters are very bland, with their personalities being too much alike, in which I found this to be a real problem. To be straightforward, these thugs didn't live up to their reputations. The series contains three episodes, with each of the former criminals being a main character in his own story, with the other two reduced to side characters. This wouldn't have been a problem had the characters been more diverse. I saw absolutely no sense in starring three characters in separate stories whom were carbon copies of each other. Any of these guys could have performed each others missions with almost no changes to their episode storyline. Kawajiri fumbled big time here, and chose to go the route of an action fest. Perhaps he should have delivered an in-depth story utilizing top notch character development, while also using the exploding collars as the central plot device. I also think that the focus should have been on only one character; that particular approach could have made for far better storytelling when considering the length of the series. The stories themselves are rather formulaic with some type of dilemma taking place which ends with a final battle against a deadly threat. Kawajiri appeared to think that he didn't have much to work with here. Therefore, his approach was way too simple minded, and this story was just so much missed potential. The plot during these stories aren't great; but they have a fair share of suspense, and touch on government conspiracies and wild ambitions. Despite what you may hear elsewhere, there is a bit of imagination used here with the third episode being the best. Even though I would also consider that episode as missed potential. The artwork and backgrounds have a gritty feel to them which compliments the feel of the series well. However, I find the animation to be seriously lacking, with the bulk of the effort going towards the subpar action scenes. Fans of Kawajiri's trademark gore and dismemberment should be careful here. His over the top and creative action scenes are almost completely absent. Overall, Cyber City is a disappointment. Although it does deliver on some of its sci-fi elements. The weak story and poor characterization does it in. The way I see it, any other character type could have filled these roles. It necessarily didn't have to be criminals doing life sentences. In all seriousness, a cop with a clean record and a filthy mouth could have gotten these jobs done. If dirty talking mouths determined ones toughness. Then there's a strong possibilty that the whole world would be invincible. Highs: Some decent stories Lows: Somewhat formulaic, action scenes aren't very good, poor characterization

When bad guys are forced to do good in a futuristic city, fighting their fellow criminals, cybernetic creations, and even synthetic immortals, you get Cyber City. Lets start with the plot. The idea is simple, three cyber criminals who have done more then a lifetimes worth of crimes, are given a chance to reduce their sentence and get a little fresh air. For every criminal they catch, their sentence is reduced, disobey, be blown to smithereens. Each episode follows a story centered around one of the three criminals turned cop and gives you a little insight into each one of them. Really, the story isn't veryoriginal and its biggest flaw is that it's very short. It left a lot to be desired. Music wise, it was average. The themes were very very catchy and enjoyable, but otherwise, the background music was generic. Not to much to say. The art was exactly what I was expecting. It was similar to Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and Gungrave and was a generic style for the era it come from, but still just fine with me! Characters. Boy did I love them! Each one had a similar sarcastic attitude but they all had their unique qualities. Sengoku is a loner type, hates taking orders and often does things his own way, resulting in problems for himself. But really, he just loves the little things. Gogul is the deadly duo of brain and brawn and, although stubborn, is able to follow orders a bit better and seems more of a team player. A hardened criminal as he may be, he still has a more human side of emotions. Benten may have an androgynous appearance, but he is certainly more manly then he seems. He is more calculating and, although he follows orders better then the rest, he only seems to be doing it as long as it suits him. He has no problem following his own agenda when he see's fit. The support cast is pretty generic but still very lovable! Overall, the anime was short, but still very memorable. I really did enjoy it even with its minor flaws!