Geneshaft

A short-length sci-fi that stays loyal to the cliché themes associated with the genre, but makes for a decent watch. Story: 4 The plot, while not completely unenjoyable, is extremely drab. There are literally hundreds of animes out there that share similar themes: - Gene manipulation (too many to list) - Government population/sex control (Appleseed, Crest of the Stars) - Protagonists are all children/teenagers (too many to list) - Humanity deserves to be destroyed (Evangelion, Blue Gender, etc.) - Mecha (too many to list) - Ships used by ancient beings (Infinite Ryvius,Gurren Lagann, etc.) Animation: 8 The animation is well done. The characters adhere to a fairly common artwork style that’s easy on the eyes. In addition to this the show also uses some CG. This is generally restricted to scenes with the Shaft (the ship’s mech), spaceships and planets. While the CG scenes aren’t overly detailed, the framerate is solid and the graphics are fairly good considering this show was made in 2001. Sound: 7 (Japanese) The sound is pretty hit and miss. The music is almost entirely made up of cheesy electric guitar riffs usually consisting of a few power chords coupled with heavy distortion and someone who just couldn’t lay off the whammy bar. While it can be very annoying, especially for the first few episodes, it does give the show a unique feel. The voice acting is decent (with the exception of one over-eccentric brat), and the sound effects are pretty generic to anime involving spaceships. Character: 7 The show doesn’t have memorable characters, but it at least provides some variety. Everyone in the show has a very different personality and you are given a look into the background of most of the characters. It’s enough to keep you interested but not much else. Enjoyment: 8 While the show may not be the best out there, it is pretty easy to watch. There is a decent enough mix of philosophy and action to keep you entertained for the duration of the series. Had this been a 26 episode series I probably would have avoided it, but the 13-episode length makes for some nice light viewing in between whatever other shows you plan to watch. Overall: 7 As long as you go into it knowing it’s not going to be the bee’s knees, Geneshaft is a decent show in its own right. If you were looking for a more involving series with a similar (albeit much better) plot, Infinite Ryvius is the show for you. As it stands though, Geneshaft makes for an acceptable short length sci-fi.

Some time ago, my brother was telling me about a conversation. Unfortunately, I don't remember who was talking to whom. It may have been a conversation he had with a friend, or something he watched in the Futurama DVD extras. At any rate, it went something like this: "I love Futurama! It's a very funny show about the future!" "... ... ... Exactly which part of it is about the future?". My review of Geneshaft has been a long time coming. It was pretty new when I first watched it. At the time I saw tons ofreviews on other anime sites, and they all made me think of that line from Galaxy Quest: "Did you guys ever watch the show?". There really wasn't anything that anyone had to say that I could reconcile with the idea that they had actually seen the material they were supposedly reviewing. I've never felt so alone. To this day, I still find the disconnect somewhat frightening. When I was taking a quick look at Geneshaft after recommending it as similar to another show, I laughed out loud at item b in Nyron's review: "No one on MAL who's reviewed this series has actually watched it, or their reviews were written from memory months or years after half-watching the original run on TV." Actually, that significantly understates how jarring the reviews used to be, but most of those websites no longer exist anyway. The main reason I have taken so long to write about Geneshaft is that I hate to say "well, you just don't get it". However, that really is what it boils down to. For example, the first time I watched Geneshaft, I found several of the characters almost intolerably annoying. It wasn't until I had watched the whole thing and understood why they were how they were that I ceased to find them annoying. This show has suffered oceans of undeserved hate because it does what it needs to do, right to the end, regardless of who will take unwarranted offence. That's one of its strong points. It proceeds unflinchingly to its final destination, rather than wimping out and rendering the entire story meaningless. It's unfortunate that so many people dislike Geneshaft, but the more I read of others' comments, the more I am convinced that even those who like it don't really get it.

Set some time in the distant future, "Geneshaft" takes place in a world where genetic engineering is widespread. One of the things it is used for is to ensure the women:men ratio in the world is at an "optimum" 9:1... for no good reasons that I can fathom. Of course, not only are the women genetically modified to be clever, but also good looking. Now, from this setting, you can probably guess the kind of anime this is gonna be. Yep, premises wise, this puts Geneshaft squarely in the middle of "Vandread" territory. But whilst "Vandread" is mildly enjoyable in a generic way, "Geneshaft" fallsflat on its face. So why is "Geneshaft" worse than "Vandread"? The difference is that Geneshaft tried too hard to be some thing that it's not. Given its ludicrous settings, let's not pretend it can be much more than a shallow show aimed at satisfying the fantasies of male otakus. But this didn't stop Geneshaft from trying. From the pretentious heavy guitar music to the pitiful attempt at constructing an intelligent sci-fi storyline and convey across some deep and meaningful message about love, it fails on pretty much all counts. On the music front, it tries to do something similar to what was done in "Trigun"... and it failed. "Trigun" just about got away with it because it oozed style. "Geneshaft" is severely lacking in the style department. The attempt at a laid back and cool sounding ending theme is even worse - the awful song sounds like it's sung by someone half asleep. Trying to be cool and up failing is worse than not trying at all. Then there's the sci-fi story they tried to build up. They set up the whole thing well enough, giving the viewer enough questions to chew on (though I wasn't too interested in chewing on it since the anime failed to pique my interest in the first place). Problem is that they seem to have forgotten all about it half way through, because by the time "Geneshaft" ended you suddenly realise that the story is shockingly incomplete, answering hardly any of the questions posed in the first half. This is probably because towards the end it's too busy trying to force some generic "love conquers all" message down the viewer's throat, and... you guessed it - it failed. From my personal viewing experience, emotional messages generally works out only after the anime has already won over the viewer with its characters or story. Geneshaft's emotional messages were founded on hot air - it might have worked had I cared for any of the characters... but I didn't. The main protagonist is forgettable; the girl who is supposed to be genetically engineered to be perfect is such an idiot that it's laughable she managed to convince anyone in the cast to believe that she's perfect at all. The male captain is one of those emotionless people. It was obviously intended to make him "cool" and "mysteriously interesting". It failed. On both counts. He is so boringly cliched that I couldn't give a rats ass about his story. Ok I'll stop ranting on about the characters now... but only because I can't even remember any of the rest of the cast :P The animation is just about the only thing about "Geneshaft" that I liked. I can't really say it looked amazingly polished, so I guess it's more to do with the style of the animation that I liked it. The computer graphics used for the giant robots are quite impressive, though the circular jets of fire that shot out from them when they get propelled forward is a little odd. "Geneshaft" is quite a distance from being good. But then again, I can't honest say that it's incredibly bad either. It simply falls into that worst area of mediocrity that makes an anime not good enough to be taken seriously, but not bad enough to be funny. It's the kind of forgettable anime that makes you wish it was worse, cos then it would have been more entertaining than the yawn-inducing series it ended up as. "Vandread" flaunted its appeal to its targeted audience, and doesn't really try to be much other than the shallow fanservicey harem that it is, and as a result it succeeded in getting some things. In contrast, it's difficult to imagine "Geneshaft" appealing to any audience, as it flounders hopelessly against the limitations that it shackled itself to with its hilariously bad background. It ends up failing to the extent that I am reminded of a motto on one of those demotivational posters:"Incompetence - when you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do".

This is the single worst anime I have ever seen, it sucks, there is not one single redeeming feature in it other than the art work, I mean seriously this is a terrible freaking anime. All of the characters look like they belong in an anime , you know huge desu desu eyes and with the Girl characters it doesn't matter if they are 10 or 85, they have Double D Breasts; and by the way all these 80 pound knocker vapid brain creatures are obssesed over the shit weak willed main character that sucks ass and whines like a panzy every timeanything requiring any level of backbone comes up until eventually by the power of stupid , the anime twists and turns any level of consistency until these stupid characters end up at the top of the world. The story rips off neon genesis evangelion, and rather than just trying to pull off a tribute, its full of bullshit, new development , WOW shit side plots and the tribute ends up being a parody that isn't funny or interesting. To reemphasize , this is probably one of the most terrible animes I have ever seen, I felt like stabbing myself in the eye with a fork after episode one, but by the end of it I realized that the anime itself had rendered me nearly completely catatonic, considering that I was stuttering in a pile of my own drool waiving my hands about wildly in search of sharp objects. Don't watch this pile of horseshit. It sucks ass.