CyberCity Oedo 808
1990-91 OVA, 3 episodes
Studio-Madhouse, Director-Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Writer: Akinori Endo
Well, Central Park Media Month
concludes with CyberCity. This title is more infamously known as one
of those shows from the late 80s/early 90s in the same company of
Angel Cop and Garzey's Wing: cheaply made, poor dubbing and full of
violence and gore. Fortunately, there are some good points to this
OVA: decent storytelling, fleshed out characters and some good
futuristic concepts. For this review, I shall look at each episode as
this is only 3 episodes long, but each spanning about 40-45 minutes.
In a way, CyberCity is more like a short anthology series, as one
could watch each episode separately without missing much.
Episode 1: Time Bomb
The story of this series takes place
in 2808 AD aka the far future. 3 convicts are released from prison to
assist the police with high risk cases that the police don't want to
deal with. They are left in the charge of Hasegawa, a shadowy
authority figure in CyberCity who will pop off their heads with
electronic neck braces the three wear. Those 3 convicts are Sengoku,
Goggul and Benten. Then the Opening song starts, which is quite nice
and rocking late 80s song. Focus of the episode is on Sengoku, who is
an arrogant loud bastard (putting it nicely) but eagerly violent. He
doesn't play well with Hasegawa or anyone for that matter, treating
Varsus (tech support droid) and a young female police officer who
admires him like shit. Yeah, what a likeable antihero.
Case in question: A computer
controlling a skyscraper has gone mad planning to kill some
scientist. Several people have been taken hostages and the situation
could easily go awry. Sengoku is go with Googles and Benten to resolve
the crisis. Oh yeah, Googles is the tech guy/hacker and Benten who is
good with speed and metal wire.
Let me pause for a bit to comment on
the English dub which is.....gloriously bad. This comes down to two
factors: much of the cast consists mainly of British VAs trying to
sound American and failing. Combined that with the fact that much of
the dialogue is written with lots of profanity and a rather fast and
loose adaptive script only compounds the terribad dub more so. And
yet, this fits though with the dark gritty cyberpunk setting. That,
and the dub has a lot of memorable one-liners.
Sengoku meets Dave Kurokawa, the
scientist slated for execution by the mad computer, who is acting
very suspect. As it turns out, Amachi (Dave Kurokawa's mentor) has
returned to exact revenge upon him, despite being killed by Kurokawa
some years prior.
Sengoku goes to find Amachi in the
building. Of course, the story now becomes a ticking clock as the
building is set to be destroyed soon. He runs into several obstacles
along the way, but manages to get through them all by sheer virtue of
being an arrogant bastard. Sengoku then finds out that Amachi is some
corpse wired into the computer system, controlling it through power
of revenge or something-it is barely explained. Duel between Amachi
and Sengoku is a quite bloody and extended affair. But still very
awesome and satisfying once it ends.The day is saved...I suppose;
Sengoku is still an irredeemable jerk though.
Episode 2: The Decoy Program
Focus this time is on Googles, the
tech guy/hacker. He's studious, a bit even tempered well more then
Sengoku and a lot more honorable. Story this time around is about an
investigation of the Special Forces secret base. However, a former
squeeze of Googles, Sara is on the run from the military. She stole
some precious information on a top secret project. Her English VA
actually slips out of accent after the first scene she's in, which is
amusing.
There is also some underlying
commentary on a corrupt military in the far future given how no war
has made them turn to solving issues of public order and really
mettling in affairs they have little to no business being involved
in. The military has devised a new killer machine to deal with crime
in the city More or less, they made psychic cyborgs. Yes, really. So,
Sengoku and Benten act as support cast as they figure out what's
happening but the story doesn't focus on them that much. But, Sara
double-crosses him and sacrifies herself to finish this-a very
poignant moment to be sure.
Out of the three, this is my personal
favorite because well Googles goes through so much crap so his final
duel against the killer cyborg is more emotionally impactful.
Episode 3: The Vampire
The third and final episode focuses on
Benten, the bishounen speedster with the deadly wire. It starts off
with a search for some mysterious woman he meets on the street one
night, Remi Musada as it is later revealed. However there are
mysterious killings with neck wounds involved that require the
Benten's attention. The Conclusion: Vampire (naturally), even if it
makes no sense initially.
One thing that works in this story is
the atmosphere-it is very dark and grim, almost like a horror mystery
story. It reminds me of Vampire Hunter, which makes sense as the
character design for Benten is very similar. Benten is vastly
different from the other two-a smooth operator: cool, calm and
collected, nearly to the point of being sinister and detached.
A connection is found to be the
chairman of a medical foundation, a writhing old man.
Benten goes alone to find out the dirty
research: cybernetic panthers, I shat you not. It is revealed that
the chairman has been making an immortality vaccine which, as a side
effect, causes pyschic vampires. Once again, yes really. Yeah, cus
that's how science works....by being fecking magical.
Remi decides to take matters into her
own hands, for no real reason other than the story must go on. In a
surprising turn, the chairman is a crazy immortal nutjob, much like
Mr Gentlemen from ROD and the big baddie from Master of Mosqution. He
doesn't really care for the side effects at all.
Benten vs. The Chairman is a very long
drawn out battle, with little bits of immortality philosophizing
which manages not to be pretentious. Plus it ends with a pretty
gruesome death scene. Remi Musada gets her proper death-a journey to
beyond the stars, Roll credits....
CyberCity Oedo 808 is an interesting
mess. On the one hand, it has decent story, fleshed out characters
(even if most are a-holes), and some rather interesting sci-fi
concepts (even if it is sometimes laughingly implausible). On the
other hand, it has an english dub that outright refuses at times to
take itself seriously and animation that while looked good back in
the days, it looks cheap to the modern viewer, though even this is good to look at times. Yet, this does get a
recommendation from me. The good parts (setting, characters and plot) work well, and even the bad
aspects (the dub and animation) of it are at the very least entertaining.
Next month is taking a look at two shows that mean a lot to me from when I started off with anime
Crest of the Stars 7/13-14
Read or Die the TV Series 7/27-28
'Til next time
The Eclectic Dude
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