Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor Collection

Introduction

This is a first for me, a licence rescue in the UK. You hear a lot about licence rescues, usually in the United States, where anime lifecycles are a lot longer than in the UK, and a series can go from release, to boxset, to re-release several times before a licence expires. With a larger fanbase, there is more of an opportunity to sell a product. So it is that when a US anime company goes to the wall and closes up shop, another company can come along and eagerly snap up the lapsed licences, and re-release a series under its own label. It's especially useful when a company goes under mid-series, and it falls to a rival company to complete the release, so that fans at least aren't deprived of their eagerly awaited show. It happened most recently when Central Park Media folded, and their licences, including Now and Then, Here and There, and Grave of the Fireflies were bought up by Sentai Filmworks (the former ADV Films). It also happened when Geneon ceased distribution, and they subsequently secured a deal to have Funimation distribute for them. In 2007, it was ADV that had problems, when a backer pulled funding, and many of their extant licences stopped halfway through. Again it was Funimation that picked up these shows and completed their releases in the US.


That Sojitz debacle also affected ADV in the UK, and many titles like Ah My Goddess S2, Red Garden, Pumpkin Scissors and Kurau Phantom Memory stopped in the middle of their runs. Fans have been left waiting interminably for their shows to be completed, or have turned to the US to import them. But, for the first time in my experience, a licence rescue has happened in the UK, and it's fallen to Manga Entertainment to pick up one of those ADV Sojitz titles that fell by the wayside. Unfortunately, it isn't one of those limbo series that I mentioned earlier. It isn't even one of those shows that were scheduled for, but never actually made it to release in the UK, like Welcome to the NHK. Instead Manga Entertainment have picked up one of those lost licences that was actually released to completion by ADV UK. But Manga haven't gone for Pani Poni Dash, or the much underrated Le Chevalier D'Eon, no, they've gone for Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor, which they are releasing in boxset form.


Of course it's understandable why they have gone for Guyver. After all, back in the good old days of Manga Video in the mid-nineties, they released the original (apparently incomplete) 1986 Guyver series in 12 episodes, and the name is practically synonymous with Manga even now, almost 15 years later. The problem is that time does move on, and what was awesome anime decades ago, may not be so awesome today. However, this new Bioboosted Armor series was made only 4 years ago, and maybe the story has had an upgrade or two to bring it up to snuff for modern audience sensibilities. As luck would have it, I never saw the original series, so I'm approaching this without preconception. Actually that isn't entirely accurate. I did see the Mutronics film (the UK VHS title for the live action Guyver movie), and I have been left with a lasting impression of Mark Hamill turning into a turtle. Following that, I gave Guyver a wide berth. But the vagaries of reviewing titles have forced a reunion. I haven't exactly been looking forward to this.


Sho Fukamachi is your average, everyday high school student, trying to impress his best friend Tetsuro's sister Mizuki on the school council, but failing miserably when compared to council president Makishima. Tetsuro's head of the under-attended school's SF club, which gives him a slight grounding for what is about to occur. For a test subject has escaped from a Chronos laboratory, and he's stolen three valuable 'Units' in the process. Chronos sends a team to recover the units, but the resulting battle results in an explosion, and the units are sent flying. One falls into the lap of Sho Fukamachi, activates, and bonds with him, creating a symbiotic warrior known as the Guyver. Chronos wants its technology back, and soon Sho is fighting to protect his friends, his city, and even the world against the evil Chronos, and their bio-engineered warriors known as Zoanoids. But there were two other units, meaning two other Guyvers out there, and behind all these fantastic developments is a conspiracy that stretches back millions of years, encompassing the origins of humanity, their ultimate destiny and the mysterious Creators.


Earlier reports of a five-disc release were unfounded. Manga Entertainment simply present the seven original ADV discs, Manga logo added at the front end, and ADV specific trailers stripped.

Volume 1
1. The Wondrous Bioboosted Armor
2. The Secret Society of Chronos
3. Inspector Risker
4. The Visitor at Dusk

Volume 2
5. The Third Shadow
6. Beyond the Desperate Battle
7. The Miraculous Cell
8. Shuddering Skyscraper

Volume 3
9. Ashes and Memories
10. Prelude to the Chase
11. Relic's Point
12. To Each His Own Resolution


Volume 4
13. Tragic Enzyme II
14. Escape in the Rain
15. Guyot Joins the Fray
16. Arise Guyver I

Volume 5
17. Nightmarish Encirclement
18. Vibrations
19. The Night Before the Final Assault
20. The Creators' Ship

Volume 6
21. Relic's Point in Disarray
22. Countdown to Collapse
23. Ray of Annihilation

Volume 7
24. In a Conquered Town
25. Quickening of the Chrysalis
26. Come Forth, Gigantic!

Picture

Guyver gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer that is unproblematic, and perfectly acceptable as anime presentations go. The image is clear and sharp throughout, colours are consistent, and the usual NTSC-PAL conversion issues are minimal enough to avoid adverse comment. But that is as positive as I can be about Guyver's aesthetic qualities. Aside from the aspect ratio, this show goes for the full retro look, with simple and generic character designs, lacklustre and sluggish animation, and at times looking more like a slideshow rather than an action show. Also, the colour palette chosen is uncomplimentary to say the least, with a preponderance of clean, bright primary colours, especially in the Guyver and the Zoanaoids, which smack of tie-in merchandising rather than a gritty realism. The world design too is simplistic and lacks detail, and when simple perspective flaws glare at you far too often; it's hard to be in any way complimentary about this show.

Sound

You have the usual choices of English and Japanese, DD 5.1 for the English, and plain old stereo for the Japanese, and you get your translated subtitles and optional signs only streams. Guyver gets a suitably rock metal opening, while the end theme is the expected ballad, but the incidental music is instantly forgettable. I went with my usual preference of the Japanese track, and I'm glad I did, as what I sampled of the English dub was regrettable. The main characters are adequately voiced, if lacking in depth and emotional nuance, but the incidental character voices are dire. It sounds like the quintessential Saturday morning cartoon, and while the Japanese track isn't the epitome of the art, it at least manages to avoid that. It's a shame about the dub, as the 5.1 track is one of the more expressive such in anime, with a lot going on in the soundstage, and the action sequences are done full justice.

Extras

All seven discs get animated menus, and jacket pictures, which I am guessing are little different from the ADV releases.

Volume 1

The Manga/Anime Comparisons are available for episodes 1,2 and 4. These last 1,4 and 4 minutes respectively, and offer you a chance to see the anime and the original manga comic side by side. The video plays in the corner, while the rest of the screen is give over to manga panels.

You get the clean credit sequences for the show.

Finally there is an audio commentary with Guyver fans Rod Peters and Jack Glauser, and hosted by ADR director Charles Campbell. Settle down for 20-odd minutes of geek love, and there are some interesting comparisons made with the first series that was released by Manga back in the day. I'd also like to thank them for making the obvious MacGyver wisecrack, so I wasn't tempted to.


Volume 2

You have 10 minutes worth of Manga/Anime Comparisons here for all four of the episodes on the disc. You get the clean credits again, and there are 4 minutes of Production Sketches in a slideshow for you to peruse.

Volume 3

You have 8 minutes worth of Manga/Anime Comparisons here for episodes 9, 10, 11, and 12. You get the clean credits again, and there are 2 minutes of Production Sketches in a slideshow for you to peruse.

Volume 4

Once again you have the Manga/Anime Comparisons for all four episodes, totalling some 10 minutes in length. Clean Credits as usual. The main extra on this disc is a commentary from ADR director Charles Campbell, and voice of Tetsuro, Lowell Bartholomee. It's a fairly sedate and restrained commentary for an anime disc, and there are some interesting observations about the show to note here.


Volume 5

You have 13 minutes worth of Manga/Anime Comparisons here for all four of the episodes on the disc. You get the clean credits again, and there are 2 minutes of Production Sketches in a slideshow for you to peruse (Cut and paste is such a useful tool).

Volume 6

You have 7 minutes worth of Manga/Anime Comparisons here for episodes 21, 22 and 23. You get the clean credits again, and there are 2 minutes of Production Sketches in a slideshow for you to peruse. This disc also sees a commentary accompany episode 23 with Chris Patton (Sho) and ADR Director Charles Campbell. It's a pleasant enough track, interesting and entertaining to listen to, if not all that revelatory.

Volume 7

The set concludes with Manga/Anime Comparisons for all three of the episodes running to a total of eight minutes, and you can't get away from the ubiquitous textless credits. It's all polished off with a commentary alongside episode 26. Charles Campbell joins Chris Patton and Lowell Bartholomee to offer more relaxing fireside chat, with a glass of brandy and a pipe each. In other words it's inconsequential chatter that is surprisingly easy to listen to.

Conclusion

There are many ways of updating old properties to make them new and vibrant and relevant to the modern age. There have been so many sequels, prequels, reboots and re-imaginings in the creative industries, that you'd think that they'd have it down to a fine art. Not everyone appreciates fine art. I can guess how the project meeting for the Guyver remake went, how they decided to update the show… "So, shall we make it widescreen, agreed? Good, job's done, let's go down the pub." And at the pub, as an afterthought, someone must have mentioned the Internet and Mobile Phones, as they make an appearance in the show as well. The modern version of Guyver looks and feels old, ancient, decrepit. It's the sort of show that may have passed muster back in the eighties, and for an anime starved Western audience, was lapped up regardless in the nineties, but as we approach the tail end of the noughties, it seems pathetically old-fashioned. It makes the blurb on the cover look totally suspect. "All new! All different!" it says. Not having seen the original, I can't attest to how different or similar it may be, but it doesn't feel new in the slightest. "Meet the new face of ultra-violence" it proclaims. Black Lagoon, Shigurui: Death Frenzy, Gantz, Elfen Lied, I cast back at it in derision. Love Hina packs more of a punch than this tame rabbit of a show.


It gets a 15 rating, but it could freely have used the Terminator defence and had that knocked down. I remember Terminator 2's 15 rating justified by the fact that most of the violence was between two machines. Well here, the violence occurs between mutated, primary coloured, chimera, designed most likely to sell plastic tie-in tat to whiny pre-teen males. What hurts the show most is the age of the story, and the fact that the anime appears to be a panel for panel remake of the original 20-plus year old manga, at least that is what all those Anime/Manga Comparisons in the extra features imply. The animation is dull, lacklustre, the character designs are decidedly old-fashioned and lack detail, while the occasional appearance of CGI sticks out like a sore thumb.


A twenty-year old animation style, cleaned up as it is courtesy of the modern digital technology, still looks out of date and low budget to boot. But the dust of ages truly lies on the script. Two decades on, and the story seems fit only for the Saturday morning 'toon genre, which probably explains ADV's dubbing choice. It's a simplistic tale of good versus evil, with Chronos wanting to take over and reshape the world to their own design, although we never quite learn why, while Sho is the reluctant school kid who becomes a superhero when he bonds with the Guyver armour, and thereafter fights Chronos to protect the world, his friends, and his family. The heroes always do lots of earnest soul-searching, while the villains twirl their moustaches, and are always apt to explain their plans to the finest detail to their enemies in the heat of battle. Flashbacks are used constantly, and character roles are clichéd and stereotyped. We've gotten past the era where girls spend their time looking pensive, and solely there to offer emotional support to the hero types. The first thing that Guyver needed before being remade was a rewrite. As it is, we're left with a show resolutely stuck in the eighties.


Continuity isn't the show's strong point either. Early on in episode 8, we learn, and more importantly Sho learns that the Guyver biosuits come with a gravity control unit that allows them to fly. Thereafter, whenever the Guyver gets into a hairy situation with a Zoanoid, I'm yelling at the screen, "Why don't you fly, you idiot!" Apparently the storywriters just happened to forget that particular ability, as it provides too easy an escape, except when the story most demands that it is recalled. So, poor scripting, painfully cheesy dialogue, simplistic story, archaic characterisations, not to mention poor animation, there doesn't seem to be a lot to recommend Guyver. Yet there is that Saturday morning 'toon ethos. The stickler is that fifteen rating, as knock it down a few years, and you're aiming right at this show's target demographic. I would have loved this show when I was ten or eleven, which, coincidentally is when the Guyver manga was written. Good versus evil, mutant villains, and cool bioboosted armour is just the sort of thing that appeals to the younger male, and this is just the sort of superhero story that a boy working his way up the superhero pantheon would enjoy. This is the X-Men, but nastier, and it's a stepping stone to more grown up titles like Judge Dredd, Witchblade and Tank Girl. Also, there is the nostalgia element, and Manga Entertainment are ideally poised to exploit that, aiming this show at that audience which was around for the original Guyver animation. I am of that generation though, and I found this show to be a disappointment, but your mileage may vary, and as mentioned, I never saw the original Guyver to compare and contrast.


Ultimately, Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor gives Manga two problems beyond even its content. First, while the original ADV discs have been deleted, there are still plenty around in online warehouses. They dwell at the bottom of bargain buckets the world over, and if you shop around, you can buy the ADV originals in total for around half what is being asked for this boxset. That's a problem that will resolve itself in time as those OOP singles sell out. The other problem seems permanent, in that just like the first series all those years ago, this one is incomplete. It takes us up to the midway point of the manga storyline, and then leaves us on a cliffhanger after resolving just a couple of threads. The hero team is reunited, re-enthused, and all ready to take the fight to the villains, while Sho has a brand new biosuit to fight in. But we leave the story with Chronos ruling the world. It's a common problem, that of the anime ending before the manga series, and usually that's resolved by waiting for the next bit to be animated, or by fashioning a new ending separate from the manga, or simply by being so good that viewers are enthused to buy the manga and just read on from there. None of that happens with Guyver. In fact, it's been 4 years since this anime was produced, and there's no sign of a follow up.


You know who you are if you like Guyver and if you feel like buying this boxset, but I'll have to have my fingernails extracted before I recommend it. I'd wait to see if MVM licence Blassreiter. It's got a similar story, is naff in several other ways, but it at least looks as if it belongs in the 21st Century. Now Manga if you're hunting ADV properties, about Ah My Goddess Season 2, and Welcome to the N.H.K…