 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | FUNIMATION ENTERTAINMENT | | | ▪ | ASPECT RATIO: | | 16:9 ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN | | | ▪ | AUDIO: | | ENGLISH DD 5.1 AND JAPANESE DD 2.0 | | | ▪ | RUNNING TIME: | | 600 MIN | | | ▪ | RATING: | | TV MA | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 11/04/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 11/27/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | DAVEY C. JONES |
SYNOPSIS:
While investigating a mysterious explosion near his school, Sho Fukamachi happens upon the Chronos Corporation’s greatest weapon: a techno organic suit of bio armor known as “the Guyver”. But Chronos is determined to conceal its secrets at any cost Sho soon finds himself relentlessly pursued by its army of horrific bio-monsters. With nowhere to run, Sho is forced to call upon the fearsome power of the Guyver and rip his opponent’s limb from limb in a desperate struggle for survival. Contains the entire 26 episode series on 5 discs!
REVIEW:
If you’re a die hard Guyver fan than this is the ultimate Guyver anime that you have got to see! Out of all the incarnations of the still ongoing manga series by Yoshiki Takaya, whether it’s the live action or previous animations, this 26 episode series is the one most faithful to the original manga story. It covers the first 10 volumes of the manga series pretty closely and man, the animation kicks as much butt as the Guyver does! It’s that age old story of boy with pal comes across some bio-armor left by a villainous company bent on taking over the world. The boy accidently puts on the armor. The company finds out. Then the mayhem and killings begin! Guyver is famous for its violence and the anime doesn’t go cheap. The animation goes full out in full colored brutal glory! There are combusting heads, severed limbs, guts and blood everywhere. Sho has to fight off all the mutant Zoanoids sent by the evil Chronos Corporation and his friends get in on the action too. Often to their horror. People die in this show and it’s never pretty. In fact Sho seems to die or almost die quite a lot. His brain gets ripped out at one point, other times he’s impaled, lasered, even disintegrated but he keeps coming back. The anime spans the whole arc of him meeting up with the other two Guyver units and the people piloting them and the huge fight when Chronos seems to get the upper hand. The show builds to a climax of Sho being down, a big bad about to blow up and annihilate Tokyo, Chronos in charge of everything and then Sho has to try to stop it all! It sure asks a lot out of a regular high school kid! That’s what’s so cool about Guyver. Sho is your average Jo. And it isn’t like he’s all super happy about the armor. When he’s in it he doesn’t necessarily have control. The armor has its own intelligence and its goal is to kill. It leads to some brutal moments when some of the people closest to Sho get captured or manipulated by Chronos. Sometimes Sho has to kill those he loves in order to save the day after Chronos’ meddling. It sure burns him but it makes for super wicked cool drama to throw in with all the action and more action! With the manga ongoing its not like the whole deal with Chronos is dealt with in the anime series, but it ends on a great part that doesn’t leave you hanging. It’s everything a Guyver fan could hope for in an anime.
EXTRAS:
The 5th disc in the box set is filled with extra goodies! There are manga-to-anime comparisons, production sketches, clean opening and closing animation, and trailers. Plus there are a bunch of English staff commentaries throughout the series. On episode 1 it’s with Rod Peters and Jack Glauser who are serious Guyver fans. The other commentaries are with Charles Campbell (ADR Director) who is joined on episode 13 by Lowell Bartholomee (Tetsuro), on episode 23 by Chris Patton (Sho), and on the final episode (26) with both Chris Patton and Lowell Bartholomee.
IN SUMMARY:
Guyver the 2004 anime is the coolest and most faithful adaptation of the mega hit manga series! It’s sci-fi ultra violence at its best! |
