Cyber City Oedo 808
To get a good start of my blog writing I decided to start out with a review of an old action packed anime from the 90′s, so here to you I present . . .
First let us take care of the story:
“It is the year 2808 and Tokyo has become the cyber city called Oedo, as the criminal activity has been rising the Cyber Police has decided to recruit three convicts in order to use them to fight the major criminal activity. To ensure that the three convicts do their work they have been given one collar each which will blow their head off if they don’t follow their orders.”
In Cyber city Oedo 808 the three main characters is given one episode each, the first episode makes us familiar with the head strong Sengoku Syunsuke, as he is sent on a mission to save hostages in a company building which has been taken over by the ghost of a former employee which with his good computer skills wants to take revenge on his killer.
The second episode starts out with the brutal murderer of a criminal and Gabimaru Rikiya “Gogul” is sent out by the chief of the Cyber Police Juzo Hasegawa to find out who killed the criminal.
In the last episode of the anime we learn to know Merill Yanagawa, which first meets an mysterious beautiful woman and then is sent on a mission to learn more about a “vampire” which has been killing several researchers.
Each of the three episodes is centred on the main character and doesn’t leave much room for other smaller characters. And the three episodes much follows the same concept, the main character get’s a mission to kill a criminal if he don’t do it in time his head will be blown into bits. Even though the similar pattern the producers (Madhouse Studios) still succeed to make the happenings unique and action packed. I am not a fan of action and this was the first time that I honestly felt that I enjoyed watching an action anime.
I will give a warning flag though for the English dubbed version as it is full of swearing, every second word is “Fuck You” , “Fuck off” or some other improper word. Which will after hearing it over and over again make you wonder who translated the anime into English, since I haven’t seen the Japanese version I can just hope that it is better than the dubbed.
Now let’s take a look at the animation:
Counting in that Cyber City Oedo 808 is an oldie from 1991 it still has good animation; if you are familiar with Vampire Hunter D bloodlust or Ninja Scroll you will most likely recognize the animation since they have the same director Kawajiri, Yoshiaki.
The music:
This old goody is opened with a rocky song called Burning World by Hidemi Miura, which perfectly fits the style of the anime, though as the song goes on it becomes more of a pop song. As an ending to each episode we get the calmer song called “I May Be In Love With You” by Hidemi Miura which I can’t see how it fits in to this action and sifi filled anime.
Let’s take a quick look at the characters:
The first character to hit the stage is charming Sengoku “sen-goku” Syunsuke a cocky criminal with a sentence of 375 years. He is a man who because of his constantly swearing is in need of a dictionary, except for swearing he enjoys teasing Benten for his effeminate looks. To his displease he is followed everywhere by Varsus a robot which works as the link between the criminals and the cyber police.
Second character out is Gabimaru Rikiya mostly known as Gogul, a rather rough guy with good computer skills. Before being captured by the Cyber police he worked with a female colleague called Sara as an hacker.
The third and last main character of Cyber City Oedo is Merill “Benten” Yanagawa, not only his white long hair makes him special but also his red painted nails and female look. He is a man which unlike the other two prefer silent weapon mostly he uses monowire which is hidden in his right ring.
What makes this anime especially good is that the characters have such a difference in personality which makes all of them interesting and enjoyable.
Now what I think of this anime overall:
As I think I have mentioned earlier I am not a fan of action animes though I found this short series really nice. The animation and the characters made me want to watch more of it and I think that three episodes was just right for an anime of this kind especially when each episode was over 40 minutes long.
Story: 5
Animation: 6
Sound: 5
Characther:6
Enjoyment: 6
Overall: 6
And with that I will have to conclude my first blog entry ever =)
