Entry 096: "Genocyber"

 Dear Internet,

                "Genocyber" is the story of a biomechanical living weapon a dystopian future which requires a human host to function.  In the story, there are numerous major countries that all strive to gain its power and use it for their own reasons.  However, the weapon is in the hands of a mentally unstable girl who has got more psychological problems than a nuthouse.  It would be more accurate to say that the manic girl is the weapon and she is far from stable enough for someone to control her.  On top of that, "Genocyber" throws in a mildly fervent religious group, cyborg assassins, mad scientists, psychic abilities, and a few other futuristic elements to try and make it entertaining.

Would you believe me if I said this was a little girl?

                What is the total effect of the five part OVA?  It comes across as a shock value gore fest that can barely keep together a plot or even my attention.  It is even sadder considering that even if you throw all your attention at the show so that you can understand what is going on, you will find a lackluster plot.  The story jumps around a lot.  Sometimes it throws its exposition right at the viewer so fast that it forgets to make it digestible.  Other times the exposition is threadbare and thinly spread in a strange order which adds confusion to the show rather than making a suspense filled mood.  It gets worse when the show goes from one episode to the next.  There are three stories that take place.  The first episode contains a complete story, and the remaining four can be split down the middle into another two stories.  Each story arc seems disjointed at first and remains such for most of the length of each arc.  They do indeed take place after another, but they all feel like they were disjointed rather than being parts of one whole story.  Maybe this is due to the way that the show speeds things along very quickly instead of crafting an understandable plot.

                I had to listen to the English dub since I could not get the subtitle track to work properly.  I would not recommend that course of action for anyone else.  It is one of the worse dubs I have ever heard.  Poorly synced and non-lip matching dubs of Hong Kong Kung-Fu flicks are dome much better than "Genocyber" handles the English language.  People talk too quickly if they are not speaking so slow that it makes them sound like they were just given a mild concussion.  I think the dialogue got even slower as the show continued.  In the beginning, the henchmen are given loads of profane dialogue that is supposed to make them seem tough and intimidating, but it has the complete opposite effect.  What happens is that with every guttural interjection of the hired goons, they become less like agents of death and more like everyday hoodlums that had been given a cybernetic transplant.  It is almost comical after the first five minutes because nothing they say has any sort of impact once they relinquish a personality for the sake of being thought of as tough guys.  

                On that note, I should talk about the show's gratuitous level of violence.  The show does not want to pull any punches.  People die in this show.  They die a lot.  Entire cities are destroyed in the time frame of minutes or even seconds.  People on the subway are split in two by chainsaws.  Children are shot at from a helicopter with a mounted Gatling gun.  People are merged together as some sort of biomechanical ship where they remain alive, fused and forced to live as an abomination against humanity.  Blood flows like water from a fire hydrant.  Brain particles splat out of the skull, and organs are bounced around like tennis balls.  The show makes sure to go as far outside its way to crank up the visual gruesomeness as much as it can.  In the end, it makes a good shock effect but only after the first dozen or so times it does this.  Afterwards, the effect loses any emphasis behind itself.  Even when the children are killed on screen in the second episode I found myself not even caring.  This had more to do with the fact that the show kills them off before making the audience sympathetic towards then and relying on the fact that they were children to make the sympathy stem from this fact alone.  The fact that death and destruction go hand in hand with the story to the point that nearly everyone dies makes the viewer to never place any sort of emotional bond with any of the characters because the characters are most likely going to die.  Not that it matters much since the majority of the characters are unlikable and rather forgettable.

This is the the most graphic thing I feel comfortable posting.

                 I will say one thing in the favor of "Genocyber."  It has great imagery.  I do not mean the disgusting bits where organs hit the floor like ravers on a dance floor.  No, I mean the monsters it creates and cybernetic creations are well made to the point of being able to capture the imagination.  The Genocyber is a monstrosity, yes, but there is something about it that makes it seem more like a well crafted sculpture than a destroyer of mankind.  Even the characters in the story feel this way, considering that it becomes misidentified as an agent of God.  When someone is shown with their chest/chassis exposed with wires, circuits, and chips to the world, there is a real sense of art direction.  This is more likely due to the fact that the show is based on an uncompleted manga.  I suspect the earlier episodes are direct rips from the source material, with the still designs being mirror copies.  

The bio-beast in its most terrible form.

                "Genocyber" is average at best.  The shock value it puts so much emphasis on wears itself away by its own hands.  The story is confusing unintentionally and is perfectly enough as a single episode.  In fact, the first episode is the only episode worth watching before it completely tumbles down.  The show presents a cast of individuals that are all messed in the head to the point that it is a wonder that they were able to gain the positions that they hold before being marked as liabilities.  The setting is made to display a world filled with shades of grey and black with no hope in sight.  It becomes depressing garbage rather quickly without at least being entertaining.  Stuff like this is the reason that cyberpunk never gets off the ground floor, one filled with dismembered limbs and entrails.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."

Entry 038: ".hack//Sign" Ep. 16-End

Dear Internet,

                There, ".hack//Sign" is done with.  I spent two days suffering through this show to scratch it off the backlog.  You can go back and read the last entry that I wrote because a majority of the issues that I took with it in the first 15 episodes is the same that I took with the second half.  

                The pacing of this show is absolutely terrible.  Nothing moves or happens for long segments of the time.  Instead, the show places the bulk emphasis onto character development instead of action oriented plot.  In my last post, I did not include a tag or label for "Action" despite "Sign" being listed as such on Wikipedia.  I withheld that tag because action occurs so very little in the entire course of the show that saying "Sign" was in the Action genre would be like saying "Green Eggs and Ham" should be labeled under suspense because Sam would not eat the eggs.  Past episode 15, the plot does move forward, but it happens all at once, sort as if it was making up for the fact.  There are only about 5 episodes, from 20 on, where the various characters enact with the world around them and actually battle monsters.  I will admit that there was some fighting going on in earlier episodes but those were either meant to be minor distractions or speed bumps as threatening as a shoebox.  The emphasis of the show is not action.  That is essentially what "Sign was going for, but it just highlights the vast waste of potential its setting had for itself.  

                The background sets are something that "Sign" had going for itself.  The artwork is well made and sets the mood instantly with bustling cities, thorny forests, etc.  Towering upside down castles compose a mixed up dungeon that showcase the insanity that rests before the cast.  A ruinous landfill city makes the perfect backdrop for the garbage remains of data.  The areas do have a sense of fantasy about them, but only three or four stand out.  The dozen or more other settings are passed by with little to no care.  There is no sense of spatial awareness brought about by the plot.  The only settings that matter are ones where one cannot usually get to.  The manner that the characters travel is never given a full explanation.  Instead, everyone seems to just beam up with some sort of transport ring.  The city introduced at the beginning of the show never feels special because you can just clink your heels to get back to it.  Other than for Tsukasa, dying has no deep meaning for any of the cast because at worse they get a slap on the wrist by being transported back to a gate and lose some "EXP," which none of them seem to care about.  This lack of danger until episode 25 means that there really is no tension unless you care about Tsukasa, which the story never really got me to do.

                The story wishes to portray Tsukasa as a victim.  And in most applications, it fits.  Tsukasa seems to have suffered tremendously outside of the game world.   Between beatings, a coma, and people dying close to her, Tsukasa has had it rough.  However, for the first seven episodes, and large sections of later episodes, Tsukasa acts as an anti-social coward who would rather runaway from the reality that she is trapped in a virtual fantasy then accept the help of those who are offering it.  She has nearly no motivation in bettering her situation in the least, and the show plays this up for drama.  That is basically what the central axis of the story is, getting Tsukasa to stop being depressed and actually do something.  There was one episode that showed her caring for a sick pig creature and made me hope that a little responsibility would change her, but that did not last long.  It gets even more ridiculous when it is revealed that her emotions, whether happy or sad, is what directly affects the World.  If I wanted to watch a show that follows around an angst ridden teenager slowly getting off their butt to move the plot, I would watch "Evangelion."  At least that was entertaining to watch.

It took 23 episodes for her to get to that point.

                Then there was the horrible dialog.  Everyone in this show seems to talk like a philosophy professor or pseudo-intellectual.  The dialog never seems to fit the character that is talking.  People that are supposed to be younger than 16 do not talk like kids.  Adults all talk like they are giving a lecture about interpersonal relationships.  There are Meta discussions about hypothetical situations that constantly feel awkward and out of place.  Maybe this was a poor translation that was corrected with the English translation.  I tried to listen to the English dub for a while, and it did add extra dialog that helped to clear up what people were saying.  But after listening to the lackluster voice acting for half an episode, I switched back to Japanese.

Dialog of the year, right there.

                The only saving grace of "Sign" is the musical accompaniment.  The opening song does have rather gratuitous use of Engrish, but the soundtrack is excellent.  From the sweeping vocals that are able to set the stage for the wonderful backgrounds to the Latin chant found near the end, the music takes center stage in this show.  The soundtrack is worth listening to without any context and would be worth the time to listen to instead of the show.  It is too bad that the rest of the show is not up to par.

                Overall, ".hack//Sign" is a bad show.  It takes much too long to get going, and when it does it never quite gets there.  The entire story could have been condensed to half the length or less.  The recap episode condenses about 17 episodes with little of essence being left out.  I wish I had not wasted my time with this show, especially after not even getting a climatic confrontation.  To top it all off was that the show never really got into the intricacies of online verses offline life very well.  It tried, but it never got me to care or felt like it mattered.  Instead, I would have rather spent my time reading "1/2 Prince," which actually does a good job of making a story follow a group of MMO players.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S.  Tomorrow is "Kamen Teacher."

Entry 037: ".hack//Sign" Ep. 1-15

You pronounce the "." but not the "//".

Dear Internet,

                Do you remember your first MMO?  Has the feeling continued throughout the years?  Do you remember having countless people play on your servers over the years?  Meeting, battling monsters, grinding, and finding like minded people and interests?  Was it enjoyable watching them have fun and interact like that?  Do you think they were excited at every turn of events and forming parties to go exploring in caves and dungeons with beasts lying in wait?  I suppose they did and still do.  I only played one MMO for a while until I realized that I had no reason to keep playing.  That pretty much sums up ".hack//Sign."  It is a long winded, slow moving, story empty animation that would make me question following it if I was viewing it on a weekly schedule.

                Let us start off with the barebones plot that has been given so far.  There is Tsukasa, a player in a video game who cannot log out from the system, or The World.  After a while it is hinted that this is because the person playing Tsukasa is in a coma.  Then there are the numerous characters with next to no personality and interesting qualities.  I tried to compose a description for the multiple individuals that populate the show, but after a while none of them seemed to make any difference.  There is Mimiru, a sword wielder who befriends the main character if you want to call it that.  Tsukasa might not because he or she is such a massive pile of depression and angst that it actually slows down the progression of the story to a standstill for the first seven episodes.  There is Bear, another sword wielder who is the oldest member of the cast, but that is really only implied.  There is Silver Knight, the vice-leader of a group of players who act as the defunct police since the administrators and moderators of the game never seem to care what happens at all about what is going on.  He might as well be the leader of the group since Subaru, the pretty girl commander of the Crimson Knights, only ever acts as a figurehead and has not done one useful thing so far.  There are a few other individuals that dot the cast but I do not want to waste my time with them.  Instead of making the plot move forward, they only act as coffee filters, slowing the already molasses speeding story.  Except for the cat, that damn cat that twists the narrative at the Cheshire level.

                The plot has barely moved with 15 episodes down.  So far, the only bit of information about the characters outside of the World is that Tsukasa might be in a coma, that Bear is an older man with a spoiled son, and that Mimiru is a girl that is in high school or near there.  This complete lack of grounding for the characters leaves the viewer to question just who the people that are playing this game are.  Not including some sort of information to the various persons does not create some sort of suspense to their identity when it is the entire cast. Tsukasa identifies the cat as his or her dead mother and meets some sleeping, floating girl who may or may not be the way to log out.  There was an attempt to find a way to get Tsukasa out of the game but that did nothing to the status quo.  

                And that is one of the biggest underlining problems so far with "Sign."  Nothing changes the status quo.  Everything pretty much stays the same.  The only exception is that at one time Tsukasa was wanted by the Crimson Knights, but now he is not because of a deal struck up between the two.  Other than that, the settings are not really changing because the characters are able to go from one place to another in the blink of an eye.  There was a hidden dungeon at one point, but it lasted all on one episode before collapsing.  The action is nearly nonexistent.  You would think that a show that has a fantasy video game as its setting would have intense battles against mythic beasts that can kill with one swipe of their paw.  No, instead the bulk of "Sign" is about interpersonal relationships.  People talk on and on and do very little in between.  After talking to one person, they go and talk to another, sometimes lying and sometimes manipulating information.  But it never really feels that anything actually changes.  Even when one individual betrays Bear's trust by telling someone else about a secret, he continues to treat that character the same as before with little reason as to why.  "Sign" even had an entire episode where Mimiru sits and waits for Tsukasa.  A passerby references "Waiting for Godot," which Bear later explains the reference.  "Godot" is not just a comparison to that episode but to the entire show so far.  The audience is waiting for something to happen but the cast would rather talk about nothing in particular.

                To top that all off is the complete roundabout way all the characters talk.  Every time they talk it seems like they are referencing something that needs to be asked to be explained.  Imagine if I said "It took off after a little push," when meeting you after having not seen you for a while.  You would then say, "What took off?"  I would reply, "The airplane, remember?"  There might be an understanding that it was the airplane if that was the last thing that we were monitoring last, but starting a conversation like that is plan out rude and pointlessly add confusion.  I should not expect you to instantly remember what we were doing when last we met, nor should I begin talking to you by making a confused statement that constantly warrants a question to clarify.  That is the nature of "Sign," a bunch of confusion between the numerous characters that really never gets anywhere.  It is like a spinning top, going around in circles and only moves away from where it started when winding down.

She said this twice in ten seconds.

                Tomorrow might be better.  So far, "Sign" is reading like a "No U-turns" on the highway.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop