M.D. Geist (1986)

[BUREINPARESU]

Story: Earth has colonized many planets, but civil unrest is still abundant. On the distant planet of Jerra, Earth's Regular Army vies to put down the Nexrum army, with the help of the M.D.S. program. However, one such M.D.S., Geist, is deemed too ferocious, posing a danger to friendly forces, and is imprisoned on a satellite. Eventaully, his satellite falls planetside and he becomes a bit of a mercenary, only he's more interested in killing, rather than the money. This happens just as he comes back into contact with his old superior who is on a mission.

This is actually an anime that was produced straight-to-video among a slew of others in the 80s, it's garnered a very negative status among many anime fans (in my experience, having seen lots of things that genre has to offer, it's far from the worst, Japan has produced worse junk that is easily championed). It's probably good to watch for fans of the post-apocalypse genre and 80s manliness, as this 40-minute video clearly takes a bit of inspiration from several western movies (the titular character fights a robot known as the Final Terminator, probably not related in any way but it does make me think of the more famous one at least). Its soundtrack is pumped with delightfully cheesy rock music and the mechanical designs are also pretty good, the original subtitled Laserdisk release was posted on YouTube recently, which is what I'm going to post here for all those who are interested, because around here, I think features like this need to be appreciated in an old format, plus you'll be getting it in its raw unaltered form. There was actually a director's cut released in 1996, that included 5 minutes of extra footage, including a new prologue and ending, as well as several new scenes of animation made to replace old ones, the sound effects are more realistic, and some of the music is re-arranged in order (this was also dubbed into English, which was slightly cheesy, though the Japanese dub was actually very impressive). A sequel also came out in 1996 too. There was also a three-issue comic released that served as a backstory.

I actually don't think this title is really that bad, it's just so ridiculous, however, the 1986 original is very low-budget and quite low-quality in some areas (see if you can spot some of the animation errors), but I figured that version would be more reasonable to post here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58ahQMHCacc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u21bPa4gXpU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6mDsHNLOTs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5DAohvyTPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrgHaWY8r4s

To extend this post, there is a special edition of this title being re-released soon, it contains the Director's Cut and the sequel in both English and Japanese (the English dub for the sequel is truly bad), as well as a buttload of special features, including a commentary, this DVD also apparently had a CD-ROM containing even more extras when it was first released back in 2002, I hope it will have all the same stuff this time around.

Oh, and as it's an anime at least it looks like this...


Rather than this...

[Jim H]

Fruits Basket, as GODAWFUL as the character design is, it's still animated and written far better than MD Geist.  MD Geist deserves its reputation.  It's one of a handful of films I rated a 1/10 on the IMDB. 

In retrospect though, I think it might deserve a 2 - just for its ending and opening, the ONLY good things about the entire mess.

[BUREINPARESU]

I still found the Violence Jack OVA from 1986 to be much, much worse, as it has some truly terrible animation. The subsequent OVAs, while very good in quality, I found too depressing to be really enjoyable, and I'm a big Go Nagai fan, but I hated those OVAs most of the time. If there's anything I did like about the 1986, is that some of the music is pretty good, and fits in well with its very grim, downtrodden atmosphere.

[Jim H]

I still found the Violence Jack OVA from 1986 to be much, much worse, as it has some truly terrible animation. The subsequent OVAs, while very good in quality, I found too depressing to be really enjoyable, and I'm a big Go Nagai fan, but I hated those OVAs most of the time. If there's anything I did like about the 1986, is that some of the music is pretty good, and fits in well with its very grim, downtrodden atmosphere.

Yeah, I've heard Violence Jack is really bad as well.  I haven't gotten a chance to see them yet though.  On my list.

[Andrew]

I bought this one on LD years ago, and quickly felt that it shouldn't have been put on LD.  Some of the story and artwork in "MD Geist" was OK.  However, everything going on with that one woman (especially her ribcage to her thighs) was all out of whack.  I'm used to impossible geometry on my anime females, but what was going on with her was just plain wrong - angles and everything.