User reviews

Genocyber's plot is confusing to say the least. It seems like there's an actual story hiding somewhere, but in an incomplete state (which is exactly the case for the manga this OVA was adapted from). The OVA is divided into three barely-connected parts. The plot, what little there is, is told through vague exposition which just feels like an excuse for the nightmarish imagery we're about to see. This show is full of graphic violence (which is the only reason it's remembered), but said violence is never justified. Bad things happen to innocent people just so the good guys have an excuse to get violent and the bad guys create carnage just for the sake of it. Who works for whom? What was the point of all that carnage? Never answered. There are also moments of jaw-dropping insanity in the form of cyborgs that morph into impossibly large mecha-monsters. I'll give Genocyber props for some detailed animation and cool imagery, but there's just little substance to be found.

Some call Genocyber an underrated OVA. Others call it one of the worst anime ever made. I can't agree with either, although it certainly is something. Dumb and violent anime OVAs and movies were a dime a dozen during the time, but Genocyber sticks out, for better or for worse. It has a big scope, something resembling character, and even less restraint. Some designs and concepts are neat.

But make no mistake - Genocyber is terrible. And I'm not saying that because it shows no mercy. There's barely a point to the madness. Genocyber itself is the only connection between the three settings. Within each, most of the plot focuses on the gore, with little character development. Equally small is our understanding of Genocyber's abilities. The rare times its brought up, its absolute gobbledygook. The dialog is bad, the acting is garbage, the animation is mediocre, and the action only has a few good scenes. Genocyber is a mess.

But I will give it this - its uniquely bad. Its not pure trash, by the numbers, or hilarious. Its terrible, but its kind of intriguing. Although I do have a bias towards retro sci-fi animation. Its not the bad anime that you pull friends in front of, but watch by yourself at 1:00 A.M. If you're not a fan of body horror, robot brutality, 400 year time skips, and anticlimactic endings, you'll hate it. There is nothing to salvage from the plot. But I don't regret seeing this...thing.

Genocyber is a film that trys to do something radical and new. Strangely it fails and succeeds. After watching this movie you'll be able to say you've never seen anything like it before.

The first thing that must be said about Genocyber is the plot doesn't or won't make a lot of sense (on first viewing any). After watching it a few times though I still struggle to make sense of it. This is one of the two bad points of the movie. The second negative side to the film is the overwhelming amount of gore and violence. It really will phase you the first time you see thousands of limbs and internal organs scattered around a hospital or when someone rips open their head to spill all their brains on the floor. Totally disgusting but....

Perhaps this violence is deliberete. It definitely adds to the whole atmosphere of the film and this is Genocybers strong point. The atomosphere. The superb errie soundtrack, the halucagenic camerwork and, of course, the extreme violence all meld together to create a strange but fascinating film.

Genocyber is 'alternative cinema' more than it is 'cyberpunk'. It's well worth seeing if you get the chance but don't rush out because it's not to everyones taste.

I went into this one excited. I had heard that this anime series had a reputation. Although I didn't know much more than that. I was expecting a dark cyberpunk story with some over the top gore and violence, and I was even kind of looking forward to that. Upon completion of the series however, all I can do is sit here and ask myself what the hell did I just watch?

I'm not saying that because I'm shocked. The shocking parts were actually some of the better parts. No the question arises from the fact that between those brief moments of cool scenes and well animated insanity, is a story and plot that less unfolds so much as, oozes. For most of what I've sat through I was just sitting there staring at the screen half bored and half wondering what it's actually going on? And why is it happening?

The story is completely jumbled & disjointed to the point of being entirely incoherent. It just doesn't make sense. Things just seem to happen for no reason at all. The action scene seem to come out of nowhere. And you'll be happy for them because you'll hear that exciting theme music play And you'll see some cool stuff, but even the action sequences seem to just jump all around and kind of happen way too fast.

In short, well there are some forward-thinking and compelling aspects to the story, none of that ever gets fleshed out and in fact what we get is told to us in little bits and pieces that are never even connected directly. Characters just enter and leave the story. There's no real character growth or depth or meaning to anything. There's no sensible arc from the first part of the series to the end. And I have no idea what even happens in the end. I literally just watched it and I have no idea what happened. The good news is, you can expect that there will be no spoiler in this review. The bad news is is that maybe that's a spoiler in and of itself: surprise this anime is about 80% confusing nonsense.

And it's too bad. Because even the stuff that's good here comes across as just hollow and pointless. There is some truly disturbing scenes of body horror that makes Akira look tame by comparison. Even the parts of the story that feel like they could have been lifted out of Akira had some fresh twists that could have been The foundation of an interesting story. But there really isn't much of a story. Let alone characters to drive said story.

Sadly, I would never want to rewatch this. Although if I were ever in a conversation about some of the most messed up things ever animated there are a couple things in here that might make me search for a scene on YouTube. But otherwise this whole thing was like a fever dream and not in a good way.

Oh well.

This movie pushes the limits as to what anime fans can tolerate violence wise. Mr. Ohata seems to have a fascination with killing kids and teenagers in this movie. Any plot that is presented is immediately forgotten due to scenes of graphic violence. Beyond that, it's hard to grasp what the point of all this destruction is anyway. I have a feeling people could just barely tolerate the 1st episode, but many people have expressed great displeasure at the beginning of the 2nd episode where children are shown being graphically shot to shreds and could not watch beyond it. It's worth a look for fans of violent and gory anime, but be warned about the content!

Genocyber is one of the most repulsive, ultraviolent examples of anime I've had the misfortune of watching. With unsympathetic characters, low-budget animation, and an eerie fascination with blood and gore, Genocyber loses any moral message it tries to express in a bloodbath of proportions matched only by fellow Ohata Koichi titles such as MD Geist.

Many people think that titles like this are what makes anime worth viewing. I thoroughly disagree with that opinion. Genocyber has precious little coherent plot to go with the scenes of carnage it presents, and gratuitously adds sequences (for example) of children being little blown apart by helicopter gunships in slow motion.

Sure, it's not real, but should we be encouraging this kind of stuff by buying or renting this sort of sludge?

Granted, violence is a fact of life, and a fact of entertainment, but I can't possibly with any sense of conscience support or endorse this much glorification of violence for entertainment's sake. Especially in a title as pointless and overwhelmingly bad as Genocyber.

The movie is great!Action,mechalike vajranoids,good plot and lots of criticism with a clear message.It is not too complicated so it isn't difficult to follow the plot.

It is quite bloody though,and it is nothing compared to "AKIRA" or "Ghost in the Shell".The animation technique is middleclass and it is quite long.

I recommend watching this film because you will probably like it and you really won't feel like you would be wasting your time.

I have actually never seen the 1994 Anime mini-series before now in 2023. I remember, however, seeing the movie the shelf of the local video store back in the day, but I never picked it up, as the synopsis didn't have that much of an appeal to me.

But as I had the opportunity to sit down and watch "Genocyber" digitally here in 2023, they I opted to do so and check out if I had been missing out on something grand.

Turns out that I hadn't. I found "Genocyber" to be a very monotonous and rather boring viewing experience to sit through. The plot was just not appealing to me, and thus I was gradually losing more and more interest in watching it, as the show progressed. And truth be told, I ended up giving up on it half way through. And I have zero intention of returning to attempt finish watching "Genocyber".

Not only didn't I enjoy the plot and storyline in "Genocyber", but I have to say that I also found the character gallery to be extremely bland and forgettable.

The art style and animation in "Genocyber" was adequate. Though I don't understand why they opted to put in imagery that wasn't drawn. It just ruined the Anime experience.

The 1994 Anime mini-series "Genocyber" from director Koichi Ohata just wasn't my cup of tea.

My rating of "Genocyber" lands on a three out of ten stars.

I cannot understand why this anime is getting canned. I loved it its great fun, how can anyone dub akira a masterpiece and say this anime is bad.

There is a story, there is gore, the anime is good same has all anime back in the early 90 not sure why they say the animation is bad, its actually great.

Don't believe the very bad reviews this anime is worth a look its also 2hrs and a half long.

I have a Hook-Ups shirt (Jeremy Klein's Skateboarding products company) which has the Genocyber's menacing pose from the back of the DVD sleeve on it. Having spurned my interest, I went to the ends of the earth to find a copy of it so I could see for myself whether or not it lived up to the hype, and finally ordered it from my local anime house for $30+. Boy did I have no clue. The Genocyber is present in about 5% of the story, and scenes with it in action are woefully short and inadequate to even support the drawn out (2 and a half hours!) story in which it seems to be a sidebar item rather than the cause itself.

Utterly awful. I should've seen this coming however knowing full well going into this that this stinking pile came from the director of M.D. Geist, one of the most loathesome pieces of japanese animation of all time.

Not recommended for anyone but the most elitest of anime snobs.

This is among my favorite anime of all time, especially the first episode. This series has everything, from mecha to psycho-thriller, to bloodbaths, to awesome tech, This thing is great. The DVD is about to come out, so new fans can have a great chance to see this anime in all its glory, and old fans can finally buy the bloody thing.

Anime is such a fun world to dive into. However, don't expect every series to be good, because just like any for of media, some are good others just suck. This is an example of the latter. Genocyber is a 5-part anime OVA released in 1994. It is very controversial for it's extreme depiction of graphic violence, most notably, breaking the unwritten rule of graphically killing a child. Even if you are a fan of gory content in media, this isn't worth your time, unless you are a truly sadistic person. Why? Because it's plot makes absolutely no sense. Literally everything that happens is an excuse for shock value. Supposedly, this is about a girl with some sort of psychic powers and is able to become the Geoncyber (At least that what I assume it is). After that everything is completely lost in sadistic violence. The creators really should be ashamed of making this crap. Not only are they wasting everyones time, I'd argue they shouldn't be on the streets. If I had children and saw them coming near me I would grab a gun and tell them to leave my children alone. This is truly, one of the worst anime of all time.

This movie was so boring. It was your typical anime boring crap, filled with satanism, female nudity (But almost nothing of Male nudity, that's why it sucks) ugly designs, a stupid plot and boring and bland characters.

This show was so stupid and boring, that it was completely worthless.

There wasn't any single good thing about this, everything about this show sucked.

This movie is pretty lame, even for anime standards. Unless you are an anime fan, don't waste your time seeing this crap.

What a stupid movie, and what a waste of time. This sucks hard.

My eyes legit felt like I was walking into a real nightmare while watching this anime, it is so goddamn bad man! I couldn't even concentrate on watching what's going on!

I know this anime was from that time I was born (yeah I know ancient). Seriously though, they shouldve given the story on the animation some thought, it then would've been a while lot better and badass for a mecha anime.

If you wanna like this anime go ahead but my eyes was messed up after watching 2 episodes...

Wow. That's all I can say after watching this little animated feature. A 5 part OAV series, Genocyber is, without the shadow of a doubt, the most brutal, traumatizing and gory anime I have ever seen in my entire animation viewing career. Easily, this one tops MD geist, and perhaps even Fist of the North Star. This thing is a chaotic rumpo through a sci-fi world of death and destruction. I'll admit, I was amused watching this. The plot stunk, seriously. The character have nothing special to look at or think about, seriously. Just the gore, the chaos, and the madness made me sit and watch with my mouth dropped. It is this factor alone that allows me to safely say that Genocyber is not a bad movie at all. I recommend this one to anyone who doesn't mind seeing guys vivisected on gurneys, or children getting blown to bits by machine guns. It's sick, but for some reason, entertainting. Score : 7 / 10

Now I'm a fan of a spot of the ol' ultraviolence so I was loving the gruesome and horrifying images in this anime. Seeing kids getting mowed down in the most violent way possible doesn't bother me like it does some of the more sensitive of you out there.

The plot barely makes any sense, and yet I was captivated most of the time in a way that's hard to describe. I've never seen anything quite like this anime. It definitely gets points for creativity even if what they created is a narrative mess. Genocyber has a lot of atmosphere some great animation and great score, but it makes little sense overall. Also the last 2 parts looked like they were done by a different studio (apparently they ran out of budget and it shows)

A strange one but if you like ultra gore like me you'll probably love it too.

This anime is a good piece of art, it has a nice history and too blood but is entertaining. I recommend this anime only 18+