Customer Reviews

The Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor, Volume 1 (ep.1-6)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I was a wee little 4th grader, I discovered this gem at a local blockbuster. This series is just fraught with gore. Episode 5, "The Death of Guyver", to me still has one of anime's goriest moments when we see Sho and Enzyme fight (severed/bitten off limbs, a fragmented head, a brutal impaling & coughing up a crap load of blood, and overload after Sho's control metal is ripped out). Anywhom, this series has a cool plot that is unique enough to not fall under average. An ancient race of people many years ago created 3 guyver units that grant their users the power of the bio booster armor. Sho and his friend Tetsuo are walking in the forest after school as a huge explosion occurs. Out comes a guyver unit and Sho ends up bonding with it. The Chronos company had been trying to retrieve the guyver units, and pursue Sho to obtain his for their needs. You'll definately dig this if you're into anime or gory flicks.

This is a really good anime! OK, Lemme tell ya how Sho becomes Guyver 1:
First, he finishes school and hangs out with his best friend. Then, an explosion occurs and the Guyver unit falls in the grass. Sho takes a closer look and it explodes right in front of his face! His best friend is just standing there surprised while Sho is screaming in pain. he falls in a lake and never comes back...for the time being. Then, Sho's friend is attacked by a Zoanoid. BAM! The lake explodes. The Guyver is in the steam. The rest is a blood-messed fight.
It looks good, sounds good, and IS good.

Did they have to leave us hanging by a thread? If you're going to make a series, take it all the way to the end.

This is one of the best anime of the time. This movie will get you hooked if you're truly an anime fan. I strongly recomend this action packed anime, once you get this dvd, you will truly get the second dvd for sure. Plus, its very cheap and affordable. Unlike the other anime series where you have to buy it for a couple hundred dollars. The other good thing about this animet is that it has more then two hours long! Unlike the other anime where you only get like an hour or half an hour. I don't know about you but I'm the kind of person who wants an anime to be as long as it can. The longer the better. Now thats something that you should drfinetly think about. And again, i stongly advise you to get this anime if you haven't seen the eposodes. I liked it and I know for sure you will too. (note: this is only for those of you who like action packed fighting anime).

If you have Volume 1 already, you are no doubt well aware of the changes Manga Video made to the series (music, credits, english voices) but you haven't seen anything yet!
I must admit I have only seen the entire series on its original L.A.Hero and U.S.Renditions VHS releases, and when the Manga Video "Datas" came out, I could only find episodes 4 and 6, so I knew not of what Manga Video had decided to do with episode 12.
Brace yourselves, you may find what you are about to hear hard to believe, but I swear it to be true. Episode 12 was EDITED on the VHS "Data" and so it remains EDITED on this DVD presentation. Let me explain what I mean by EDITED: we all know that Manga changed the opening and closing credits and some of the english voices. All in all, fairly excusable considering the original credits are viewable in the special features menu. But, what is unacceptable and, on inspection, utterly pointless, was their cutting (or rather, trimming) of Mizuki's nude sequence in episode 12. Now, instead of being full-frontal fan service, it is...well, exactly what it was before, only shorter (I mean 'frames' shorter). What lawsuit was filed against Manga that warranted these pointless cuts (You can still tell she gets her clothes ripped off by ZX-Tole and Sho still has to give her his shirt afterwards, so what difference does it make?)? Fear not, though, basement-dwelling-Hentai-collecting-Lara-Croft-oggling miscreants; The full, uncut version of episode 12 is available in the special features menu. Of course, this only begs the question: Why did Manga not just put the uncut version on the disc and let that 'edited' version find a nice new home in the dumpster outside the studio? Frankly, I cannot get past my original question of, "Why was episode 12 edited in the first place? Who were they afraid of getting upset over a nude sequence in an ANIMATED series?" Maybe we will never know. The whole thing digs up more dirt than it is worth, and I sound pretty ridiculous making such a fuss over a nude sequence in an ANIMATED series. But, if the full version is in the special features, why...OH, FORGET IT! YOU WIN, MANGA VIDEO!
Look, if animated nudity offends you, that is fine, just do not watch it. You have eyelids, use them! But editing the content of films is just plain ridiculous, and this edit (or rather, trim) is simply pointless. There, I have said it, I am done now!
Final word: Four out of Five for presentation, Zero out of Five for EDITING/TRIMMING content. Average is Two.

Well, actually just one thing: Manga Video. Manga Video is to Anime what Clear Channel is to Radio. That may not sound entirely fair considering that Manga Video is responsible for bringing us Ghost in the Shell, Perfect Blue, the Patlabor Movies, and now Magic Knight Rayearth (on one disc!), but they are not without their poor decisions and bad calls. Yoshiki Takaya's Bio-Booster Armour Guyver epitomizes this.
Originally, the episodes were available in six VHS volumes with two episodes each (at about twenty to thirty dollars a pop) with original opening and closing credits and music. They were released through U.S.Renditions and L.A.Hero. Later, Manga Video revived the series by releasing each episode on its own videotape (called "datas" and for about twelve to fifteen dollars a pop) which seemed pretty economical (especially if you were picky about your favorite episodes) until you actually watched the tapes and found out that Manga video had changed the opening and closing credit music with "Guyver Rock!" If that does not make you cringe, you are of a stronger will than I. Also, Manga decided to change some of the voice actors for the english track (namely the Zoanoid Data files and some of the zoanoids themselves) which should probably not bother anyone, but I think it is still worth pointing out.
The quality of the transfer is spot-on, which may not exactly be a good thing. We get to see all of the poorly cleaned cels, all the sloppy camera moves, all the discolorations in skin-tones, and all the lousy english-text-boxes laid over the japanese credits. But fear not, you can see and hear the original opening credits in the special features menu. Why Manga did not just simply present the credits in their original format in the first place is beyond reasoning, so I have given up trying. My advice for watching: neither the english nor japanese audio tracks are particularly impressive, so just hit that mute button, pop in your favorite KMFDM album (or whatever you like) and let the images do what they do best.
The highlight of the disc, in my mind, apart from the archival quality of DVD over VHS (which should go without saying) is the complete collection of Zoanoid Data files. Reminiscent of the animation sequences of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which is the ONLY time you will hear H2G2 and Guyver in the same context), these sequences are informative, imaginative, and give some great insight into character designs. Yoshiki Takaya did not simply draw monsters and let them go to town on each other, he was trying to create a universe. If only Guyver's escapades into the world of audio/visual media did the source material justice.
Final Word: Four out of Five for presentation, Two out of Five for butchery. Average is Three. NOW, ON TO VOLUME 2 AND THE FINAL INJUSTICE!

Really I do, it may be rare for customers to give negative reviews, but there are few titles as worthy of slander as The Guyver is.

The phrase "this series has everything!" has been used way too many times to describe pretty much anything. It needs to be inforced that just because s show may do something dosn't nessissarily mean that it does it well. Guyver has many of the elements mentioned above, it just fails to pull any of them off with any kind of flare. It also contains more cheese than you could possibly ever hope to fit into a cheese factory. The animation is a little below par, even for its time, and the designs are certainly lacking in character. All attempts to make you feel towards these 'bio-enemies' should generally result in fits of laughter, and way too many cliches are employed far too often (just how many times does Sho have to rescue either the girl or a family member!)

Guyver is distasteful at best; the first couple of episodes do show a small amount of promise, but it all goes downhill from there. The story is cheesy and poorly paced, the themes are pulled off in unconvincing manner, and really, it just fails misserably to do anything well at all. Not one of the better moments in the history of Japanese Animation by a long shot.

I highly reccomend you steer well clear from this, if you're interested in an 80's action anime then I would recommend the Bubblegum Crisis OAV Megaseries box set, true it costs more but at least it wouldnt be money wasted.

This the best series ever. A creation of god, used for protecting the Gods, never meant for a mere mortal. With curiosity within the universe, our gods brought forth one of his child, man, and protected him with his power. Un-estimating man power, thy child has grown beyond the control of gods. A child of destruction, death, and demons. The god gave forth the name: GUYVER: Out of control. Now we step thru time and set ourself towards the future to the life of Sho Fukamachi, a highschool student whose life is about to change, a change for the worse and for the good.
Evil only Triumph when good men does nothing - Theodore Roosevelt.

The video quality is great and it seems that some of the effects are animated at a different FPS or my mind playing tricks on me, some seem a bit modified to look like a greater quality of animating them. The soud is great also, great quality Dolby 5.1/2.0 English track aswell as a 2.0 Japanese track, too bad we get only 2.0 for that one but at least my ears seem to tell me that there isn't a whole lot of difference in quality. There's of course as you'd probably know, for those who do their homework, some neat bonuses such as Zoanoid data files(although already included on the VHS..but not on 2nd act VHS from Manga), Original unmodified(yay for none of that U.S. Rendition's credit text and subtitles) Japanese Intros/Outros, and some others that will make you guys happy, I don't want to spoil the excitement that much so I won't state all of them. Thank you Manga Entertainment! And thank you guys at the U.K. for having it remixed and for getting the man called "Mad Dog Winston" to create the awesome soundtrack for the Manga Edition of this awesome 12 part anime series.

This was one of the first anime's I ever watched along with Akira and Fist of the Northstar. This series was one of the best at the time and still is a classic to this day.

The series revolves around Sho, a young boy who has the mixed fortune of merging with an alien super weapon called the Guyver!
In this bio booster armor, Sho is nearly invincible and immortal but he must discover his pwoers while facing an evil corporation known as Kronos that is bent on conquering the world with its army of humans that can transform into Zoanoid monsters.

The action and battles are intense as is the mystery of one of Sho's allies who is also a Guyver.

The only downside is that only 12 episodes were ever made and the series is wide open for more, but to get the whole saga of the Guyver, you must locate the back issue comics from Viz Comics.

Also this anime series spawned 2 live action movies. The first one was horrid and the second one was more tolerable. Do not judge the anime by them, please. In fact if you must see the live action movies, do your self a favor and skip the first one. You'll thank me for that.