When Is The Guyver Anime Coming Back

| June 18, 2012 |

| Comments count:0

At that place was a fourth dimension when filmmakers actually didn't take a lot of respect for comics. Anyone relieved at just how reverent and knowledgeable Joss Whedon is about Avengers lore, spare a thought for fans of the Japanese manga, Bio Booster Armor Guyver. It was subjected to a less than respectful movie adaptation in 1991, chosen Mutronics in the UK and The Guyver elsewhere.

Equally nosotros'll see in this retrospective, the film isn't entirely without merit, but it's a far dissimilar specimen from the manga series which inspired it…

The Guyver's origins

Bio Booster Armor Guyver, first published back in 1985, remains an enormously successful series. Conceived and written by Yoshiki Takaya, Guyver's even so going strong; the manga's avidly read, and has been adapted for the small screen several times in Japan. The 1986 straight-to-video feature: Guyver: Out Of Control was the starting time, followed by a 12 episode anime series was produced between 1989 and 1992 – Manga Amusement later sold these on record in the United kingdom. Most recently, another Guyver anime, subtitled The Bioboosted Armor, retold the kickoff 59 chapters of the manga in a 26 part series.

For fans of the Guyver manga or anime, the series is best remembered for the distinctive, oddly cute suit of bio-armour worn by its hero, its gallery of bestial Zoanoid enemies, and the bloody clashes betwixt the two.

Guyver's origin story isn't different that of Marvel's Spider-Man, in fact. Its protagonist is the 17-year-old Sho Fukamachi, a nebbish youth who stumbles on an alien device that turns him into an armoured superhero. There are ii bug with this, all the same; kickoff, the device once belonged to an evil corporation called Chronos, whose ground forces of mutating minions will stop at nothing to get information technology back.

Second, Sho and the Guyver unit go inextricably intertwined, and as the device continues to work into his Deoxyribonucleic acid, he fears that his humanity may become overwhelmed by alien engineering science – and worse, if the Guyver adapt'due south control centre is damaged, information technology devours whoever's wearing it. This lends the otherwise straightforward sci-fi action plot a pleasing hint of Cronenbergian body horror, and a hint of the same inner conflict most mod superheroes suffer in western comics.

The 1991 motion-picture show

While Yoshiki Takaya's series was shot through with a streak of inner turmoil, melty violence and body horror, the 1991 American movie accommodation was more than akin to the 1960s Batman TV series. It's wildly camp – sometimes cringe-inducingly so – merely also guiltily enjoyable.

The basic plot survives roughly intact. An evil corporation called Chronos is experimenting with an alien technology which transforms Deoxyribonucleic acid, allowing otherwise ordinary humans to transform themselves into Zoanoids – hulking 'super monster soldiers', to use the opening crawl'southward term. As the moving-picture show opens, a scientist called Dr Segawa escapes with a Guyver unit of measurement, which for diverse contrived reasons ends up in the easily of Sean Barker (Jack Armstrong), a teenager who also happens to be the boyfriend of Dr Segawa's girl.

The president of Chronos, the brilliantly named Fulton Balcus (David Gayle), wants the devastatingly powerful Guyver unit back, and sends out his henchman Lisker (Michael Berryman) to get it. Unfortunately for Balcus, Sean's already activated the unit, transforming him from a normal student with minimal martial arts abilities to an armour-clad superbeing capable of throwing a 200lb man clear beyond a warehouse floor.

The Guyver was produced by Brian Yuzna, who was behind such fleshy classics as Re-Animator and From Across, and sat in a manager'due south chair for the fantastically grim satire, Society (1989), likewise as other, lesser movies including Progeny (1998), The Dentist (1996) and cyborg dog movie Rottweiler (2004).

Screaming Mad George, who created those mutating rich people for Society's icky decision, co-directed The Guyver with Steve Wang, who would later directly the Mark Dacascos martial arts flick, Drive, as well as 1994's Guyver: Dark Hero (more on this later).

Similar Both Screaming Mad George, Steve Wang was good at creating monster effects, and Wang worked on the prosthetic effects for such films asHellboy Ii, Alien: Resurrection and Predator. Unfortunately, neither George nor Wang has much skill at directing actors, and The Guyver is full of stilted, sometimes hilarious dialogue ("I'm sure the inventors of the cantlet flop didn't know what they were doing either"), and some blank-faced acting from some otherwise okay performers.

Marker Hamill coasts through the role of CIA guy Max Reed, and lets his moustache do well-nigh of the heavy lifting (though he does get one quite surprising transformation sequence late on in the film). Vivian Wu, equally the hero's love involvement Mizky, is appalling. Weirdly, she was in adept stuff before and afterwards, including the acclaimed TheFinal Emperor (1987), The Joy Luck Club and, erm, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

Jack Armstrong is little ameliorate as Sean, though he's fortunate enough to spend much of the pic clad in his Guyver suit. Of the cast, only David Gayle (who played a similarly lip-smacking, evil role every bit the horny dean in Re-Animator) seems to exist really enjoying himself, though Michael Berryman's welcome, as always, as his mutating correct paw man.

At outset glance, it seems as George and Wang have done a skilful task on the Guyver costume. Information technology has the same cool silhouette, wide shoulders and bony protrusions as the one in the comic, and the cursory sequence where it takes over Sean's torso is quite impressive.

The fights between the Guyver and his rubbery Zoanoid enemies are, unfortunately, almost as intense as watching two people hit each other with pillows, and completely lack the grit and grue of the comics, where characters were regularly ripped limb from limb. This isn't to say that the original manga was entirely without its own daft moments – this was, after all, a story in which the hero could fight a pair of giant monsters in his high schoolhouse, and then fight another grapheme in a Guyver suit, without appearing to attract any attention whatever.

The Guyver movie, meanwhile, goes for 90s campsite of the highest order, and information technology'southward unlikely that fans of the comic or anime were expecting something more along the lines of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Steve Wang after went on to direct a Ability Rangers movie, in fact). There'southward even a bit where a Zoanoid (played past Jimmy Walker) does a little rap, which is as embarrassing to sentry as it sounds.

If you can get over the moving picture's blatant disregard for the belongings that inspired it, and savour it as a piece of B-film madness, it'southward actually a lot of fun. Jeffrey Combs shows up in the terminal human activity (playing a mad medico, naturally), and every bit goofy and lumbering every bit they are, the various mutants accept a curious charm. One of them looks a bit like an elephant.

It has to exist said, though, that for a pic called The Guyver, the actual Guyver doesn't go a lot to do – having engaged in a lengthy fight in the middle of the film (which he loses), he's and then barely seen until the last twenty minutes, where he emerges, bizarrely, from the corpse of one of his enemies ("You lot can't kill me. I've been rejected by decease!"). And while the suit looks acceptably like the ane in the manga, information technology displays few of its awesome powers – the massive breast lasers don't make an appearance, and the hero instead spends much of the movie boot and punching things instead.

The backwash

That The Guyver didn't get terribly good notices shouldn't surprise anyone, and the movie went direct to video in the UK. (Cheekily, the flick's advertising implied that Mark Hamill has a much bigger function to play than he actually does, with his face splashed all over the American poster.)

Nevertheless, The Guyver became enough of a cult hit to allow Steve Wang to direct another ane. This was a reboot of sorts, called Guyver: Nighttime Hero. It was R-rated rather than PG-13, and was much more violent and faithful to the source manga than the 1991 movie was. David Hayter replaced the stilted Jack Armstrong in the atomic number 82, and Dark Hero was much more than positively received than its predecessor.

Information technology's difficult to spotter the original Guyver movie without wondering what a big-budget, serious handling of the comic would wait like; certainly, if one were adapted with a tenth of the care and knowledge Joss Whedon brought to Avengers, it could be fantastic.

For now, we'll have to brand do with Dark Hero – a more true-blue yet painfully depression-upkeep accept on Yoshiki Takaya's concept – or its predecessor, The Guyver. The latter is goofy, ridiculous and quintessentially 90s, simply cached within it are some nifty monsters and cheerfully gooey mutation effects. If approached on its own terms, there'due south much to enjoy virtually this trashy, straight-to-video oddity.

Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right hither. And be our Facebook chum here.