GENESHAFT - Vol.1: RING

This is not going to be a complicated review. All aspects of “Geneshaft” are clearly visible: excellent design, superb animation, interesting story, catastrophic characterization.
I picked this release not because of it’s synopsis (men incited mega-war, so it’s decided they’re responsible for all problems of the world and shrinked to 1/9 of population. Plus, everybody’s genes are engineered, thus placing them in specific positon in society…), I knew this is not Hentai-style ‘spaceship seraglio’ trip where one man is covered by nine women. The real reason is Kazuki Akane and his “Escaflowne” movie I enoyed immensely. At least one thing was certain: direction is going to be superb.

Design is also excellent, especially interior of Bilkis the supercraft. It’s look is confusing though, and Shaft (the super-weapon) is awkwardly attached to it. It’s rendered in 3D, with too much detail I might say. You will notice one thing: animation is so precise and sharp, absolutelly spotless, that you’ll feel that images of characters are ‘glued’ to the background being in perfect focus. Even Earth is so masterfully presented, yo’ll think they used NASA’s photos.
One more thing stands out in quality and idea: consoles and their graphic interface is ingenious. Hope that Microsoft Windows 2200 NT Integrated ® will look like Bilkis’ mainframe.
I introduced you to the story before, more detalis follow: we have a ship with chosen crew (according to their genetic abilities), there’s an elusive enemy that managed to destroy superhumans called ‘Giants’ that lived on Ganymede 15,000 years ago. You’re already familiar with sociology of the Earth population in 23rd century (1:9, remember?) and Philip K. Dick-like trip of genetic predetermination of abilites and position. Let’s introduce Immortals – sort of like super-Freemasons that cannot die, and we’ve got ourselves a story.

And now the bad part. Main character is Mika Seido. She is special, you guessed right. She is still undeveloped. Comparing to her female companions, she is really undeveloped, but I was thinking of genetics. Her genes haven’t reached maturity (?), so she has fantastic potential. OK. I guess that can be swallowed. Annoying part is all those cathegories of people: we have a young rebel, a dominatrix bitch, a sweet girl, kiss-up servant, a comedian. They behave like they’re in henhouse. Too much shouting and stupidity. Dialog predictability: 99%. Poor men… greatly outnumbered, they have to endure all that. But they are, you know, suave&silent types, smart and strong. Typical. So typical, it kills almost all the fun. Combined with annoying metal music in between chapters and episodes.

Sounds? Well, good - if you’re watching undubbed version, that is. English dialogue version is a catastrophy! BANDAI flunked on this one bad! Yes, overall, Geneshaft could have been better. Story can only get worse (‘cause now it is good), so this release might be good for renting, not for buying.