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Gyo (Anime) add (All reviews)
Apr 10, 2015
Mixed Feelings
"I can only believe that which I've seen. Is what I've seen the truth?"

Preface:

Well, what happens when you cross Sharknado with Stink Bomb (from Katsuhiro Otomo, director of Akira) and a zombie fish apocalypse? Gyo, that's what.


Artwork and Animation: 7

Gyo was animated by ufotable (Fate Series), and with that comes their flair for the 3D CGI. While not up to the standard set by Fate before it, for a 2012 anime, the 3D is decent. It's obvious that this movie was on a budget, and it shows through some dodgy animated segments and absolutely average hand drawn animation. While it does a good job with the gore and viscera, everything else is mostly meh.


Sound and Voice Acting: 5

Not really much to say here. The cast voices, small as they are, are forgettable, the background music is pretty standard horror fare with high tension string sections and jarring shifts in loudness. The skittering, sucking, and squelching noises are pretty tasty though.


Story?: 2

Taking the Sharknado and Stink Bomb idea further, Gyo basically puts a new spin on the old classic of "menacing, methane filled sea creatures with mechanized legs coming out of the ocean to destroy humanity". *Whispers* "Wait ... waaaat?" I'm being told that this is actually the first time that this has been done. Points for originality?
--Not really. Gyo changes gears waaay too fast. It starts off with this horrible stench, one that permeates everything- a miasma of death. Soon, the characters find that the source of the stench are dead fish possessed by a spider-walker, who are then hell bent on killing any and every living thing.

A little bit of exposition later, and the fish are apparently this way because of a chemical weapon/virus created during world war 2? Soon, the humans are becoming infected too, and this pseudo scientific explanation isn't enough, so we tack on that the machines were probably created so that the fish could spread the crippling smell and infection, since they don't have legs of their own.

The disease is shown to be transmissible, as humans can catch it from merely being scratched. Symptoms manifest nearly immediately in the form of hilarious bloating from production of methane gas inside the body, which then cause the host to burp and fart methane continuously until they reach a breaking point and explode bloody viscera. (Nevermind that anyone nearby or trapped indoors with this much methane would have long since passed out or asphyxiated.)

Next, the story changes yet again; the machines have no screws, so they were obviously not created by humans, but made by aliens. (I can't make this stuff up.) The stench has created a personality of its own, and is seeking to assimilate all life on earth to create a giant, spider legged, methane gas spewing army... that is, until all the hosts rupture.

Yeah, so to throw some less sense in on top of this, certain people are (for reasons unexplained) unaffected by the illness, and also apparently immune to methane asphyxiation.


Characters: 4

Kaori, the protagonist, is a bit of a Mary Sue character. Bland and essentially faceless, she allows for the viewer to project onto her to witness the horrors firsthand. Her motives once the fishpocalypse begins consist solely of finding her fiance, Tadashi. To do what, who knows? (I'm betting on escape, but this isn't even really addressed.)
Her friends are not very interesting- one is the quintessential party girl looking for a good time and finding nothing but pain, and the other is a repressed, angsty girl who exists solely for sweet schadenfreude.

Elsewhere, we have Shirakawa, a freelance journalist whose camera gives us a bit of a 'found footage' feel to the unfolding horror. He comes equipped with things like "goals" and "motive" in the otherwise trudge of a plot. Once the outbreak happens, he takes it upon himself to get the word out to the world what's going on (and maybe make a buck or two at it in the process).


Enjoyment: 7

Well, there's a moment that's supposed to be tragic, and one that's supposed to be reviling, and the rest of it is just gross. I rode somewhere in between mild interest and passing grimaces the whole time. The sheer ridiculousness and lack of a plot put this one in the "So Bad It's Good" category. It's just plain weird.


Overall: 5 (Mediocre)
Recommend?

Gyo is an oddity, for sure. The "wtf" factor is strong with this one, but not in a shocking or reviling way, just meh. Not recommended, unless one has 70 minutes to kill and nothing better to watch. Just go watch Stink Bomb, at least it's funny on purpose.


tl;dr

+ Decent 3D animation
+ Laughable craziness
+/- Either too long or not long enough
+/- Totally ridiculous
- Stupid plot
- Boring characters


"I want sharks with FRICKIN laser beams attached to their heads!" - Dr. Evil
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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