Cipher

Having finished "CIPHER THE VIDEO" after 40 minutes’ worth of confusion, bewilderment, laughter, and tears, I feel it necessary to gather my thoughts on it in some fashion. Recently released in a new rip/encode by ARR, “Cipher” is truly one of the more puzzling works I have ever seen from any era, in any medium. Its intentions seem wholly unknown to me, buried under the purest of incompetency, laziness/budget constraints, and seeming indifference.

The provided summary is as follows:

"Annis Marfie is a boyish-looking girl, who is studying art in New York. One day, she discovers that her schoolmate, an extraordinarily beautiful semi-pro model, Shiver is actually impersonated by two people. They are twins, Shiver and Cipher, but for the world, they act like they were just Shiver. Annis gets interested in the intention of these two, who fool the world this way, so she approaches them. "

However, absolutely none of that actually happens. Maybe it does in the manga, who knows, but, so far as the OVA goes, nope. What does happen the anime? Well, story-wise… absolutely nothing. There is a character who is an actor. This actor, his director, fellow actors, and fans are interviewed by an off-camera reporter. The whole “secret twins” idea is entirely lost, but there are two characters who look identical. Also, there is a girl who is somewhat involved with one of them. All of this, aside from the brief and thoroughly inconsequential interview scenes, is told without any dialog, as… the majority of “Cipher’s” content is comprised of oft-baffling musical montages. I’m not making this up, in the first fifteen minutes, all but a rare 2-3 minute interlude is an unending string of montages. Of the stomach churning late-80s fare present are only two songs that I recognize - Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” and Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose.”

I know of no better way to convey just how poorly handled and monotonous this dragging parade of montages is than to describe in great detail what I see as being the peak of their strangeness. After an opening string of cutesy montages lasting eight-and-a-half minutes, the anime finally cuts to what seems to be its long-delayed actual opening… instead, you are treated to a brief shot of the three main “characters” sitting around a television, which soon zooms in to show a 40-second cake commercial. No, wait, it gets better. After this mind numbing break, the viewer is treated to the first instance of dialog from the supposed center of the story, carried out in the previously described interview fashion. We see the young man on the set of a new film, a football feature entitled “WINNING TOUGH.”

All of the voice acting is horrible in the most surreal of fashions. Characters mumble through lines, insert awkward pauses as if it were their first time reading the script, and, on at least one occasion which I would bet my life on, actually trip up and stumble during the reading. This mishap is left in, as he then goes on to backtrack a half-step and continue the line. There is a definite “Blood Freak” feel going on here. After we dabble around with them for a while (approximately two minutes), what is, so far as I can figure, supposed to be the preview for this football film is shown in, you guessed it, an extended montage. When it came around to a few bars before the hook and I placed this familiar song as “Footloose,” I just lost it. If it does not last for the entirety of the song, then it is certainly a cut which is damned close to it. This Kenny Loggins anime football travesty finally comes to a close, leading into another worthless string of awkward and uncomfortable interviews for a minute (as in, literally, one minute) until… you can just feel them coming at this point, another montage.

I pray that I still have some readers, as what I am about to share deserves more than any other documented history or human expression to live on in some sort of shared consciousness. The montage following this one-minute break… is… a new, separate montage… set, again, to “Footloose.” A “Footloose” anime montage to follow up after the last “Footloose” anime montage because, hey, what could possibly be better than a “Footloose” anime montage? The mind reels. What absurdity! At every turn, this thing just gets stranger and stranger. It does not in any way feel like something that could have been directed or even aided by an actual human being. The pacing is so unnatural, the approach so obviously muddled… at the very worst, even the most artless of trash contains some trace of inherent subscription, again, even unconsciously, to standard rules of storytelling. It goes so far beyond any excuse possibly rendered along the lines of budget constraint or general inexperience of its cast and crew.

Despite the arguable contradiction in such a statement, the only organizational reasoning I can place to try and make some sense of this thing’s reality is that it is an unintentionally dadaist work. It is a brain-breaking monstrosity - seemingly a relic from another dimension, somehow released on home video within our own. Don’t accuse me of exaggeration until you’ve seen it yourself. There is absolutely nothing identifiable as “human” present at any point on any discernible level of this 40:50 shoujo abortion. Oh no, there’s more.

After the second coming of Kenny Loggins follows more pointless and unilluminating interview footage, more montages (at least we get some good funeral footage of the twins’ mom, as if anyone could actually be emotionally invested in these blank slate dweebs), and, finally, a genuine meeting of of two of the main characters in an unintentionally gut-busting scripted scene. After that (quite literal) rude awakening, the twins talk about what they are going to make for breakfast. This is clearly supposed to be humorous, but, really, I could go back and give a line-by-line transcription of the scene, and, yeah, there’s nothing more or less funny than summing it up as two men discussing which breakfast foods they want to combine into their meal. That this seems to be a source of great amusement for them is another testament to this OVA being more an approximation of human entertainment than the genuine article. This is, however, the most story and character development offered thus far. Suddenly, at 23:35, a familiar tune pops up…

“Say, isn’t this the hit 1984 Phil Collins ballad,’Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)?’ The very same song which was featured at the start of this OVA? Is… wait… why are credits rolling at barely over halfway through the running time…”

After being treated to another full-length cut of that soft rock classic, nearly fourteen minutes remain… fourteen minutes occupied by a making-of featurette/love letter to whatever-the-hell you just finished watching. It appears to be hosted by the main character himself, in character, but… this same voice also carries out the proceedings as a removed and subjective narrator. It really just alternates from line-to-line, basically. In this behind-the-scenes look, you gain an insight as to how the filmmakers sought for accuracy in recreating the wasted and trivial New York City setting. They claim to have closely studied the editing techniques of MTV programming to effectively emulate their tone (they didn’t). They worked with English voice actors in an attempt to create something unique in the world of Japanese animation. The universality of just how terrible every actor is in this feature is staggering. One would seemingly have better luck of getting decent performances out of people pulled from the street at random. This stands out even more when you watch people actually trying at this garbage.

How could this have been made? How did nobody at any point of its construction take a step back and realize how stilted, unnatural, and altogether heinous this thing is? Watching this featurette proves that it either is, in actuality, the result of human effort, or, at least, the work a highly evolved shapeshifting race (my money is on reptilians). How did it happen. How did any of this come to be. This review is loaded with such adjective saturated descriptive turns, and even combining them into one general impression fails to get across the broken feel of this anime. It is akin to the sorts of stimuli forcefully presented to someone in order to “break” or otherwise psychologically reprogram them.

So far as scoring goes, "Cipher" exists completely outside of any scale which could sum up its worth in simple numerical value. To reflect this, only a "0" or a "10" would seem applicable, so I opted for the "10," figuring that it would likely be uniformly rated lowly on this site. It is, if nothing else, a bizarre artifact of late-80s anime product which is entirely unlike anything else you will ever see. Whether or not this warrants a proper viewing is up to you.

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it's 10am and i havent gone to bed yet because i cant stop thinking about cipher. this ova was great. ive been sitting in my bed weeping from laughter and staring off in sheer bewilderment. i havent had enough time to completely wrap my mind around what i just watched. im a big fan of so bad theyre good movies. this is the best i have ever seen, hands down. it beats manos, it beats the room and it beats plan 9. this is so beyond all that. so much stranger and poorly thought out than i could have imagined anything could ever be. i could not have possibly imagined what i was about to watch five hours ago. how could i have known i was about to have my mind completely cracked open by the most bizarre, confusing, incredible thing i have ever come across.

its so incompetently made that it feels borderline like an art house movie. its perfected surrealism completely by accident. i recommend you watch this movie with absolutely no idea what youre about to see. the only other person to write a review for this wrote a really long, good review but i suggest you read it after, especially if youve never seen the montage clip thats been going around the internet recently. you cant possibly imagine what youre about to watch. it just gets stranger and stranger as it goes on. its like if the room merged with 2001 a space odyssey and a hits of the '80s mix tape. i am going to show this to every one i know. people should know about this shining beacon of uniqueness. you should watch it too.

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Overview:

I have seen a LOT of really weird anime, but I have never seen anything like Cipher. This anime comes completely out of left field and just leaves you speechless. It is basically a 40 minute music video that tells the story of a famous teen actor and his twin brother, who often attends school in his place. It was made in the 1980s, so the soundtrack is mostly Kenny Loggins and Phil Collins. It is PURE 80s cheese! I guess you have to consider that "AMVs" didn't exist in the 1980s, so the very concept of watching anime mixed with popular music was brand new and exciting. However, the first isn't usually the best. Just like the Wright Brothers' plane isn't exactly a high quality airplane by modern standards, Cipher isn't a very good AMV...or a good anime in general.

Every once in a while, the music stops and we get to watch a conversation between the characters. In his infinite wisdom, the director of Cipher didn't hire professional voice actors. I think he just held auditions for any Japanese citizens who could speak English. Of course, that doesn't mean that these people can act or get to practice English very often. So we get to listen to the most stilted, wooden, awkward line delivery I have ever heard. Yes, I am including "The Room" in my assessment of that statement. Laughing at these simply God awful line reads is probably the best part of Cipher.

There are 2 different kinds of spectacular failure anime. The first kind is when you know exactly what the director/writers were trying to do, but they managed to botch the execution beyond belief. An example of this would be Green Green. The second kind is where you honestly have no idea what the FUCK the crew was thinking. Why was this made? Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Who looked at the finished project and allowed it to actually be released?! Those are the kinds of questions you will be asking for a long time after watching Cipher. At least it gained 2 points for hilariously bad line reads and awesomely cheesy music!

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Up until lately, I have been out of anime to watch. Much to my surprise, being a very big fan of this medium, I thought to myself that, maybe, it was time to quit. With my national exams coming, it would have been easier for me to focus on them. Few days later, I found out that I still needed my daily dose of anniemays and mangoes and manhwuoes and whatever, had it become a habit to watch much coming from this medium. Much to my serendipity, I was able to find a masterpiece that was able to bring me back to this medium. That being a masterpiece in both directorial and emotional prowess, Cipher.

This ineffable experience managed to bring many fortunities about. On the one hand, a music video of only 40 minutes, on another one that managed to utilize airing time to its fullest. The directing being incredibly digestible, I was wondering about whether gods really exist in this world, ones that makes such perfect works to bestow us pitiful humans with. The close-ups, the further-aways, the camera shots in general were captured with elegance and eloquence, supporting the credibility of old shows. An episode that should be up there with Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Rose of Versailles, in the hall of fame, in the avant-garde collection of meaningful canvasses that this industry has produced in its quite early years.

Of course, I would not be able to skip on talking about the soundtrack, which is the main merit of this ephemeral journey. All the songs, I mean it, all of them, are tremendously well-done, Phil Collins included in the palette. Holy mother of god was the transition between them magnificent as well. I am left with no words, as the sound section triggers a sonorous sound into my soul, one that is truly admirable.

The art section is yet another great addition to this work of art, incredibly clean and definitely not boring to look at, with detailed character designs that surpass the likes of Yoshitoshi ABe. The animation is so fluent and so addictive, and it hurts my soul, because it manages to throw sand on the faces of Gunbuster, Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Area 88. Undoubtedly a galore of colourful, vibrant artistic means, including the so sentimental looks that our characters' eyes have.

Additionally, our characters manage to shine throughout the series, all of them, even the side characters, being equally important. Home to impeccable dialogue and narrative, including that all around spectacular scene where our main character speaks with a man of old age about many difficulties of life, Cipher manages to strike my heart chords with subtlety. The moments between the two brothers are touching and full of meaning as well.

I will be looking forward to the hit manga series that is homage to this incredible short watch, which as I've been informed, is even greater than it. There is a comment I found in a YouTube section that indicates so:

"Actually: IT'S FREAKIN AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL MANGA. And another one: YOU SHOULD READ IT, IF YOU DON''T WANT TO WASTE YOUR LIFE. Seriously. One of the best manga I've ever read, talking about love, hate, lonliness, drugs, envy, betrayal, death and the most of all: forgiveness. Beggining is happy and kinda childlish. Then very sad and mature for a certain time, but at the end it's really touching and heart-warming story about life. Simply masterpiece for me. Oh, and you better Google it to look how beautiful it is. Old mangas ftw~
Now read it. GO! It's your next quest!"

I was moved by how dedicated this person is towards this incredible work! Such detail with such a succinc manner! It definitely will be my next quest, in this long yet tiring yet full of credit journey that this medium has given me! I am pat patting for it!

Check out this masterpiece please. It should not be missed by anyone. Cipher will be performed as an opera on the holodecks of the ships that disperse us into the heavens! We were really just clothed monkeys until it allowed us to transcend our animalism! I shall sing its praises to all that shall come forth and be enlightened!

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You will never see another anime quite like Cipher.

It is a music video, a love sonnet to New York City, a tribute to Phil Collins, a movie within a movie, a commercial for cake mix, an interview, a psychoanalysis of its characters, a surreal mind trip... Cipher is all those things and so much more.

As I watched, I felt a full range of emotions: confusion, delight, disgust, joy, outrage, hilarity. Although based on a shoujo manga, director Tsuneo Tominaga decided to throw the source material away, including a linear narrative, character arcs, and discernible dialogue, for a bizarre trip through his subconscious. Lacking any semblance of plot, music videos are strung together to form a tapestry of idiosyncratic moments in the life of twins Siva and Cipher. Then a Pillsbury Doughboy parody decides to pop up smack-dab in the middle of the OVA. Then a movie interview follows soon after. But hold on…another music video! Wait, is that a fat flying cat with a bow-tie? Nothing makes sense and it is brilliant.

Although most of the OVA is cheerful and upbeat, a dark undercurrent runs through its 26-minute run. While the twins are charismatic, talented, and well-liked, they are also filthy liars. What drives them to fake their way through life is up for interpretation, but it could be seen as a scathing rebuke of the hotshot movie lifestyle. Or perhaps their deceit is due to their tragic backstory? Or maybe it was all an elaborate ruse to get their hands on that cake mix? It sure made me hungry enough to commit a crime. Another notable character is Anise, their classmate. She is bubbly, hotheaded, sports an obvious crush, and apparently likes to dress up as Peter Pan. Make of that what you will.

The soundtrack is outstanding; it has that campy and delightful 80’s feel, with songs such as “Against All Odds” by Phil Collins and “Let's Hear It for the Boy” by Deniece Williams. If a Cipher CD comes out, I would download the shit out of it. Voice acting quality is a mixed bag; voice actors all speak English (given that this is set in the U.S.) but at varying levels of experience. Some of them did a phenomenal job and sounded just like native English speakers, but others performed as if ripped straight from a parody dub.

Characters are drawn pretty and bishounen-like: tall, handsome, well-built and indistinguishable from one another. Although the guys are nice eye candy, my favorite character design goes to Anise: bushy blond hair, soulful brown eyes, and wears keys for earrings. Someone call Vogue, I have a new model for them. Second best would be Mose, who looked like he had been transported straight from the pages of the Old Testament. Animation is mostly the characters dancing. They could beat any Dance Dance Revolution tournament blindfolded.

Cipher transcends scores and numerical rating scales – it is an EXPERIENCE.

Recommended to absolutely every single living being on this planet.

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Footloose is 1984 musical film directed by Herbert Ross and named after a terrible Kenny Loggins song. The film stars Kevin Bacon as Ren McCormack, an upbeat Chicago native who finds himself in downbeat Bomont, Utah. But wait a second, we’re not supposed to be talking about Footloose. We’re here to discuss Cipher The Video, the greatest manga trailer and The Video ever made.

Cipher is a shoujo manga about a girl in love with a boy with a twin brother who switches places with him sometimes. At least that’s what I think it is. It takes place in America maybe? I’ve never read the manga, I’ve just seen The Video. Normally you’d think after watching what’s supposed to be an adaptation you’d have some sort of idea of what the source material is like. The Video doesn’t play that way, it has its own rules. And by own rules I mean there’s one rule, no rules.

Cipher is essentially a series of music videos broken up by intermissions. If you direct your attention towards the staff section, you’ll notice a few things. A couple of names and faces might ring a bell. For example, Phil Collins, as in Phil Collins the guy who did the soundtrack to Tarzan. Also Kenny Loggins, hence the talk of Footloose earlier. Oh and some black lady who did that song about hearing it for the boy that’s god awful. They aren’t there as a joke, they have songs featured in Cipher The Video. And oh boy are some of them featured. “Against All Odds” opens it up, “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” really introduces us to the impending disaster, “Footloose” gets two encores, and “Against All Odds” ends our suffering. I’m not 100% on the ending song, I’m only basing that on MAL’s info because hell if I could remember anything that was going on by the time it ended.

Watching Cipher isn’t really as interesting as thinking about Cipher. When you watch it, you’ll quickly realize something went wrong. I mean, there’s no way it was intended to be like this. Only a small portion is actually animated, a lot of it is just still frames. There’s also a distinct lack of voice acting. Direct your attention to the characters. Two of the three have no voice actor listed because there’s no voice actor at all. Outside of maybe one or two lines, all of the voice acting takes place during a interview of the main character. The version I watched had poor (in both acting ability and audio quality) English voice acting. MAL has a Japanese VA for him, so who knows if that was supposed to be a dub. I’m almost inclined to believe it was the original due to Japanese subs and a comment I read about how the director wanted that authentic western feel. I don’t know what to believe.

In summation, Cipher was probably supposed to be a real anime but then God intervened and said “fuck that noise, make it surrealist art.”

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An Avant Garde Masterpiece

A surreal fragmented narrative told through nothing but mock interviews, fake advertisements and animated music videos sequences set to 80s pop hits. In fact, the whole thing is book ended by Phil Collin's music!

Despite wielding only this pastiche of 80s pop culture, a compelling example of 'show not tell' storytelling is expertly achieved within just 20 minutes. The remainder 15 minutes? Dedicated to the promotional material and the 'making of'. A fitting metafiction for this story within a story.

Notable:

-The Twin Towers as an allegory for our twin protagonists

-Silent film dialogue

-Phil Collins

-Awesomely atmospheric montage of NYC nightlife set to an obscure new wave song

-Totally not gay brotherly kiss

-"Yeah"

-Even more Phil Collins


So watch this post modernist masterpiece now; a compact culmination of 1980s western culture in all its glory!

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This thing's wild. It's a jumbled up montage of music videos stripped of context, and then an MTV-style "real bro interviews" thing where the main actor has a very noticeable accent, completely breaking the illusion of the character, along with a few real bad voice actors to go along with it.

Yep, this is a Japanese anime movie where it's voiced entirely in English. It's not much better than you'd expect.

It's wild and barely comprehensible, but it's also pretty short. 15 minutes of the 40 minute runtime are actually a making-of featurette after the fact; that's pretty nice and I appreciate it.

Okay, this is my first review and I just need to write about this awful anime. I guess I now know why it is on the MAL badges for unique anime.

I couldn't find a good storyline in this anime, to me it was as if ingredients were thrown together to make a delicious cocktail only the ingredients consist out of rotting meat and milk that has been spoiled for three months.

The art for it's year of making was okayish, I just couldn't enjoy it and it eventually became a thorn in my eye in combination with the voice acting.

The only thing I enjoyed about it was the music in between the dialogue, catchy and brings back memories.

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Gosh, Cipher is such a strange work.

There's a guy named Cipher, and a guy named Siva, and they're both... twins or something? Nothing is really explained about their relationship to each other or what is even going on in the film. One of them is a movie star making a football film, that's about all I got out of it.
None of the characters are introduced very well (or in some cases at all), as there's very little dialogue in the film, and the dialogue that is there is done through an interview-like style that doesn't actually say much about them or the story at hand.

The film literally just ends up being a few different music videos that feature the same characters, strung together by these interview segments. These music videos have a certain amount of charm to them, featuring 80's music and being somewhat fun to watch.

The art is pretty nice too. I like how they portrayed New York, and the character designs look alright, despite being pretty standard for that era.
The animation is nice enough, but for an OVA from 1989, it does seem a bit lacking compared to the other stuff that was coming out at the time.

Overall, Cipher feels like wasted potential. The whole film feels more like an extended intro to an 80's movie, and the last scene of the film feels more like it should be the first scene after the opening credits. However, the film just kind of ends, right as it feels like it's about to begin. It's really bizarre.
If this had been longer and we got more dialogue and an actual story played out, then this could have been a pretty interesting way to start a movie, but as a work on it's own, it just falls really short, and fails to deliver on the loose premise that they set up.

Despite that, I can't say I despised it...

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OK. This is somehow the cringiest anime I have ever seen, and that includes many of the worst listed on MAL.

Story: 0

I was forced to give this a 1, but if it was up to me it would be 0. There is literally no story. One third of this is a montage of disconnected moments and the worst dancing ever in anime. The rest of it apart from the final scene is about a guy who's filming a movie: it doesn't do much. Then the last scene is him meeting his brother. That is it. That is all. It is a plotless mess that is laughable. The worst thing is that there are four minutes of credits at the end against a static image.

Art: 2

Average to bad. An 80s shoujo style that is not as good as the manga in anyway, and I feel as if some of the footage gets re-used quite a bit.

Sound: 2

I watched the English dub. The music is bad, apart from one song which is the saving grace for the sound section which sounds oddly familiar, likely due to it being a popular 80s song from the US.

The dub is the worst English dub I have ever watched. Monotone, flat and with pauses inbetween words in a sentence. On top of that, the main VA stumbles a bit in a few places. Furthermore, the audio quality of the voice makes it sound like it wasn't even recorded professionally, and I could do better myself with just my phone.

The script is also garbage, it coming off so fake it's cringe worthy.

Character: 1

There is barely any character to look into. All we get is a guy being interviewed and we get a ghost of a semblence of a personality and that's it.

The other two "main" characters were really only in the montage so they are there for practically no reason.

Enjoyment: 10

Just from sheer terribleness, this could only be described as a hilariocity, or a hilarious atrocity. I'd recommend watching it with friends to complain about it's terribleness and laugh like hyenas.

Overall: 1

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Ah, the much-maligned "Cipher". Notoriously rated one of the worst anime OVAs of the decade. Also considered one of the weirdest anime shows to be made, leaving many to scratch their heads thinking, 'why does this even exist?' (However, it does not take the cake for the strangest ever -- that honor goes to Chocolate Panic Show).

And yet, if viewed from a certain perspective, it has a certain...charm. I would certainly be more willing to watch more like this, than about half of the current,modern crop of regular anime series that are dredged up and vomited on the screen each year.

If you read any online description for 'Cipher', it will invariably mention twins Shiva (alternately called Shiver/Shiba/Siba) and Cipher, and even though 'they' become semi-famous actors, no one seems to know they are two different people. Oh, and apparently there's this cute girl that wants to be friends with Cipher. Or something.

And I say the "or something" because...well, you can pretty much throw all of that (or any other story description you may read) completely out the window. Because this OVA barely even touches on any of that.

In fact, there is NO linear story to this at all. It starts with one painfully-eighties music video (featuring a Phil Collins song covered by some nameless lounge singer), followed by another music video. Followed by a fake commercial that has nothing to do with anything. Followed by an interview snippet. And another music video. And so on. It's all tangentially about Shiva/Cipher, but just sort of dances around the concept of a story. I suppose the actual story is in the manga, if you really care.

But, if you accept all that and just look at this as one long experiential music video (airing on, say, USA Network "Night Flight", or on VH-1 at 2 in the morning). One oddity that sets this OVA apart from all the rest is that even though it a Japanese production, the language is all in English, and the setting is in New York. The character designs are appealing (it's a type of shoujo characters that I like, especially the cute-as-buttons girl), and the background artwork is crisp and clean. The animation is pretty blah, however, much like the effervescently eighties soundtrack.

So, just tune out of any sort of story and tune in to the visual experience, and you should do fine.

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Cipher The Video is like if you took the prompt to make an anime based off of MTV but you just did a recording of MTV and made it anime with a few Manga characters recurring and i love it. It just slaps no question. If you know the manga premise then you can kinda know whats going on but you don't need to because it doesn't have a plot and is basically a 40 minute OP, the dialogue is in english as its set in New York but it can be a bit shaky cos its a bit old (this doesn't at all matter as the yogurt scene it fucking hilarious). 10/10 the guys are hot, they should probably stop kissing each other cos they are brothers tho.

二ャ－、
mnmnnnn nnnnmnn
ahhhhhh
...
...
...
yeh
yah
💕 kiss kiss 💕
gmorning Jay
gmorning
so whaddya wanna eat?
yogurt, top it with vanila ice cream, raisins
okay okay, how bout some peanut butter too.

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As an immediate disclaimer, I made the mistake of watching Cipher after getting only four hours of sleep. That said, I really don't think it makes a difference how much sleep you get, nothing can truly prepare you for this experience. I was warned that this OVA made no sense. I knew that the voice acting was... A Choice. People said it was a confusing, hilarious mess, and they were right. I thought I was ready. I wasn't.

The plot pretty much doesn't exist, or at the very least, if there was meant to be a plot buried within the 80s music and cake mix advertisements, I couldn't find it. There's nothing much to say about the art. It's exactly what you'd expect from an anime of its time. The character design from a visual point is fine, nothing too special, but they look alright. The only thing to properly judge by is their appearance because they have less personality than a Danganronpa protagonist. I've met more interesting rice cakes. As for the voice acting, well... I would bet money on the director just picking random people off the streets and seeing who was willing to read some nonsensical lines for $3.50. It genuinely pains me to say that the best voice acting in the entire thing was the cake mix commercial. The music, however, is entirely responsible for my enjoyment of this fever dream of an OVA. To see random snapshots of the main character's lives and the streets of New York City set to Footloose for a good 7 minutes or so was delightful. My overall rating was bumped up to a 2 instead of a 1 for the soundtrack. I'm tempted to have my mother watch it for the music alone.

Other miscellaneous notes: I could not and still can't tell the main characters apart. At one point they reused a shot of a crowd on the street, and I was forcibly reminded of a particular 18+ OVA called Tsui no Sora. One of the scenes was one of the brothers seemingly kissing the other while he was sick; I believe I actually paused the video and said, "What the heck?!" although with a few more expletives thrown in. At some point one of the characters' hair suddenly changes colour/style?? I think? No explanation is given. Cipher and Shiva's idea of breakfast food is apparently yogurt topped with vanilla ice cream, raisins, and peanut butter; I am horrified and disgusted. Finally, and most importantly, the Very Round Cat wears a bow tie.

Overall, Cipher the video is an unforgettable dumpster fire of an OVA. My life has been changed forever. Phil Collins playing during the credits where you just stare at a picture of the twins when they were younger is burned into my brain. This is one of those things that's so bad it's good. Or if not good, then at the very least it's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I enjoyed it tremendously. So if you're looking for something that embodies the 1980s like nothing else, something that will make you laugh yourself to tears, or just a calico cat with a too small bow tie, this is the OVA for you. I cannot recommend it enough.

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Cipher is definitely one of the cringiest and worse animes I have ever seen.

Story: 1/10
There is no story. Half of it is a montage of random scenes that have no connections in any way. And the other half is some terrible 'interview' of these people being cast into a movie. Completely plotless.

Art: 1/10
The art is very ugly and terrible quality even for the 80s. A lot of the animation gets reused as well.

Sound: 1/10
The songs that were played were TERRIBLE and didn't fit the video at all. The voice actors were so monotone and cringy, awfully recorded too.

Character: 1/10
There is nothing to the characters, they do not get developed in the slightest. All there is to go on is a terrible interview that reveals absolutely nothing.

Enjoyment: 1/10
Not fun at all to watch. I played it on double speed just to get it over with quicker. Do not recommend.

Overall: 1/10
I would score this a 0/10 if I were able to. Honestly one of the worst animes I have ever seen. Do not watch it. It is only 30 mins but it feels like 30 hours to sit through. Terrible.

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A touching love letter to American pop culture of the time, not much more. That's what this adaptation is, it's not too entertaining or special with no real plot beyond showcasing the only real character in it, whos a movie star. Comments on the video I watched mentioned it was intentionally dubbed in English when it was made, resulting in a bad dub. But that only contributes to its feel of American Culture, and does not detract from the show due to it being so American. The only real thing the show addresses is how many pop and movie stars become estranged from their families over time and the toll it can take.

To wrap up the music in it is English pop music, and with the lack of plot making the show feel like a music video. The music itself is pretty tinny. Visuals are pretty classic shoujo for the time. And story is practically non existent. Still for a 26 min one shot I think it might be worth your time, depending on what you expect to get out of shows. It best comes across as a love letter to American Pop culture of the time.

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I'm so confused???? But apparently, that's expected, since this is pretty much an (official) AMV for a manga.

To be fair, the music is good. It's very american (i mean, phil collins is in the intro! just an example), but it's good. The dub is horrible, it's like they COULDN'T pay for actual voice-actors so they just asked around the street for random people to come over and say some lines in front of a microphone.

BUT... it's so hilarious that you just roll with it and accept the awkwardness. It kind of gives a certain "charm" to this OVA.

The art is pretty and I actually want to read the manga, so yay for that.

What really made me give it a "low" rating is the story. What the FUCK is the story??? I have no idea! That's one of the reasons why I plan to read the manga: to figure out what the fuck was going on lmao

There's also another thing that bothered me: does this story have incest?? There was a particular scene that made me go "umm??" but since I didn't understand the story, I can't point it out as incest. That could just have been a misunderstanding by me. But... I'm not sure.

Overall, I think Cipher: THE VIDEO was pretty funny. I know that that wasn't its intention, but I mean... that's all it could offer me lol

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a transcendental experience. i love this with every fibre of my being. effective art makes you ask questions, so:

why was the Hindu god Shiva shown in this 80s MV set in New York? the Japanese pronunciation of 'Shiva' is similar to 'Shiver', the name of one of the twins, right? what are the implications of the twin sharing the same name as a supreme being? like was this supposed to imply Shiver is the ultimate creator of the universe? is this why he has that red spot on his forehead? and why did the two brothers kiss both during and after the flashback showing their mother's funeral? what did that "yeah" refer to?

please....if anyone can get me into contact with Minako Narita....please...i need answers...

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I just watched the 1989 ONA Cipher and I have no idea what to say, this anime is unexplainable, sure it has a plot and a somewhat cohesive story, but there is something about this that I truly can't wrap my head around, whether it's good or bad I can honestly say I've never watched anything like this anime.


So the story is basically this, there are two twin brothers who pretend to be the same person, and a girl at their school I think finds out about it and wants to be their friend or something... Shiver the one brother is a famous actor currently shooting a football movie called "Winning Tough" and the other brother Cipher is a musician. Well this movie is an absolute disaster, I honestly don't think Einstein could wrap his head around this movie and I don't think that it is in a good way either, it is so confusing but I don't know why, I've never been more confused watching a film before.


Something I genuinely liked about the movie was the soundtrack, it was good, classic 80's songs from great artists like Phil Colin's. The voice acting on the other hand is dreadful, some of the worst I've ever heard, this makes the original Devilman series of 1987 look like acting greatness. I did believe the soundtrack gave it some sort of charisma I guess.


The animation was awful, yes even for the time period. Not much else can be said about the animation though, it wasn't a unique art style and it was just plain horrible, the movement was stiff, colors looked ugly, and the art in general wasn't terrible but definitely wasn't good.


I've been putting it down but I do think there is something different about this ONA, it genuinely did intrigue me in this weird way I can't explain. I am not saying it is good or anything, I'm just saying their truly is something about this that I just couldn't wrap my head around, it kind of left me speechless. I mean it still sucks though... right?

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This anime… Whew. You either hate it or love it. But I'll tell you right now, if you expect something akin to the manga, that's not what this is. The manga, from the little I've read, is supposed to be a love story involving a girl and two boys in an American high school. The beginning of the OVA kind of does that (keyword: kind of), but then eventually it takes a completely different turn.

It turns into a guy who became a famous actor, I guess. Now, I'm not necessarily against the idea of an anime adaption taking a different turn compared to the manga, but the way Cipher does it is juxtaposing prime. The storyline is awkward to say the least, a mishmash between several plotlines. It’s about high school kids, then it's about making it big in Hollywood, and then it turns into a gay love story. As you can imagine, it all mixes together as about as well as oil mixes with water.

The music is pretty catchy and features 80s' classics, albeit out of place at certain parts. However, that's where my compliments on the sound end. The voice acting is so awful it's hilarious. It's like they found random people on the street and paid them $10 to read lines. Character development? What's that?

To have that, you need to have… Character. There are a lot of things happening to the protagonist, sure, but we know next to nothing about him. He’s a teenage actor and… That’s about it. The other characters have the same level of depth, too. There is nothing that gets me invested in these characters. With all that said, would I recommend watching this anime?

Yes. Is it bad? Also, yes. But it’s an experience. Firstly, it’s an anime that’s so bad it’s funny. Secondly, it’s a good tutorial on how not to write a story for any aspiring fiction writers. Thirdly, you can enjoy it with your fellow anime-loving friends as you roast it… Preferably with a beer or two. And to be fair, it's pretty rare to find an anime where its original dub is in English which just adds to the uniqueness. And from what I can tell, the creator seemed to have a lot of fun making it. Even though this anime is far from good, it’s still a very enjoyable series.

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