Reviews

First adaptation that received the classic sleeve of Yoshiki Takaya, being removed in a format of only one short OVA the following year of which its sleeve began its publication. Due to this and the little that had advanced the material until that moment, the story of the OVA was only an approximate adaptation of the first four chapters of the manga. Covering only the basic elements of these chapters as the transformation of the protagonist when making contact with the artifact; the battle with the first Zoanoids presented; the battle with the Guyver II and the appearance at the end of the OVA of the Guyver III. Among the main changes that were made in the adaptation I could find the fact of having replaced Tetsuro Segawa by Mizuki Segawa, and the most notorious; the replacement of Oswald Lisker (the Guyver II) by a female agent named Valcuria, who would come to be the final enemy of this OVA as the Guyver II. But moving a little away from what would be to highlight the differences you have with your original material and probably not covered too well the little content that could be drawn from these few chapters, I will speak exclusively of my impressions on this first OVA.

The Guyver OVA is a job that has managed to capture my attention in one way or another. Coming clearly from a work that has had clear inspiration from other classics of yesteryear with the premise of the boy who for X or Y circumstances ends up abandoning his humanity and fighting with forces that threaten him, his friends and the world. To name the prime example we have Devilman from Go Nagai. The premise of this OVA is interesting in itself, but unfortunately as the first opportunity has not passed decently from the role to the animation. Production Reed, the studio in charge of this first OVA has not always been noted for having a budget too outstanding in their productions, we have cases like his adaptation of Vampire Hunter D in 1985, which would later be known as the ugly version of Hunter D , precisely because it has as a point of comparison the fascinating work done by Madhouse and Yoshiaki Kawajiri with Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust of the year 2000. And with the case of the OVA of Guyver (1986) the exact same thing happens: to be a work that has received several adaptations over the years it is impossible not to make the comparison to know which is doing more justice to his sleeve that already a practitioner can be considered cult and with its certain relevance in the world. Therefore, the adaptation to OVA of 86 is clearly considered the worst version that Guyver has had in animation, and I really believe it ...

In judging Guyver either as an adaptation or as a simple OVA plus action of the 80's, it is very badly stopped. In the first place we have to focus on how it looks, because at least it would have to stand out as a fun action with well represented violence, or not? The OVA is violent, of course, it has a lot of action as well, but it just seems to be fatal. If you only see her looking for some decent OVA Gore to put out the brain and enjoy, you'll get a good disappointment because even that does not give much. The violence is not at all shocking or outstanding, despite the fact that there are many dismemberments and crushes of heads around releasing liters and liters of blood, is very limited in the movement of the characters and how they draw the bleed makes it look very false, presenting scenes that far from causing any kind of impact on the viewer only cause you to think about how ridiculous you can get to see for such a poor drawing. Neither is that you have to forgive for the time because even for those years the decade of the 80`s was clearly the rise of this type of visceral works. And I know that this comparison is too unfair for the budget that was invested in both, but the first Devilman OVA of 1987 is much better as explicit Gore material, being very entertaining and sporting an incredible technical quality. Not to mention that he also has better fights than we could find in the Guyver OVA.

Leaving the poor animation and side design, the story as I said before is interesting, but the execution is very bad, mainly limited by time and by the bad decisions made to adapt what little they could of the manga. Leaving us with a generic OVA to kill Monsters to rescue the girlfriend of the protagonist who was kidnapped by the evil organization. The characters only leave us with the impression of being very basic, the protagonist has at least one notable moment of fragility, but nothing more. The OVA also suffers from the effect of being an incomplete material, clear, and in passing with loose ends such as the whereabouts of the protagonist and Guyver III, or if the organization was completely dismantled. So many things that could never have materialized in an OVA of 50 minutes To finish, just keep the memory that this OVA was a dirty little spot in the history of adaptations that Guyver has, you just have to ignore it and pretend that you never had a reason to exist. Because a short time later in 1989, a set of 6 OVAs would come out that would adapt the manga from scratch, having a better acceptance than the deficient product of 1986. Did these OVAs really achieve a result that was less acceptable?