n the 23rd-century future of Geneshaft, individuals seem to be valued solely for their genetic designs. After nearly destroying itself with wars and waste, the human race managed to survive via an aggressive program of DNA manipulation. By designing its citizens from scratch and magnifying their potential—and limiting society's gender ratio to one male per nine females, since men were deemed unalterably violent—Earth's new government hoped to eliminate human aggression.
Unfortunately, no one seems to have informed 2nd Lt. Mika Seido. The plucky 16-year-old pilot at the center of Geneshaft is routinely mocked for being a "white"—an individual whose DNA lacks an adult's normal colorful response to a certain chemical test—and she seems determined to prove the veracity of her detractors' taunts by acting as violently and irrationally as possible. Brought to a space station for a secret military mission, she catches sight of a high-ranking individual whom she blames for a friend's death; ignoring both the protective electrical field that surrounds him and his cordon of heavily armed bodyguards, she attacks him without plan or thought. Later, when she finds that he's the captain of the ship she's been assigned to, she stands on his bridge and rails at him, spurning his orders and physically assaulting him again. In a society supposedly centering on non-violent achievement, it's a bit of a wonder that Mika was never taken out back and quietly shot.
And naturally, the mission's other obnoxious teen pilots never let her forget it. One of the handful of superachievers chosen to pilot the revolutionary weapon called the Shaft is an old friend of Mika's, but the other three—12-year-old brat Tiki Musicanova, snide blond ice princess Mir Lotus and her bespectacled groupie Remmy Levi-Strauss—are unrelentingly smug and petty. Even as it becomes clear that the group is facing a possible alien enemy that poses an immense and imminent threat to Earth, the girls spend more time on their sneering rivalry than on solving the problem or obeying their orders.
Predictable patterns of put-downs
Geneshaft's setting and setup are full of fascinating outgrowths of genetic engineering, from Mika's pen pal/pet, a dog with human-level intelligence but wholly canine habits, to the DNA-altered, near-emotionless women called "Registers" who follow men around, recording their behavior and watching for warning signs of incipient violence. It's similarly full of intriguing little societal quirks: Two people with the same DNA pattern are considered the same individual, regardless of their experiences or personalities, while people with a recognizably "superior" DNA pattern are praised and petted and allowed to behave like spoiled celebrities. On paper, Geneshaft shares some interesting similarities with Gattaca, another science-fiction story about a society where DNA pedigrees trump demonstrated potential.
Unfortunately, more than that chilly, expertly presented film, Geneshaft resembles Battle Athletes, a hit-and-miss series with a great deal of power and a well-executed background but a weakness for slapstick and a predictable pattern whereby its protagonist's genetic heritage and belief in herself proved the key to surpassing any obstacle. It's obvious from Mika's unusual gene pattern, her mother's comforting words of wisdom, her underdog status when compared to the one-dimensional Mir and her position as protagonist that she'll eventually prove her naysayers wrong, and watching people call her names and put her down in the interim is simply boring, especially when compared to exploration of her intriguing world and its sprawling, oversized cast.
And more of that exploration would be welcome. Geneshaft wastes a phenomenal percentage of its opening episodes on redundant sequences in which its robotlike ship crew baby-step through launches, docking, debugging, etc. by emotionlessly reciting the names of the procedures they're running. It can be brutally slow, even though the ship-exterior computer animation highlighted in such scenes is remarkably pretty. But when the show does focus on its story, it runs some unusual risks by acknowledging that good guys sometimes lose, innocents sometimes die, and even a moral action can stem from immoral motives. Geneshaft could use a good editor, and a better focus than teenage catfights. But its unique touches show a great deal of potential—even more than Mika and her destined-for-glory genes.
Among Geneshaft's DVD extras is a lengthy dictionary of terms, separated by the episode in which they're first used. It's required reading. The series is a lot richer and more complicated than it appears at first glance, and while some of it's just trivia—the fact that the too-often-repeated ship function commands are all based on Italian soccer slang is funny, but don't make those ship-function scenes any more interesting—some of it's key to understanding the story and appreciating its true depth.
— Tasha
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