oung Elaine has incredible psychic power and the mind of a feral animal. Her sister Diana is also psychically gifted, but has a crippled body which is only held together by experimental cybernetics. Separately, they function erratically. Elaine's mind and powers are barely under her control, while Diana is emotionally unpredictable and physically weak, an easy target for manipulation. But when the two merge psychically, they become a hideous, terrifying monster -- potentially the ultimate weapon in a world otherwise tottering hopefully toward universal disarmament. All of which goes to show that having a mad scientist for a father can be a real pain.
The first episode of Genocyber introduces Elaine, Diana and the twisted doctor who made them what they are. The minced-corpse count soars as Diana pursues her rogue sibling, trying to bring her back to the lab and Daddy's tender care. Elaine doesn't want to come home, but Diana's not the only one chasing her. More than one corporation is interested in owning what may someday be the only weapon on earth -- as Elaine finds out in episodes 2 and 3, when an even madder scientist starts his own psychic energy weapons tests.
Part 1 is madly complex, almost buried under a wealth of subplots. There's a vengeful cop chasing the mad doctor, a team of grotesquely cyberized mercenaries chasing Elaine, and a gang of violent street punks chasing Elaine's only friend, a sweet street kid. But parts 2 and 3 leave all that behind, moving Elaine and Diana out of the city and on to even gorier pastures.
Grossly underrated. Very grossly.
It's a pity there isn't more of this series, because a great deal of story potential goes to waste in the narrative gap between these two videotapes. The first episode is crammed with incomplete subplots and unfulfilled nuances, giving it an impressively vivid texture but an ultimately disappointing tone. The rest of the series is less ambitious but more painstakingly detailed, with the simpler and more effective story of an experiment gone messily wrong in an isolated setting.
But Genocyber's biggest success is the animation, which balances ambition and detail in a series of radical, fast-paced stylistic changes. Digitized sequences, traditional painted cels, tinted live-action shots and beautiful sepia pencilwork blend into a vivid stream of images that may be more than some viewers can handle, considering Genocyber's unhealthily keen interest in severed limbs and exploding heads. Fascination with detail gives these stories more plot than they can keep up with, but it also makes the guts and gore unforgettably graphic.
Genocyber starts off as a clone of Akira, with its winding storyline, intense images and its moralistic focus on hidden human potential blown to uncontrollable proportions in a conscienceless lab. From time to time the plot similarities are too close for comfort. But Genocyber ultimately has its own horrific power and its own wandering agenda. This is hardly a perfect series, but it's difficult to fault it for trying to do too much instead of not enough.
