TAM Cover - Spike

TAM Cover - Spike

Thursday, January 8, 2015

M.D. Geist (OVA): A Review

Dang. It's been awhile since I reviewed an older anime, but I now decided to go back to do my job as an anime reviewer for this blog. So, what am I reviewing this time?


M.D. Geist, huh? Well, it looks like I'm doing one of the bad titles this time.

M.D. Geist was a post-apocalyptic/science-fiction original video animation (OVA) that was released back in 1986 (with a director's cut that contained five minutes of additional footage that was created ten years later). Some of the big things about this title is that it was one of the works of Koichi Ohata (who would later direct Cybernetics Guardian, Genocyber, Burst Angel, and the Blue Gender movie), and it was one of U.S. Manga Corps' favorite titles (since they later released a special edition DVD of the anime and had the character in their logo). However, it is known publicly as one of the worst anime titles to come out during the early days of late 80s/early 90s anime that came to the United States.

But, you are probably wanting to ask what is my opinion of the OVA. I shall explain it to you now.


The first OVA episode that came out in 1986 was probably one of the cheesiest things I have seen for an anime that came out around that time. From the over-the-top violence and a scene of nudity, you can really tell that it is a schlocky anime. However, for some reason, I was enjoying how schlocky it was, and the early 90s English dub is more along the lines of "this is our first try" bad. The OVA itself is about a man by the name of Geist, who was a part of the most dangerous (M.D.) soldiers to fend off enemies, and how he "helps" an army stop a doomsday device. Pretty much, the story is pretty generic, but my question is about this anime is: "How is this different than the other doomsday device stories?" Well, the only answer that the anime gives me is "Is Geist a good guy or a bad guy?" After watching the first OVA, I couldn't really think of Geist as a good protagonist due to how the anime portrayed him. So, technically, the anime has a "we must stop the doomsday device" storyline with a main character who is very difficult to understand.

However, things get worst in the 1996 sequel, M.D. Geist II: Death Force, where the world that the anime is based in gets taken over by carnivorous insect-looking robots (Yeah. I don't get that concept either.). We find out that Geist was genetically created along with another M.D. soldier named Krauser (who sees himself as a perfectly-created hero for the world), and how the two eventually face off against each other at Krauser's fortress (which keeps the remaining human surviors). There's not really much I can talk about this one except for the story jumping around everywhere, the carnivorous robots, and the dub. Oh boy. The dub for this one is so terrible that I busted out laughing at how some of the lines were delivered and the bad writing.

So, as I can come up, M.D. Geist is indeed a bad anime. Is it the worst I've seen? My answer is no. The way I see the OVA in total is that it's one of those "so bad it's good" anime titles. However, my recommendation for this film is going to be a bit different. If you like something with a good amount of schlock and bad dubbing, I would say watch it. But, if you're personally not into schlock, I wouldn't recommend it.

Anyway, I shall be looking forward to my next review. What older anime title will I review next? I will probably have to look deep within my anime collection for that one.

Written by Nolan Schmidt

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