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Plot Synopsis

No plot synopsis or other information available for Geneshaft

Story & Characters

Geneshaft is set in the distant future. After human society practically wiped itself out in the middle of the 21st century as it pursued individual goals and desires at the cost of the general population, the whole of society was "re-written" with the collective good outweighing the needs of the individual. In the revised society, women outnumbered men by 9:1 (i.e. 9 women for each man). This was seen to be an optimal mix to offset the base instincts observed in males for conflict and the pursuit of individual goals.

Society was sanitised, cleaned-up, and ostensibly lives in peace. Part of this sanitation duty included embracing genetic engineering to control the society, ensuring everyone had a "purpose" in their life. The purpose for each individual was classified by a "gene type" and represented as a colour (royal blue, baby blue, garnet, green, white, purple, black, etc.).

In the 23rd century, a new threat to humankind appears. Rings that mysteriously appear and disappear can concentrate an energy beam causing destruction proportional to the size of the ring (i.e. big ring, lots of destruction). A special hand-picked team is brought together to assess and, where necessary, eliminate this threat. This team has a unique experimental weapon at their disposal. Sounds like typical sci-fi anime fare, and it is.

What sets this series apart from others, in my view, is how the team handles the situations thrown at them and the conflicts between each of the members. This team does not work well together with too many attitudes and egos causing a lot of internal friction - and that is before they even go up against the Rings. Combine the internal friction with a buggy OS for their weapon that crashes and goes into "Panic" mode at the slightest provocation creates a series with a lot of dramatic tension that continues to build throughout the 13 episodes.

The main female characters comprising the team have "typical" anime attributes: Mika, the well-meaning protagonist; Mir, a beauty with an attitude to match; Remmy, the nerd who sides with one or more characters as a support; Sofia, the tall, strong-willed, physical member; and Tiki, the brat. As would be expected, the attitudes and relationships between the characters evolves throughout the series, which brings me to a main point in this series...

Essentially, in my view the key underlying theme of this series is "evolution" at various levels - personally, in relationships with other characters, in one's skills and abilities. Even the OS "evolves" as it gets debugged. You will get lots of these "evolution" situations throughout the series - and no one is left untouched as a consequence. Even so, there is an intrinsic discrimination between characters, genders, and gene types (almost a de facto racism) that doesn't evolve as easily. Another key theme is the "human" factor: where personal experiences contribute to an individual's makeup just as much as their genetic code. Personal experiences often gives a person the catalyst to evolve and pursue a direction with their life (e.g. Beatrice).

So, what do we get in this series? A decent science-fiction premise where one's position or role is determined by their genetic makeup. We get a debate about a society that has been sanitised through genetic engineering, but is not yet perfect, against the "providence" of chance and the unknown. We get the whole question whether humankind is capable of learning from their mistakes rather than just covering them up. Finally, we get the question of whether we are alone in the universe or is there some mystical evidence that humans were created by some other force or being.

In summary: A solid "classical-style" science fiction storyline with generally likeable characters. Fortunately the typical brat is quite restrained in this series, which means it does not provide the release of tension by degrading to a farce. Dramatic tension is well maintained throughout along with a few twists as characters' motivations are revealed. Good, not great, and certainly not a classic.

Rating

7 (above average)

Art

Originally released in 2001, the visuals are a blend of cel-drawn work and CG. The Shaft mecha is butt-ugly - and for good reason (which would spoil a significant part of the story if I said why here). You can quite easily tell where the transition between cel-drawn and CGI occurs, and it is fairly smooth - but not seamless. As most of the series is set in deep space, a lot of attention goes on the visuals of the mecha and ships, all of which are virtually rendered entirely in CG.

The visual quality was stable thoughout the series, with one or two exceptions in the final episodes on Disc 4. In these cases, there were obvious places with "jaggy" character designs when placed on a CGI background. These were few and far between, but were noticable.

Character designs were nicely drawn, but nothing remarkable or standout. Most of the female cast spent the show in tight-fitting costumes, which is often typical when going out and piloting a mecha at short notice.

Rating

7 (above average)

Sound

With the DVD release, primary listening was done with the the original Japanese audio track. Some spot checks were made on the English dialogue for comparison. The Madman release had a Dolby Digital 2.0 track for both Japanese and English audio, which was solid without any issues of distortion (except for the music) or drop-outs. Basically the Japanese voice actors performed as expected and appropriate to the characters. The English voice actors did an adequate job and gave a convincing performance. Overall, nothing was outstanding in the performances on either track.

The music was heavy "grunge" metal. The opening track was a full-on metal instrumental piece with lots of overdrive and distortion on the electric guitar. The ending track, I could only say the singer was stoned, drunk or both - slurring on about a broken camera. I ended up skipping the beginning and end credits without hesitation to avoid these songs.

Fortunately the in-show music wasn't as grating. It had more of an industrial feel that was able to convey the right amount of tension, but was unremarkable. Like many aspects of the show, it didn't have the "classic" science-fiction space-type soundtrack with sweeping synthesizer or string sections. It was very gritty and hard - pretty much like the show as a whole. I'm feeling a bit generous to give the audio a "6" as it was generally appropriate, but I really hated the opening and ending themes.

Rating

6 (average)

Presentation

Airing in 2001, this series raised a number of relevant society issues at the time. The whole idea of genetics and mapping the human genome was very popular in science circles. Along with the debate about cloning for therapeutic or reproductive reasons, Geneshaft gave an interesting outlook into one scenario where genetic engineering had been wholly embraced to "save" society - and yet there were still "bugs" or legacy issues that could not be adequately addressed through genetic manipulation.

The series was released as 4 discs individually in Australia by Madman Entertainment (http://www.madman.com.au) with each disc being single-sided single-layered (DVD-5). With only three or four episodes on each disc, there were no issues with the transfer from a technical standpoint.

Extras included the usual character and mecha galleries, trailers, and clean opening and ending credits. Additional notes relevant to different episodes were also included, which provided additional background to different terms and phrases used. The notes gave some additional insights to the storyline and helped with explaining the significance to some of the terms.

Bottom line is that coming back to this series was enjoyable, even after not watching it for over a year. The story wasn't entirely predictable and there were enough twists in the plot to keep one's attention on the series. Some of the main underlying issues about genetic manipulation and the ethics of that were well drawn out through the politics involved in the story. However, the conclusion was a bit of a letdown and fizzled out a bit, and didn't give a full closure to the series. Even so, the series kept me engaged through a marathon sitting (4 discs in 6 hours, with breaks) and it was a well-contained succinct series that didn't overplay the dramatics, but kept a good degree of tension throughout.

Recommended for anyone who likes "classic" science-fiction, and a story that is actually predicated on facts and issues facing human society in the early 21st century.

Rating

7 (above average)

Final Verdict

6.83 (above average)

Reviewed by davidh01, 16wk 6d ago