Guyver : The Bio-Boosted Armor

Guyver: The Bio-Boosted Armour is probably my biggest anime affection since Macross. With a great storyline, interesting characters and tons of violence (and gore), this makes for a great viewing on lazy Saturday afternoons. I used to have almost the whole collection of the manga series, but was unfortunately ripped off by some evil skinny bunny-toothed bastard and his rotund accomplice during my high school years when I lent it to them in a goodwill spirit. And now ever since then, I've been looking all over for reprints of this excellent manga.

The sad thing is, no comic publishing house seems to want to get them reissued once more. The even sadder thing is, the anime series only ran for a total of twelve episodes before being cancelled. The saddest thing is, the animation quality from episode six onwards took a spiralling turn to the bowels of sucky-crap hell due to the sudden change of animators and illustrators. The feeling was likened to eating great-tasting potato chips for all this while, and then suddenly some gruffy old fart takes over the chip-processing plant, abolishes the present workers, eliminates the recipe and sets about making his own taste of bland chips. Shit.

Come 2005, sources in Japan announced that they've decided to revive this old series. The better thing is, it won't continue from where it left but instead the whole series will be given a new fresh start. Finally, the best thing is it will stick more to the manga than the original 80s counterpart. Well, sort of. Of course, I hoped that with the release of this new revamped version, maybe some comic house would take notice of it and start to reprint the entire forgotten manga books to cash in at the moment. MPH 1-Utama stocks some pretty good eigo versions of Guyver (with glossy covers), but being graphic novels, the price that comes with it is pretty astronomical as well. Plus, the volumes are kinda incomplete.

One of the things which I've often pondered in the series is how nonchalantly those bad guys in nondescript black suits and their jumpsuited goon counterparts just shred apart their expensive clothings. I mean, come on, those are good business suits and uniforms we're talking about here. Chronos Corporation must be spending a bomb just to dress up their minions alone, as each time those guys transform into Zoanoids, they practically tear their clothes apart in order to do battle with the Guyver. Most die in the process but some survive to retreat back to the base in their original human form, buck naked. Wouldn't it be better if Chronos dressed them all in Spandex? That way, they can just be Zoanoids, and then when they assume humanly forms again, their clothes are still there, not to mention their decency. But the winning ratio of any standard Zoanoid over the Guyver is a mere 0.001%, so I guess that's probably one of the reasons why Chronos just gives them a one-time good Armani suit to rip.

Talking about Guyver reminds me of an incident. The other day while I was in a certain shopping megaplex with my friend, I came across the hobby shop displaying newly-issued Guyver action collectible figures. There was a Guyver 1, Guyver 3, ZX-Tole and Aptom Final Stage figure displayed alongside each other, enough to make any anime fan drool. Out of curiosity, I decided to go in and inquire about the price. If it was right, then I know what to get myself for Christmas this year. The pimply fat shop assistant was behind the counter, and when I inquired if the figures were based on the new anime, he just looked at me and wondered what the heck I was asking about. Not about the Guyver figures, mind you, but the WHOLE anime itself. "New Guyver series?", he said, his eyebrows narrowing. "No-lah, where got new one coming out? Only one series what", he continued and gave me this look as though I had green slime oozing out of my nose.

Shoot, and he's supposed to be working in a hobby shop whereby he needs to know all stuff relating to animes and action figures, I told myself, sighing at the same time.

Continuing on my journey, I decided to stop by the anime shop at the top floor before calling it a day. I wanted to inquire if the fore mentioned new series had already hit our shores, and if it had, how much it would cost. The guy there (slightly nerdy) gave me the same puzzled look. "Eh, new series? No-lah, where got. Those two Guyver DVDs over there were all they made, no more new one coming out-lah", he said while pointing to the above said DVDs. And his English was atrocious.

Crap, and he's working with an industry that IS supposed to keep abreast with the latest developments in anime pop-culture, I told myself in my heart, while giving him my best smile and nodding my head. I walked out of the shop, disappointed and shaking my head, and made a mental note NOT to get the series from that shop because the people in there are so totally ignorant!

Now I'm wondering if I should get that Guyver 1 action figure for Christmas, ignorant hobby shopkeeper be damned.