Midnight Eye: Gokû

Midnight Eye: Gokû (1989) is a two episode series that my daughter and I recently watched together on Prime. The storyline takes place in a futuristic society and follows a former detective turned private investigator. There has been a rash of police officers who have committed suicide. He follows the clues to a weapons dealer who has created some new technology that may be responsible for the suicides. After barely escaping being attacked by the weapons dealer, the PI is implanted with technology that allows him to see things with X-ray vision and tap into technology systems. He will use this new power to solve this and future cases...

This picture is directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Ninja Scroll) and has an absolutely amazing storyline, great soundtrack, interesting characters and takes place in a fascinating universe. I adored the animation which is classic 80s and a lot of fun. The suicide sequences were intense and the club scenes were excellent. They use a nice mix of nudity and technology to create cool characters like the motorcycle lady. The bugs in the first episode and the sewer dragon robots in the second episode were so good and the action scenes have nice gore and unpredictable elements. There's some nice twists in the storylines and the villains are over the top and worthwhile adversaries for our hero.

Overall, this is an underrated anime gem that I'd consider an absolute must see. I would score this an 8.5/10 and strongly recommend it.

Fast paced , great action, descent writing, cool Hard Boiled plot and a main protagonist with an eye for everything...Except fashion. Great old school Blue Anime. I loved it!

I can see by the reviews and the trend that this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but here it is and it's coming from a big fan of 80s, 90s and early 2K anime.

I found this recently, and I've got it in my watchlist for a while before I had time to watch it, I was really excited as it looked very much on the style of my two favourite animes of all time, Vampire Blood D: Bloodlust and Ninja Scroll.

What a disappointing time I had! I struggled to watch this, even after painfully going through the first episode, gave a chance to the second only to suffer through it too.

I don't even know where to start, since I can't really even point at something I DID like about this! The poster, that's it. I like the poster.

I'll break it down, since I think it's worth the explanation.

Story wise, it doesn't only fail to do anything original, but it does what's been done before in a boring, poorly paced way, with events that don't make sense or are explained and it rips off (this is no nod, it's ripping off) stuff from other well known animes and franchises.

In terms of how the character develops, there's only one aspect that is important, the eye. Where does it comes from, why it's give, why why why...? This is not one of those aspects that don't matter, like "how the zombies came to happen" type of question, this defines the character and it happens during episode 1, so it's part of the story, but it's never explained. It just makes the character almos unbeatable (even if he doesn't always uses the full potential, to serve the story so the enemies can actually do something..). The character besides this OP eye implant is quite bland, in terms of writing and design (that suit without shirt but with a tie is horrible.) I don't remember any character being interesting, it's an absolute ZERO in design.

The setting is been done before, the futuristic cyberpunk vibe, way inferior to pretty much everything I've seen, I won't even give examples, I meant EVERYTHING I've seen was better. There's no detail, there's no people in the backgrounds, no one living there, no atmosphere at all.

Of course, as most of Jap anime there's the rape/misogyny aspect, which I never found welcome but in this one it feels really pushed in to tick the box and sell (in those times it was a sell point..)

Talking about those rip offs, the character is called Goku (fairly common name, maybe?) and it has an unlimited extensible stick, not a boo, this is metallic and seems to have some sort of tech, but it doesn't feel organic in terms of how it work as there's no magic in this anime, so.. he uses this all the time, just to justify and make things easier for the story.. doesn't work.

The other massive rip off is the villain in the second episode. WTH. SF2 Bison.

One of the most important aspects of anime is the art! This has some horribly, amateurish anatomy and lighting issues going on. And when I say issues, I mean the whole thing was hard to watch. If you're into drawing and you're educated these two aspects (I draw since always and I've been a photographer for over 20 years) you won't be able to overlook the flawed art.

The action is very bland, except maybe for the VERY first scene which is decent, the rest of the two episodes, specially going into the last two thirds of the second one are HORRIBLE.

There's NOTHING interesting in this anime, it's not good in story or its art, there's no reason to watch it, but hey, quite a few enjoyed it here, and it's only two ep, so give a go to the 1st one and see.. I don't know if it's a nostalgy thing with this one, as a few are saying they just found it, like me.. I'm really puzzled on why people thinks this is good in ANY aspect, let alone the few who say this is a "gem".

I'll stop it there, I think you got the point I was making by now.

Some fans out there like to believe that anime is some higher art form, superior to the kiddy cartoons or Hollywood blockbusters in the states. As someone who is on constant lookout for new anime, I can confirm that's not the case. Plenty of anime play overused, immature tropes, and have little value beyond an occasional good time. Nor are older anime necessarily better than newer ones. Many new shows solely focus on being cute and "sexy"...but many 80s/90s examples are shallow, violent, crudely sexual, stereotypical pieces of trash. Yoshiaki Kawajiri is a master of this craft, director of such "classy" films as Wicked City, Demon City Shinjuku, and Ninja Scroll.

Goku Midnight Eye and its sequel show no more ambition. Once again we find ourselves in a dark, futuristic Tokyo. There may be no demons, but shady figures and their cybernetic henchmen rule from their skyscrapers. The action is violent, the characters are flat, and women only exist to be saved and provide fan service.

Yet GME is so outrageous, its attempts to be dark, thrilling, and mature are hilarious.

Peacock women? Swan-based WMDs? A Chinese man rollerskating down a glass building? What!? GME plays to absolutely every stereotype of the time, then goes the extra mile. If you're with friends, there is plenty to riff on, and never dead air. Bloodshed is never far away, and you won't go 5 minutes without being shocked at what's happening

In addition to its amazing camp, GME dodges banality because of Goku's powers. The abilities of his eye give him an endless plethora of options, to the point where its difficult to tell what he'll do next. With x-ray vision, access to the world's databases, control over most electronic equipment, and a surprisingly deadly staff, Goku is a unique hero in the bargain bin. He could honestly be in a great anime if anyone took him seriously. As is, he adds some spice to a generic plot.

I can only go so far before you need to experience the OVAs yourself. When you're in the mood, call some friends over for Bad Movie Night. Its everything wrong with the bad sci-fi anime of the time, and everything right for commentary.

One more thing - don't forget to listen to the English dub. Not only is it equally bad, but freaking Steven Blum, lead voice actor in Cowboy Bebop and The Big O, plays Goku!

So Goku:Midnight eye is an anime mini series directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri one again a great anime series that not many people ever heard of it.The anime itself is a mix between his early work Wicked City and Batman.The series following a man named Goku, a former police detective turned private investigating strange and bizarre criminal case in a futuristic Tokyo,a place where anybody can be a half human half robot.After losing his left eye in a case Goku find out someone had replaced his left eye with a computer terminal that can control computers all over the world with a staff that can changing shape and shoot laser beam.This is a very awesome anime series with a interesting plot,good hand drawing animation and a badass main character.I find myself very enjoy this short anime series but the problem is it too short,many thing has not yet been discovered like what is the main reason behind the man that give Goku his left eye and the staff.It such a shame because this is just a two episode anime mini series