Midnight Eye: Gokû

Yoshiaki Kawajiri is so fun. You see, there are a lot of stereotypes about anime, labeling the genre as a shallow excuse to animate women being violated and blood spurting in every direction. Those stereotypes developed largely in response to the films of Yoshiaki Kawajiri. And if you can appreciate his movies for what they are, you'll have a blast watching them.

Goku: Midnight Eye is no different. It's an hour-long OVA set in a futuristic city where a sort of female peacock monster is causing police officers to kill themselves. Then it becomes sort of a dark superhero story when the lead character gets a bionic eye and a metal staff that can change to any length (he rams it through people and uses it to vault himself around like the old monk in Ninja Scroll). This is all handled in typical Kawajiri fashion, with well-designed monsters, gore, a cynical hero, frequently nude women, and a hissably evil supervillain.

If nothing else, the movie is a great little guilty pleasure, designed to make you wish you could do all the cool things that Goku does. Have fun with it, and be sure to watch it after midnight.

Very few people who know about anime know about this particular OVA (Original Video Animation), and I do not know why, because it is really good. The story and the animation are like `Eight Man After'.

Gokuu is the classic anime hero, he is a lonely guy, who has super powers and fights the crime. The story is very simple, very good and easy to follow. So, if you want to relax and try with Japanise animation you can start with this OVA.

I also recommend you `Eight Man After', `Space Adventure Cobra', and `Golgo 13'.

OK, what, a dude that wears a suit and tie and no shirt, a stripper that is part motorcycle, an implant, and a story that doesn't make any sense at all.

Bionic eyes and anime nudity.

Yeah, I can't say that I enjoyed this.

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.

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