The Anime Review

Guy: Double Target

At times, writing bad reviews can be fun. The writer gets the chance to show off his talents with lots of adjectives for "awful" and can let loose. However, there are some shows that are so bad, so vile, that even writing about them leaves a bad taste, and there is no good way to express the putrid nature of the show within the confines of the English language. Guy is one of those shows.

Before I continue, I will describe the basic plot for those still interested. In the first episode, "Awakening of the Devil," Guy and his female cohort travel to a penal planet in order to try and steal some loot. In the second episode, appropriately named "Second Target," they essentially do the same thing on a planet filled with pseudo-religious weirdos. That's pretty much the extent of it.

Guy is bad for a number of reasons, the first being the content itself. The first episode has been released in an edited and unedited version, and there's no doubt why: one version includes a couple of scenes that are in essense pornographic. Although this version is available at your local Suncoast video store, there is nothing left to the imagination. (Those who get into anime for this kind of content need not bother--the scenes are really, really badly done.) The edited version really loses no plot, since the sexual material is all pointless in terms of the story anyway. (The second episode has some vague naughtiness, but nothing a PG-13 or R rated film might show.) Now those who have read our welcome page know that I don't watch or review adult material, and this still stands true. Problem is, Guy is a direct AD Vision release, not something on their separate Soft Cel label that distributes the steamy stuff, and it can be purchased in virtually any store. Watch out for this. Besides all of this, there is an incredible amount of disgustingly graphic violence, stuff that makes some other well-known violent titles like Akira look relatively wholesome.

Some of the above, I could possibly defend if there was anything to recommend about Guy. However, there isn't. The artwork is terrible, the plotting substandard (and almost non-existant), the characters stereotypical, the dialogue lame. There is an attempt to create character background in the first episode, but it is so bad to be laughable. The second episode actually starts well, with Guy and his girl making a score at a casino in a Bond-like turn. However, "Second Target" becomes a literal snooze from there, not so much vile but just poorly done. I fell asleep in the story's climax, it was so dull.

What we have here is someone creating a framework to distribute graphic sex and violence around. It's shows like Guy that keep America from getting more anime--it's the type of smoking gun that conservatives and liberals alike could point to. Do yourself a favor and leave this on the shelf. To date, it is the only tape that not only gets an F rating, but also has found its way to the local garbage dump instead of Ebay.