Geobreeders: Breakthrough (2000)
Film:
DVD:

Animation Direction & Character Design by Yuji Moriyama
Art Direction by Takeshi Waki
Written by Yosuke Kuroda
Starring the voices of Shin-Ichiro Miki, Satomi Koorogi, Aya Hisakawa, Akiko Yajima, Yuka Imai

Features:

• Character profiles
  
• Original Japanese trailer & U.S. trailer
  
• Textless opening & closing
  
• Interview with Yuji Moriyama
  
• Storyboards
  
• Art gallery
  
• DVD-ROM:
  
  • Script
    
  • Cast and production credits
    
  • Comics and storyboards
    

Widge's Anime Warnings:

• Some shrill silly anime females
• Felines are evil? Who knew?
• Irish park security guard in Japan--weird

Rating: 13+
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.
My Advice: Rent it.

There's a problem. The problem is a race called the "Phantom Cats," which are pretty much were-cats with a hellacious attitude. But there are some organizations that have stepped up to try and take care of this problem. The group we're concerned with is known as Kagura Total Security. They're a bunch of misfits and specialists with lots and lots of guns. Trouble is, their headquarters has blown up--again. And now they're both looking for a new base of operations and a new client.

For a series that sometimes waxes goofy to the point of invoking headaches, this has got some seriously beautiful sequences in it. In fact, the art is my favorite portion of this--forget the storyline. The bits range from a tracking along with a bullet's POV across a couple city blocks to the reflections of computer sequences dancing over the faces of dead men. So you've got nifty action sequences and some gorgeous stuff to look at as well. Since I'm not familiar with the original series, these characters and their situation are a mystery to me--and it's a bit hard to catch up. But the gist is there: were-cats bad, guns good, girls sexy and goofy, guy clueless.

>Now the only problem is that the series doesn't rely on this strength. Instead, there's crazed humor, mostly predicated on the fact that the characters get hopelessly lost for the majority of this disc's episodes. I realize that this is supposed to bring the funny as well as the expended shell casings, but you would want it to do both and do them well. This is not always the case. However, the action sequences and guns are able to carry you through the rough patches.

As far as extras go, U.S. Manga gets a definite E for effort. First, you've got the regular character profiles, which are primarily blurbs about each character coupled with short sequences from the series. These are done up as Kagura personnel files, so that's kinda snazzy. You also get the textless openings and closings for the people, who like myself, enjoy the art. There's also the art gallery and storyboard sections to feed that need. Other niftiness includes two trailers, Japanese and U.S., for the series and an interview from animation director Moriyama. This lasts only three minutes, but it's a feature that we've wanted on anime discs for a while now and we wish there were more of them. DVD-ROM features are the standard script, sketches, etc. that you get from Central Park Media titles.

All in all, it's nothing grand, but it's good fun. And like I said, both art and action will keep your interest when everything else wanes. Pick it up on a rental.