Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
iShambles
Some tracks used in this anime are decent. you wouldn't mind listening to them.
End of the review.
.. what? you still need to know more about the main plot? Ah, well that's a fair point.
Let me elaborate..
Some tracks used in this anime are decent. you wouldn't mind listening to them.
.. what about the art you might ask? Well, I wouldn't recommend looking at the abysmal nonsense that were happening on the screen. Look at the wall instead, I am sure your imagination will come up with better AMV good moments you will never edit while listening to some decent tracks that were used in this anime.
.. As for the sound, well.. you guessed it right
Some tracks used in this anime are decent. you wouldn't mind listening to them.
In the end life is journey, it shall be lived through good and bad, but…
Read at the sourceGf2002
This is a prime example of a piece of media that is best admired for its audacity of existing (like, at all) as opposed to being good in any critical sense. Seeing a classic 80s Anime ooze so much Americana is just a head-trip, and for the fun (FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN) it invokes I have to recommend this to anyone who is interested. Additionally for all the fans of overanalyzing media, this is an excellent catalyst for interesting tangents, which is my bread and butter so I must doubly endorse this OVA to all that are interested in it.
For those don't care to overthink a good thing, you don't have to bother reading any more of this review. Just watch this and have a blast.
On a technical level there's nothing remarkable, if not softly crude, but that is undoubtedly part of the charm; the E…
Read at the sourceSuzukipot
"Hello Japanese people we plucked off the streets, can you speak English?"
"Yeah!"
"OK, great, you're hired!"
If I were a gambling woman, I'd place money on that being the way they found the VA's for what is essentially a 30-minute long AMV intercut now and then with dialogue. I can't say I wasn't entertained, though, oddly enough. Maybe it was the music, or the way they hype up American culture and the film making process, but this just left me nostalgic and longing for a decade I wasn't even born in.
It's definitely something I would recommend if you want decent animation set to catchy pop songs and don't care too much about story or characters.
Read at the sourceThunder__Bunny
I think this may have just been the very first AMV.
While I'm now intrigued to take a further look into the manga, I don't recommend spending 40mins of your time watching this, might as well just play an 80s playlist instead.
For those I've seen explaining it would be more enjoyable to watch if I had read the manga, I'm sorry but there's no way this would have made you happy, even if you were a fan of the series. I'd just be upset this was all they put together.
Although I do have to admit, if they hadn't used only English 80s songs and instead added Jpop from the 80s, my enjoyment would have gone way furtherup and I'd give this a 3 for allowing me to find new music.
Read at the sourceKamezuki
"Cipher" is a bundle of emotions, and a love letter to 1980s New York and Los Angeles.
My attention was kept for the entire 26-minute runtime, but I didn't understand what I was watching. It started to make sense when I realized that the target audience for this was readers of the "Cipher" manga, who would already be familiar with the characters. The OVA served as a "demo reel" of sorts that let the readers see their favorite characters animated and speaking English. So, although it looks like a bizarre spectacle at first glance, there is meaning behind the madness.
It starts off with one of the main characters walking through a montage of iconic New York landscapes set to Phil Collins' "Against All Odds," and then we see the other two characters (one is his twin brother, and the other b…
Read at the sourceABoyNamedScoot
Cipher the Video is a 1989 OVA adapted from a 1985 manga (simply titled "Cipher") which tells the story of two teenage twins. If you only watch this OVA, good luck trying to actually find a plot.
Simply put, Cipher is quite possibly the single worst "animated" audio-visual product I have ever sat through. This is not entertainment and to refer to it as actual animation is an insult to the craft since there is only the slightest hint of it in this 26 minute exercise. Sure, even quality can come from OVAs with limited animation but even the art style is poorly done; characters are generic and messy, lacking in any personality whatsoever.
This lack of personality isn't just limited to the design but also the voice acting (the OVA was only ever dubbed in English with Japanese subtitles, appa…
Read at the sourcechateaughost
i am literally begging you to go watch this right now. this anime is borderline surreal. why is the whole thing in english with japanese subtitles? why is there a fake advertisement in the middle of it featuring a knockoff pillsbury dough boy? why does this anime end with the twins kissing and then going to make yogurt with ice cream and raisins for breakfast? every choice made in the production of this anime is baffling. how on earth did they afford to license these songs? i wish every anime would just randomly start playing footloose halfway through. i felt like i was having a spiritual experience. please watch this anime. 10/10
Read at the sourcePandaUwU
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
Ah yes, Cipher. Cipher is a classic 25 minute, 80s anime about the life of Roy Rang. It is well-known around the anime community as a legendary mess of a show, but was it really that bad? It was made by the same studio that made the critically acclaimed Legend of the Galactic Heroes after all.
So the story is about the life of Roy Rang and who he is. Most of these 25 minutes are not about the story though. Most of it was music playing while the characters were dancing, walking, or just showcasing the city. There were a few moments when the music stopped and they focused on the story. What was that story? Talking about how much of a fucking legend Roy Rang is of course. They talk about how good of a person he is and that people love him. There is also a girl who’s here fo…
Read at the sourceggabbyyy
Ok so just finished watching the OVA and afterwards i wanted to see if the manga was as shit as the short video. And let me tell you It is wayyyyyy better than this short. After reading the first volume of the manga thinking back to the video made a little bit more sense. You would need to go to the manga and read it( which I highly recommend) but even in the first chapter I was pulled into the story it really is amazing but this is also me talking about the first volume, which I hope the rest of the story is as great as the beginning. The art is also really beautiful in the manga but that’s just my opinion. Overall I would highly recommend the story then go back and watch the OVA, or not cause it was pretty shit....
OVA: 3/10
Manga:9/10
Read at the sourceOmelettesb
Cipher The Video is like if you took the prompt to make an anime based off of MTV but you just did a recording of MTV and made it anime with a few Manga characters recurring and i love it. It just slaps no question. If you know the manga premise then you can kinda know whats going on but you don't need to because it doesn't have a plot and is basically a 40 minute OP, the dialogue is in english as its set in New York but it can be a bit shaky cos its a bit old (this doesn't at all matter as the yogurt scene it fucking hilarious). 10/10 the guys are hot, they should probably stop kissing each other cos they are brothers tho.
二ャ－、
mnmnnnn nnnnmnn
ahhhhhh
...
...
...
yeh
yah
💕 kiss kiss 💕
gmorning Jay
gmorning
so whaddya wanna eat?
yogurt, top it with vanila ice cream, raisins
okay okay,…
Read at the source1avenderB0y
As an immediate disclaimer, I made the mistake of watching Cipher after getting only four hours of sleep. That said, I really don't think it makes a difference how much sleep you get, nothing can truly prepare you for this experience. I was warned that this OVA made no sense. I knew that the voice acting was... A Choice. People said it was a confusing, hilarious mess, and they were right. I thought I was ready. I wasn't.
The plot pretty much doesn't exist, or at the very least, if there was meant to be a plot buried within the 80s music and cake mix advertisements, I couldn't find it. There's nothing much to say about the art. It's exactly what you'd expect from an anime of its time. The character design from a visual point is fine, nothing too special, but they look alright. The only thi…
Read at the sourcePingPongYa
Cipher is definitely one of the cringiest and worse animes I have ever seen.
Story: 1/10
There is no story. Half of it is a montage of random scenes that have no connections in any way. And the other half is some terrible 'interview' of these people being cast into a movie. Completely plotless.
Art: 1/10
The art is very ugly and terrible quality even for the 80s. A lot of the animation gets reused as well.
Sound: 1/10
The songs that were played were TERRIBLE and didn't fit the video at all. The voice actors were so monotone and cringy, awfully recorded too. Character: 1/10
There is nothing to the characters, they do not get developed in the slightest. All there is to go on is a terrible interview that reveals absolutely nothing.
Enjoyment: 1/10
Not fun at all to watch. I played it on d…
Read at the sourceWheedies
A touching love letter to American pop culture of the time, not much more. That's what this adaptation is, it's not too entertaining or special with no real plot beyond showcasing the only real character in it, whos a movie star. Comments on the video I watched mentioned it was intentionally dubbed in English when it was made, resulting in a bad dub. But that only contributes to its feel of American Culture, and does not detract from the show due to it being so American. The only real thing the show addresses is how many pop and movie stars become estranged from their families over time and the toll it can take.
To wrap up the music in it is English pop music, and with the lack of plot making the show feel like a music video. The music itself is pretty tinny. Visuals are pretty classic sh…
Read at the sourceThedude3445
This thing's wild. It's a jumbled up montage of music videos stripped of context, and then an MTV-style "real bro interviews" thing where the main actor has a very noticeable accent, completely breaking the illusion of the character, along with a few real bad voice actors to go along with it.
Yep, this is a Japanese anime movie where it's voiced entirely in English. It's not much better than you'd expect.
It's wild and barely comprehensible, but it's also pretty short. 15 minutes of the 40 minute runtime are actually a making-of featurette after the fact; that's pretty nice and I appreciate it.
Read at the sourceBurntFlower
You will never see another anime quite like Cipher.
It is a music video, a love sonnet to New York City, a tribute to Phil Collins, a movie within a movie, a commercial for cake mix, an interview, a psychoanalysis of its characters, a surreal mind trip... Cipher is all those things and so much more.
As I watched, I felt a full range of emotions: confusion, delight, disgust, joy, outrage, hilarity. Although based on a shoujo manga, director Tsuneo Tominaga decided to throw the source material away, including a linear narrative, character arcs, and discernible dialogue, for a bizarre trip through his subconscious. Lacking any semblance of plot, music videos are strung together to form a tapestry of idiosyncratic moments in the life of twins Siva and Cipher. Then a Pillsbury Doughboy parody…
Read at the sourceJunelovesanime
Okay, this is my first review and I just need to write about this awful anime. I guess I now know why it is on the MAL badges for unique anime.
I couldn't find a good storyline in this anime, to me it was as if ingredients were thrown together to make a delicious cocktail only the ingredients consist out of rotting meat and milk that has been spoiled for three months.
The art for it's year of making was okayish, I just couldn't enjoy it and it eventually became a thorn in my eye in combination with the voice acting.
The only thing I enjoyed about it was the music in between the dialogue, catchy and brings back memories.
Read at the sourcevariouswomen
a transcendental experience. i love this with every fibre of my being. effective art makes you ask questions, so:
why was the Hindu god Shiva shown in this 80s MV set in New York? the Japanese pronunciation of 'Shiva' is similar to 'Shiver', the name of one of the twins, right? what are the implications of the twin sharing the same name as a supreme being? like was this supposed to imply Shiver is the ultimate creator of the universe? is this why he has that red spot on his forehead? and why did the two brothers kiss both during and after the flashback showing their mother's funeral? what did that "yeah" refer to?
please....if anyone can get me into contact with Minako Narita....please...i need answers...
Read at the sourceScarletCelestial
OK. This is somehow the cringiest anime I have ever seen, and that includes many of the worst listed on MAL.
Story: 0
I was forced to give this a 1, but if it was up to me it would be 0. There is literally no story. One third of this is a montage of disconnected moments and the worst dancing ever in anime. The rest of it apart from the final scene is about a guy who's filming a movie: it doesn't do much. Then the last scene is him meeting his brother. That is it. That is all. It is a plotless mess that is laughable. The worst thing is that there are four minutes of credits at the end against a static image.
Art: 2
Average to bad. An 80s shoujo style that is not as good as the manga in anyway, and I feel as if some of the footage gets re-used quite a bit.
Sound: 2
I watched the Englis…
Read at the sourcematthigh
Ah, the much-maligned "Cipher". Notoriously rated one of the worst anime OVAs of the decade. Also considered one of the weirdest anime shows to be made, leaving many to scratch their heads thinking, 'why does this even exist?' (However, it does not take the cake for the strangest ever -- that honor goes to Chocolate Panic Show).
And yet, if viewed from a certain perspective, it has a certain...charm. I would certainly be more willing to watch more like this, than about half of the current,modern crop of regular anime series that are dredged up and vomited on the screen each year.
If you read any online description for 'Cipher', it will invariably mention twins Shiva (alternately called Shiver/Shiba/Siba) and Cipher, and even though 'they' become semi-famous actors, no one seems to know…
Read at the sourceSageModeTice
I just watched the 1989 ONA Cipher and I have no idea what to say, this anime is unexplainable, sure it has a plot and a somewhat cohesive story, but there is something about this that I truly can't wrap my head around, whether it's good or bad I can honestly say I've never watched anything like this anime.
So the story is basically this, there are two twin brothers who pretend to be the same person, and a girl at their school I think finds out about it and wants to be their friend or something... Shiver the one brother is a famous actor currently shooting a football movie called "Winning Tough" and the other brother Cipher is a musician. Well this movie is an absolute disaster, I honestly don't think Einstein could wrap his head around this movie and I don't think that it is in a good…
Read at the source
