Audience reviews
13 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Gsarthotegga
Genma Taisen is a dated, ambitious mess. The art, animation, and atmosphere are the only reasons anyone would want to watch this, and all three are inconsistent. The other reason might be that this is something like a proto-Akira, bringing to mind the similarly dubious Ai City dystopic sci-fi film. Katsuhiro Otomo was also involved here, which suggests it might have been another influence leading up to that vastly superior film. There's an impressive fluidity and style to the animation in numerous scenes and plenty of staff overlap with Akira, featuring many of the same key animators.
The art is oftentimes bold and sharp and given a great stylistic flair from Rintaro's direction and exceptional moments of fluid animation. Unfortunately, Certain shots look flat in terms of both composition…
Read at the sourceChuy_diazz
A Journey Through MadHouse Episode 10: I've never seen such incompetent protagonists in all my anime watching.
This is a movie about gathering people with psychic powers to stop an alien invasion. The aliens have the power to transform into anything, so you'd expect a movie with fights, explosions, and powers flying around. And sure enough, that's something you just keep waiting for. For a movie that's 2 hours and 10 minutes long, it doesn't have that much room for story development, so it all ends up feeling like one big introduction. They never really introduce the psychics, they never really introduce the Genma (the aliens), you never really understand who the protagonist really is. In the end you just end up wondering why the movie lasts so long, if they don't explain anything. Throug…
Read at the sourcepunishedsneed
Genma Taisen is thoroughly gorgeous. Its visuals are just what you'd expect from when it was made and whose behind it. The animation carries this movie, really bringing a lot of its concepts to life. I wonder why it has a 5.15 on here, though I'd estimate that because while the visuals are well done and interesting, the story probably doesn't hit for most people. I'd say the story here is only just decent, and most of the characters, besides the protagonist, are pretty flat. Still, the movie is a long, winding journey full of interesting visuals and scenes, so I wouldn't pass up on watching it if you're interested in anime movies from this period.
I imagine that Genma Taisen's weaker links are a result of its format. It's a movie, and like many anime movies from this period, it's more the…
Read at the sourcematthigh
An eighties classic movie with lots of high-powered staff that worked on it -- and yet, as classic as it may be, it comes away...lacking.
The main storyline is set up very early, as a galactic scourge is coming to destroy the planet, and the fate of the planet falls on the shoulders of a young Japanese boy, unaware of his latent abilities. Helped (and hindered) along the way repeatedly by a cast of misfits that guide him how to use his powers or try to destroy him, he fumbles along towards the inevitable showdown.
It certainly is a motley crew that is assembled in the process. The character designs are very nice (as expected of early Otomo), the animation is usually pretty good as well. The plot is sort of trite, but perfectly serviceable - but where it falls short is in the actual sto…
Read at the sourceneetonatto
This movie has severe pacing issues. About 15 minutes in I decided it would be a good idea to speed the movie up 10%. This was a good idea, as every single scene hangs on and drags juuuuust long enough that i would forget what it was that i was concentrating on. My brain kept wanting to jump out of the movie, I couldn't get settled in for a single moment. I haven't seen many anime with this kind of problem. The story is very simple, so i wasn't really lost at all the entire time, it's just that it was directed in such an amateurish way that many scenes which probably should've been pulled for pacing were left in. I don't imagine much was left on the cutting room floor, and to it's detriment, what should be a pulse-pounding action flick is reduced to the level of entertainment i could get f…
Read at the sourceVoivodian
Being an early Madhouse production alone is enough to make an anime notable; but this production has even more going for it. With art done by the Otomo, this supergroup anime indeed becomes a proto Akira, featuring apocalyptic ruin and grand psychic battles.
Fitting the sheer devastation promised by its premise, art and production overall is just stunning for early 1980s standards; the trademark grim metropolises of Madhouse is contrasted sharply with vibrant glimmers of light before seguing into the downright surreal of distorted acid paintings. The latter I assume is courtesy of Rintaro and he doesn't stop there, going on to gift us with a wacky Bambi expy!
The supergroup however, does not stop here. Soundwise, half the ost is done by THE Keith Emerson of ELP fame! His synth/moog musi…
Read at the sourcebusterbeam
So, Genma Taisen: Harmageddon; a super-influential 1983 anime about a bunch of psychics including a "transylvanian princess" (lol), an angsty teenage boy and a badass robot with a broken heart taking on the galaxy-destroying demonic entity Genma and his evil followers. All this with Rintaro at the director's helm, Yoshinori Kanada (AKA THE most important Japanese animator that ever lived) doing some of his all-time best and most influential animation, and a young Katsuhiro Otomo doing the character designs and a bunch of artwork. Predating it are a series of novels from the 70s written by 8-Man creator and Spiderman manga writer Kazumasa Hirai and the original 60s manga he cooked up with one of my favorite authors, Shotaro Ishinomori. The soundtrack for the movie was done by progressive ro…
Read at the sourcechrissy_poo_too
Harmagedon is an early madhouse film with ties to Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame. A group of psychics and a cyborg from the future (but also the past?) are trying to stop a Galactus like being from destroying Earth because that’s the kind of thing he’s into. It’s really weird and dumb and pseudo-deep, but I liked it quite a bit.
I was surprised by the amount of Akira-isms this film has, including a couple of scenes that are almost identical (Tetsuo and Joe learning that they have the ability to fly, for example). Despite the similarities, this movie is not nearly as well put together as Akira.
In fact, Harmagedon is pretty much a giant clusterf*ck. We swing from intergalactic warfare to teen melodrama to Dark City like psychic battles to awkward oedipal sibling relationships to hilarious…
Read at the sourceherbeey
Angering.
If myanimelist let me, that would be the entirety of the review. Here's my old review:
This film left me annoyed, invigorated, frustrated and amazed.
This is about a boy getting love-powered psychic abilities and his journey as he discovers this, plays with this, discovers the consequences, and of course has to help the handful of other psychic warriors on Earth defeat a countless-galaxies-destroying being. I found myself really enjoying and relating, not only to his journey, but to a few other characters. Until the last third. Oh god what did I just see.
I have mixed feelings about this anime, but they're mostly a mixture of good things. At first it seemed awful, then it seemed so bad it was good. The visuals fluctuate from excellent and lavish to pretty appalling - there is…
Read at the sourceupsetkiller456
Before i start this review I would like to state I am being 100% serious about this and believe this movie is one of the greatest(shittiest) movies of all time.
Story-10/10(1.5)
Wow. Just wow never have I would have a imagined that a film like this would create such a heart warming(more like heart killing) and brilliant(retarded) story. The story follows Jo who has just learned that he is actually a "PSIONIC WARRIOR!" and he is destined to save the universe from the wrath of the evil Genma!(who is actually just a giant red skull floating in space for no fucking reason). I thought the story was very well thought out and everything that happened, had happened for a reason(not really everything that happens in this film is completely pointless and has no reason behind it what so ever.) an…
Read at the sourceJayma
After getting a good laugh from the infamous Mars of Destruction, I decided to watch Genma Taisen thinking that I would have a somewhat similar experience. I was gravely mistaken...
Story- 2/10
Typical save the world from the bad guy plot. Things happen for no apparent reason, and anytime something did happen I felt like punching myself in the throat.
Art- 3/10
Still frames, expressionless faces, recycled/ choppy animations, and horribly drawn backdrops (with the exception of a few decently animated scenes). Nothing much else to say here.
Sound- 3/10
Below average voice acting. Terrible soundtrack. Cheesy sound effects (this is a plus though). Again, nothing much else to say. Character- 1/10
This is by far the worst aspect of the entire movie. There is little to no character development…
Read at the sourceShura-shurato
One of the BEST oldskool anime movies ever made, just because it contains NO drop of blood, and its really fun, if u like long movies. Personaly this is really an anime movie to watch with the whole fammily, wich is really an reccomendation, or just for a good movienight alone, the story is easygoing and fun how it develops, same wich intro of the char. througout the movie, its animation was , more mature like for its time wich a lot of ppl these days have forgotten about 80´s anime movies, and they had time to kill for making such a nice story, not rushed like a lot of todays anime. Overall i enjoyed the psychic development and internal struggle of some persons as well to make it really compassionate at times!
Read at the sourcebarcaman101
After surviving a mysterious airline explosion princess Luna then encounter a supernatural being that warn her about the impending fate of the earth.The evil demonic entity called Genma plots to whip out all life on earth and only her and other special individuals with psychic powers called psionic warriors can stop him.She most gather the other from across the globe and unite to defeat Genma and his evil minions
I Seriously deserve the title of sainthood for sitting through this;which although overall wasn't completely awful, at times was a dung fest.The pacing is ridiculously slow and the plot transparent and uninspiring.The characters were bland and completely forgettable.It did have few strong point such as the issue of racism that arouse and a few decent voice acting from what was an…
Read at the source