Product Review

Three high school students find themselves drawn into a plot to turn humans into metamorphic monsters or "Zoanoids" in this 1989 OAV, based on Yoshiki Takaya's manga. Sho Fukamachi finds a lost "control metal" that transforms him into the super-warrior Guyver via a mecha suit derived from alien DNA. With his friends Tetsuro and Mizuki and the mysterious Guyver III, Sho fights an increasingly nasty series of Zoanoids created by the Chronos corporation: hands get ripped off, holes are blown and punched through bodies, and blood sprays everywhere. The character designs recall Ronin Warriors (1989), and the plot of a sinister corporation trying to take over the world through illegal bio-technical experiments has become a standard in the intervening years. Two live-action films were also based on Guyver. (Rated 13 and older but more appropriate for 15 and older: violence, grotesque imagery, profanity, brief nudity) --Charles Solomon