Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor (1989–1992) User Reviews (11)

Good classic but not as good as the manga or the latest adaptation

[WeAreLive · 7/10 · 12 December 2020]

Sho and his friend Tetsurou stumble upon an odd alien artifact while walking through the woods. Then, the alien artifact breaks free of its metallic bonds and enters Sho's body, turning him into the Guyver. With this new power, Sho must do battle with the evil Chronos corporation and their genetically enhanced Zoanoids, who seek to get the Guyver back into their labs. No one close to Sho is safe from Chronos. He must fight.

For the time it was made i thought it was pretty decent. The dub voice cast for rookies it took some getting used at best plus it was animaze's first ever project it was okay at best though it was Steve Blum's very first anime which I will give it credit for.

Overall it's pretty good just don't watch the manga UK version.

A story line finally comes to light?

[TheMan-17 · 7/10 · 14 June 1999]

We finally discover what the guyver is in the last installments to the series.

The story line in this installment is far superior to that of the first, but the quality of animation is largely inferior. There is another down side and that is the way that the final episode ends.

I enjoyed this as you finally learnt the truth, and the arrival of a new mysterious adversary was superb!!!!

The best version of Guyver

[mrsatan · 10/10 · 5 February 1999]

This version blows away the earlier Guyver anime and the lame American versions. The most accurate to the original manga. High school kid Sho Fukamachi comes across the Guyver unit. It allows him to merge with an alien symbiont that turns him into a living weapon. Chronos, an evil organization comprised of humans altered into "Zoanoid" bio-monsters, wants the Guyver unit back with them. This show has cool characters fighting genetically engineered monsters, with nifty tricks like Bio-Lasers, etc. (Not stupid Urotsukidoji-esque demons!) The bad guys are a pre-X-Files global conspiracy that our heroes, mere high school students, must struggle against. The thing I love about this show that I never see mentioned is the ongoing theme of "don't trust anyone over 30" that seems to be present. With a few exceptions, the series' adults are all evil!

Excellent Anime!

[The_Missus · 18 October 2002]

The Guyver OAV is a great series, don't be put off by the original "Out of Control" anime, this is a lot better, and gets you right into the story. You follow Sho Fucamachi, his best friend Tetsuro, and the girl of his dreams Mizuki as he battles against the evil Chronos corporation who want the Guyver Unit that has bonded with him. Along the way they find an ally in Guyver 3 (the coolest of all the Guyvers) and help from the mysterious Mr Murikami.. just what powers does he have? This was one of the first anime series I've seen, and it's excellent, even if you know nothing about the genre, it has a great storyline, and the revelations in the last few episodes are especially gripping. The animation isn't great, but it's 10 years old now, so give it a break! Enjoy :)

(apologies for bad spelling of Japanaese names! I have the dubbed verion ;))

Six of one, half dozen of the other...

[poe426 · 10/10 · 10 January 2009]

The GUYVER series is a textbook example of what can (and often does) go wrong when anime is translated for "American audiences" by American filmmakers who don't have a clue. The first six episodes of this series (the only six I've got) are light years ahead of what was being hacked out in this country around the same time. Vastly entertaining (especially when compared to Americanimation), the GUYVER stories unfold in a sometimes suspenseful, often frightening, but always- always- entertaining fashion. The Japanese storytellers don't talk down to their audience(s) the way the clueless Americanimators do. The dubbing is sometimes not as dramatic as one might like (something sometimes gets lost in translation), but it's still far superior to the live-action version of THE GUYVER (with Mark Hamill in the lead!).

Good, but not particularly memorable in many ways

[dee.reid · 6/10 · 6 July 2007]

"Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor," an Anime' adaptation of the hit Manga created by Yoshiki Takaya, is a good effort but is not particularly memorable in many ways. I'm a huge fan of The Guyver, which you could consider the Japanese equivalent of Spider-Man because you can see the great amount of stress placed upon the hero in his battles against evil.

But "Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor" doesn't really hold you the way it should. I guess for the time it was on television (the late 1980s), it was good for what it was but when compared to the Manga itself and the far superior 2005 series, it simply pales because not a whole lot was done with it and plus it condenses much of the material, so it seems rushed and important, or key, character-driven scenes are lost and don't really connect with one another. The writing doesn't seem all that good either, so the dialogue seems a bit hokey (which could be because of the American dubbing). The animation is what "Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor" has working best in its favor, although that too seems dated.

The plot: high school student Sho Fukamachi accidentally activates an alien suit of armor, called a "guyver" unit, that transforms him into an exponentially enhanced mechanized warrior with a vast array of weapons, powers, and abilities. He becomes the quarry of the Chronos Corporation, a powerful conglomeration with designs on world power. Sho uses the Guyver's abilities to square off against Chronos and its army of shape-changing foot-soldiers, the Zoanoids, human mutants that can turn into monsters at will. He must use the Guyver to defeat Chronos and the Zoanoids while protecting his friends and family from their terrible onslaught.

6/10

What a Tease!

[DonaldDooD · 5/10 · 11 October 2014]

This adaptation of Guyver could have been a retro action classic. Its not a masterpiece by any means, and it isn't humorously bad. But as a dark, animated Tokusatsu show, its very fun. It has a plot, cool designs for our hero and the monsters, brutal action scenes, good pacing, even a good soundtrack! Usually I'm not a fan of "simple" stuff, but I'm biased towards retro sci-fi anime, so Guyver was close to scratching my itch.

But as I got deeper into this 12-episode OVA, it dawned on me that there was no time for Guyver to finish. And finish it did not. Guyver is based on a manga...that's ongoing to this day. While it changed parts of the story, it still followed the manga closely. It didn't create its own plot and ending, and didn't even have enough time to finish the second arc. Its like Guyver, a direct-to-video anime, somehow got canceled.

Booooooo!

So, does Guyver merit watching at all? Maybe. Again, the series is pretty awesome while it lasts. There's nothing to take away, though, and retro action is a niche few can enjoy. If you like the idea, you can watch it if you got nothing else to do. Just be prepared - what you're watching isn't art, and you're not getting an epic final battle. A shame, but c'est la vie.

I liked this...

[oogy_boogy · 21 March 2002]

I thought that this had ALOT going for it! I wasn't *that* into Anime when i first saw this buttttt it was quite a good show! I just didn't like it after eposode 6 when the animation got really crappy :(

This show has ALOT going for it and i remember watching it and thinking "WOWWWW" hehehe, it was something that you can watch and then go racing off into the sunset as lil' kids pretending who you were! LOL

I didn't like the fact that the guyver (at times) appeared TOTALLY INVINCIBLE against the normal types, and the fact that Guyver 3 was SUPER strong, but when fighting the ONE boss, all types of things would happen to him? I mean, the unit has got TONS of weapons that it could use, and then it gets its but whipped? (Btw, i DID like the wholesale cloning done at the end of eposode 6!! Highly orginal i think!) Butttt like most Anime that i've seen recently, it seems that your SUPER strong, until something comes along and then gives u a good but whipping, and like all good guys you just come right back again and kick its but... Fun?

Watch this even if you don't really know what Anime is all about, its a good starting point, and then you can move on after this to more "harsh" stuff, at very least when you watch some other Anime, you won't have to worry about things like "What the HELL was THAT all about!?!?"

1991 is NOT a good year for Guyver

[xamtaro · 4/10 · 15 August 2009]

Between this disappointing animated entry and the horrendous 1991 Guyver live action movie starring Mark Hamil, I honestly suspect a curse of sorts that was placed on the Guyver franchise name during that year.

Part 2 of the Guyver OVA sees material from the mildly popular manga, books 3 to 5 in particular, crammed into 6 short episodes.

On a whole, this feels like an after thought at best, created just because the studio had some leftover cash and did not know where to spend it.

It not only carries on the flaws of part 1, but ends up making a whole batch of new flaws and mistakes. For starters, if you thought the plot in part one felt truncated and confusing, part 2 is a lot more so. You get smacked with the convoluted origin of the guyver units, the coming of the Zoalord Balcus, Hyperzoanoid team, Aptom and the lost numbers, even a subplot involving Sho's dad.

Ooooh……..boy………..

Visually, the look of this second part is obviously inferior to the first. Animation and art detail suffer the usual problems that plague most anime TV series. For an OVA (which usually has a higher budget per episode and longer production period) such standards are highly disappointing. The action involves a lot more standing around talking and blasting brightly colored power balls at each other akin to stuff like Dragonball Z; less of the more savage, in-your-face, hand to hand battles that came before.

The conclusion to the series seems like it was aborted pre-maturely and leaves viewers hanging. Plot threads are hardly tied up as the story rushes toward its disappointing end.

Watch this one if only for the sake of continuity or if you're a long time guyver fan.

QUALITY!

[framer94 · 17 July 2000]

The Guyver sets out the story of Aliens that landed on Earth millions of years ago, creating and developing life on Earth. The Chronos corp. set up an acheological dig, and recovered the aliens lost technolodgy to create bio-morthic monsters called "zoanoids." They also acquired 3 individual power units known as "Guyver" that transform the user into a powerful combatant mech. In modern day Tokyo, a test subect escapes from Chronos, Japan, and takes the 3 units with him in ransom to salvage his stolen humanity. During the pursuit of the test zoanoid, a bomb is triguired by him, and blows the units out of sight, at random locations. A young boy called Sho Fukamachi uncovers one, and bonds with it to become "Guyver I." Sho soon finds himself up against Chronos' bio-morthic mutants, and learns that they wont stop pursuing Sho and his loved ones until the units are back in their possession. The Guyver portrays an epic story filled with sorrow, anger, vegeance, and teh struggle to live as a normal "human being." The Guyver is indeed one of the memorable animes ever produced, although people have different tastes, and might disagree with me. The Mech design and armour is beautiful in it's own way, and each episode has crisp, gothic animation. The first six episodes is worth checking out if your into anime, mech, or even Japanese robot shows, but the remaining six is another matter...

Watch DATAs 1-6...NOW!!!

Satisfactory enough for the fans

[xamtaro · 4/10 · 15 August 2009]

Based on the mildly popular cult manga series of the same name, this Guyver OVA is the 2nd attempt to bring Guyver into animated form following the bloody but brain-dead "Guyver: Out of Control".

The basic plot seems to be quite a faithful adaptation of the first 2 books of the guyver manga series. Sho and his friend Tetsurou come across an alien artifact in the forest which bonds to Sho and grants him powers of the bio-booster armour known as the Guyver. Along with his girlfriend Mizuki, the trio soon gets swept up in a larger than life thickening plot involving the evil Chronos coporation and their genetically enhanced soldiers known as Zoanoids.

Not bad, but not entirely good either as the plot premise seems more on the juvenile side compared to other anime.

There are some interesting character development and a good fleshing out of Sho's reluctance over the responsibilities of his power. However once past the first 2 episodes, the series descends into predictable territory and starts to follow a "monster of the episode" formula commonly seen in the kid friendly tokusatsu shows like Masked Rider. The characters also fall strictly into your typical anime stereotype roles like the damsel-in-distress girlfriend, reluctant angst-ridden teen hero, hero's helpful best friend, deep voiced devious villain etc.

The violence would be what makes this otherwise mildly scripted show so appealing with the older teenage crowd and it is careful not to go overboard like the previous OVA. Sadly, the animation is quite mediocre for a 1989 OVA production. On the technical side, the animation is stiff, the art is inconsistent and the character designs are nothing special. To top things off, we are greeted with one of the cheesiest synthesizer score that sounds like a reject from the 60s Ultraman series. The theme songs are firmly stuck in the 1980s with campy lyrics and a slightly juvenile melody that does not fit with the violent and sometimes darker nature of the Guyver mythos. Thank goodness you can just turn off the subtitles and just giggle at the silly childish sounding melody. The English theme song starts with a nice alternative-rock styled electric guitar riff but soon goes down the drain hole a painfully slow tempo coupled with a horrendously messy feel.

On the plus side the monsters and the guyver designs look great and the fight scenes are a real treat as more time and effort seems to have gone into animating them. The art style has a dark moody feel to it with heavy blacks and thick shadows that lend itself well to the feel of the show.

Sadly, compared to other anime of its time, Guyver falls short on many levels. Fans of the manga would definitely want to pick this one up just to see their beloved characters and stories in animated form.