“Adios, bozo – this time I’m downloading you straight to hell!”
Powering through 1990s cyberpunk cinema, particularly direct-to-video terrain, and the glistening vistas of anime await. Cyber City Oedo 808 (1990) is some cyberpunk anime that I’d never heard of before, but on the title alone was compelled to check out; fundamentally three 45-minute episodes stuck together to experience in a two hour chunk. An OAV (original animated video) set in the future, the year 2808 to be exact, where three criminals have been conscripted to become “cyber police.” They must close cases or their handler, Juso Hasegawa, the police chief in charge of their special unit, has the kill-switch on the explosive collars around their neck. Our three anti-heroes are: Sengoku Shunsuke, a trash-talking punker; Goggles, a huge mohawked hacker; and Benten, an androgynous assassin who resembles a glam rocker. Each episode centres their story on a different character in the team, so there’s a feeling of variety watching it in one go, particularly since there’s also a different threat or villain including: a demonic A.I. that takes a towering automated building hostage; a military-funded cyborg killing machine out for a test run; and evidence of vampirism within the corporate elite. This is the usual cyberpunk anime type of deal, but all entertaining and evocative. There’s great cyber city backdrops and bursts of hectic action from the director of Ninja Scroll, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, though not as sicko as that particular movie, and it’s comparatively like Cowboy Bebop before Cowboy Bebop happened as well. For me, Cyber City Oedo 808 is defined by the brilliant English dub where they really lay on the coarse language with the glee of a teenager cursing a blue streak for the first time in their f-ing life; for example, Sengoku to his humourless robot assistance: “Haha. What a fucking mess! A whole city out of control, all because some shit-for-brains computer got hijacked. What’s that saying? To make a mistake is human but to really fuck things up you need a computer. Ain’t that right, shithead?” Great soundtrack too. Lots of fucking fun, dicksplash. Watched an upload on YouTube. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 