Geneshaft // 8 out of 10
In the future mankind to bring an end to violence used genetic engineering to color code people to different stations in life and pit an end to violence. Part of this new world order is there is only 1 man to 9 women, and each man has a registar who monitors him closely for violent tendencies. Irony of ironies a crew is being assembled a la military with a new giant mecha weapon called the Shaft to combat the potential threat of these massive golden rings, one of which is in orbit over earth. Piloting the shaft is the spunky Mika Seido, a white, who’s genetic color is immature and has not become a color yet.
The show feels like Gundam crossed with Halo (the rings), but the characters are more like Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, personable, and each enjoyable respectively; ironically the english actor who plays Spike Spiegel on Cowboy Bebop does a voice of an astronaut from our times who meets these generically engineered future people, and of course it leads fo humorius antics like the realization procreation is now only in labs and love (romnatically) is forbidden.
The Show had a long run on Toonami on Cartoon Network at night, and that is how I discovered it.
There is a lot you may roll the eyes at, including Yugi-Oh’s maniac twin brother who is fatalistic. But the story as whole works, and many pf the characters, including Mika are likable, with naunced performances and that usual anime thing of questions about existence, meaning, choices, and etc.
It does use some 3D animation with the standard anime style, which now is a growing as liked mixature thanks to Studio Orange.