Midnight Eye: Gokuu

If you extract feelings of nostalgia and comfort from old 80's anime due to their vaporwave / outrun aesthetic, Midnight Eye: Gokuu is going to be a welcome treat to your senses. The animation is beautiful, and there are enough boobs and fast cars to go around as well. The story isn't mind-blowing, but it's not awful. A solid way to spend an evening.

Gokuu is your typical manly man detective. He's out to serve justice and protect naked women from unfathomable evils.
The women are the typical helpless types from the era, and they throw themselves at Gokuu when they are aware of the prospects of ... him fixing all of their problems.

But man, that visual style. Wow. Sure, at the time it was nothing special, but today it hits hard.

Midnight Eye: Gokuu is a two-part OVA series directed by the one and only Yoshiaki Kawajiri, who has also directed such classics like Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, and Cyber City Oedo 808 to name a few. This anime follows a man named Gokuu Fuurinji a device that investigates the murders of his fellow officer colleagues and has been given the "eye of god" which allows him to hack into any computer which he then can control. Out of the cyberpunk anime Kawajiri has directed, Midnight Eye: Gokuu is probably my favorite. The art, the violence, and the weird shit that goes ... on in this anime is just incredible. Don't get me started on the OST, an amazing blend of synth, industrial, and a bit of hard rock sets such a great mood. If you're a fan of Kawajir's work, 90's anime, and cyberpunk, seeing Midnight Eye: Gokuu is a must.

This is one of the cheesiest '80s OVAs out there, although it's difficult to recommend to others due to the nudity.

The story starts out straightforward enough: Goku, an ex-cop-turned-detective, is on the case after his former partner and other coworkers mysteriously commit suicide. He finds out that these deaths are all connected to one person: a wealthy businessman named Hakuryu, but there's no evidence.

This is where things get weird. As Goku digs deeper, he sneaks into the bad guy's base, which is complete with a giant, a half-naked dog-like motorcycle-hybrid woman who shoots pink lasers from her mouth, and robot mosquitoes equipped with anesthesia. ... Meanwhile, elsewhere, there is also a naked woman with peacock feathers that have eyes on them which hypnotize people, and a guy who has a bunch of the robot mosquitoes stored in his head. Goku is almost hypnotized by the peacock woman, but he gouges out his eye, and then he is saved by some mysterious benefactor for mysterious reasons. The benefactor replaces Goku's eye with a mechanical eye that can control every computer, satellite, and otherwise any mechanical device, and also gives him what is basically some sort of magic stick that can do stuff when paired with the eye. Goku then summarily goes all out and kicks butt in a series of extreme, yet highly entertaining, action sequences.

Besides the plot being an absolute cheese-fest, the one-liners Goku gives are gold. He seems to always know the right thing to say at the right time, with deadpan delivery. The voice actor for Goku only had a few other roles, so I guess he wasn't very experienced. At times it sounded like he was just reading straight from the script, which actually made his lines funnier.

Technical aspect-wise, this OVA is decent. It has nice animation and character designs, and nice voice acting (except for Goku), especially for the villains, who were played by popular voice actors. The music is good, particularly the ending theme. Some of the sound effects seemed a little off, however.

The story, despite its outlandish cheesiness, manages to have a beginning, middle and end, which is more than can be said for a lot of these '80s OVAs. There is virtually zero character development; however, in this kind of show, character development isn't really necessary (and good character development doesn't usually happen within a 50-minute timeframe, anyway). The two female characters in this OVA are both topless for long periods of time, so this is difficult to recommend to the average viewer, but it's definitely watchable and enjoyable.

Recommended for people who like a good dose of cheesy action, if you don't mind the outrageousness and the nudity.