Genius Party Beyond

Like previous Studio 4c collaborations "Batman: Gothic Knight" and "The Animatrix", the Genius Party shorts are less about showcasing deep stories than they are about showcasing the wonders of animation. Unlike the previously listed collaborations, the Genius Party shorts are primarily personal projects made by both established and independent animators. The only thing that can be stated about the shorts as a whole is that they are wonderfully imaginative and colorful, and the Beyond shorts are arguably even more imaginative than the original Genius Party works.

The first short, "Gala", directed by anime regular Mahiro Maeda of GONZO fame, is essentially a music video ... with an overarching story about a mysterious meteorite which lands in a small village and how the inhabitants react to it. While the animation and art are relatively standard, the music adds a sense of life and energy to the short that makes it both a great start and one of the best in the package.

The second short, "Moondrive", done by director of the Kill Bill anime sequence Kazuto Nakazawa, is a humorous tale of delinquents on a search for treasure on a colonized moon after they discover an indecipherable map. The art style is a strange mix of Sylvian Chomet and Japanese conceptual art and gives the work a decrepit, yet comedic vibe.

"Wanwa the Doggy", by Shinya Ohira, who has previously done key animation on well-known Ghibi and Gainax works among others, continues the collection with a baby's vivid dream about pretty much everything a baby could experience. It's one of the most imaginative in the package, featuring a simple chalk-based art style that makes the animation even more of a visual feast than it already is.

"Toujin Kit", my personal favorite short, is the story of a young girl under arrest for breeding mysterious squid-like organisms in a steampunkish/cyberpunkish world. This short focuses more on narrative than the other works in the package, asking the viewer more questions than it does give answers, which serves to give the already intriguing world more depth. Done by Tatsuyuki Tanaka, who has previously done key animation work on a variety of lesser-known works.

The collaboration ends which the strangest of the bunch, key animation regular Koji Morimoto's 20-minute "Dimension Bomb". It plays out like an unfocused dream about friendship and betrayal set in a strange quasi-postapocalyptic world that's one part Ergo Proxy and one part Texhnolyze. This one, while narratively simple, is filled with enough unique and highly detailed steampunk, cyberpunk and sci-fi imagery to make it a fitting end to the collection.

Five visually stunning and mostly-watchable shorts.

Gala - Fine 5/10. A unique premise about the marvels of life, for lack of better words. Good visuals, but nothing too spectacular. Also could've been shorter and nothing would've been lost.

Moondrive - Good 8/10. Entertaining, Lupin III-esque action comedy. Has a plot. Fun cartoony animation style, memorable scratchy linework and backgrounds, decent number of actually funny jokes. Brought down a bit by its less funny sexism.

Wanwa the Doggy - Okay 6/10. Really unique art style that kind of resembles Masaaki Yuasa's short in the first Genius Party. Little more than just a very long chase scene, but the abstract ... backgrounds and technically impressive animation make it worthwhile, though not something I'd sit through twice.

Toujin Kit - Great 9/10. Beautifully executed setting that keeps inviting you to ask question about the world. More resigned than other entries action wise, putting more energy into really fluid character acting. There's an actual plot, solid pacing. Monster design is genuinely other-worldly and is unlike anything I've seen before.

Dimension Bomb - Bad 3/10. Beautiful character designs, backgrounds, and lighting work here. Animation is on par with other entries. 20 minute ambient music videos are not exactly engaging, though. The short uses almost impenetrably abstract storytelling, conveying its narrative through mostly-silent shots that drag on for years. The music itself is outright grating at times too. A lousy experience to close the anthology with.

An unwise man once said, "Wisdom lies in the mystique, but do not mistake that for wisdom." If you are here for thought-provoking material, make of that what you will.

You may say art is subjective, which it is, and that Genius Party is a "showcase of animation", but that is by no means an excuse for making it out to be better than it really is. I personally like strange art styles, but I never really hold that as a factor of if I like an anime/manga, unless the art is really bad or really good. The art here wasn't exceptionally bad or good.
Side note: ... the description says "thought-provoking stories", I disagree with that standing.

Gala (3/10): On a surface level, this piece seems to be striving for the same style as Ghibli, yet results in the feeling of a cheap knock-off. The music was fine but not exceptional for an anime (you can find good soundtracks even within the worst of shows, I find tracks that I really like in literally the worst shows I've seen). The plot is interesting at first and seems like it could be something good, but by the end tries to cheat its way to meaning by having a “twist ending”. This twist is not justified due to the “secret world of...” having a completely different landscape than the ending (let's just say the land went from lush earth to barren mars). The ending went to pot (literally).

Moondrive (6/10): This was funny at times and had a fine plot. The ending was also very fitting.

Wanwa the Puppy (0/10): A 13 minute animation about a kid being chased, with weird art.

Tojin Kit (5/10): This did have a plot and was thought provoking in the sense that it made you wonder about the world and what is going on within the story, yet it left the viewers without any explanations and there was seemingly no deeper meaning. Good art.

Dimension Bomb (0/10): Yeah I can see why it's called dimension bomb, it really bombed. Zero substance. There were characters, yet no characters. "It's hard to put into words how ___ it is" because there is nothing for you to base your rating off of; an utter nothingburger.

13/50=2.6 stars=3 stars (even using MAL's least of 1 results in 15/50=3stars)

Personally, I thought OG Genius Party was average 5/10, and for some reason thought "Beyond" would be better because it has higher ratings? But Beyond consists of 5 "stories" that "could not be included in the original".

TLDR: If these did not make the cut for OG Genius Party, what does that say about them? They aren't good. These stories were bland and not thought provoking (an exception being Tojin Kit).