I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Cyber City Oedo 808 (what a mouthful!) is low-brow alright. But its quite close to being so campy its legitimately good. Its got some cool sci-fi elements, with one of the trashiest dubs I've seen. The dialog wasn't just translated, but saturated with swears and even rewritten to suit a raunchier script. Thank God that happened, because they made some of the most awful, awesome lines in history, period! Its perfect for a show focused on guts and scrap metal over plot.Heck, the stories aren't that bad. In fact, they may even be too serious for this kind of show. Each episode focuses on a different member of the force, and display a unique aspect of this cyberpunk world. There are attempts to add more sympathetic characters than our trash-talking, violent ex-criminals, but they have too little time to make an impact.The worst part about the series? Honestly, its that there's only three episodes. You only scratch the surface of these characters and their explosive adventures. There's no over-arching plot in the OVAs, and no conclusion. I feel like I've watched three episodes from a TV series instead of a direct-to-video one. Where can I see the further adventurers of Sengoku, Gogol, and Benten? :c Ah well. Overall, its the exact junk food you want to watch occasionally. Its a 5 out of 10, but it doesn't get that rating for being boring, typical, or unwatchable. Definitely watch the English dub, preferably the U.K. edition if you want some kickin' synth rock.

A piece of antiquity in my eyes, brutal, blunt and abrasive, generally, a classic piece of 'lads cinema' - just as fun today as when I was twelve.The glory of Manga's cyberpunk collection, Cyber City is three episodes surrounding the collar-wearing criminal police force of a future 'neo-tokyo'.Full of classical clichés; the quick snapping hard man sporting a mullet and a snazzy red trench coat. The enormous, goggle garbed somehow Japanese- Italian- American computer hacker and oddly, a long haired transsexual - Bentin, with his flashy pedicure and exceptionally effective cheese knife.But, the wonder of Cyber City is its' shameless tough man aesthetics, (the sort of characters that say 'yeah I gotta a mullet/Mohawk or a nice pretty dress! What of it!) Simply striving off the spine-tingling, dramatic action that every fella is ashamed to love, knows he does but just doesn't know why. Cyber City is a show for the boys whatever age so long as the ladies aren't home, its just one of these boys' animations that the girls just cannot understand nor will they ever care to.So for a few tins, a blast from animation past, f'in, blinding, beating, killing and great cheesy action, it's a show and a half!

The series is about 3 cons who are working as cops to stop criminals in cases normal cops don't usually take to lower their prison sentence. The main character is in for 370 years.All 3 episodes in the movie have a strong sci-fi and almost X-Files feel to them. The X-Files piece pushed to an extreme. A little bit of detective work, connecting the dots and action.The series if full of some pretty colorful characters, but it lacked a main focus. It follows the 3 former cons as they hunt down baddies... but there's no main baddie. No big boss or organization. Maybe one would have come into focus in the later episodes if they made more, but no big baddie.So it was short, sweet and worth the $4.99 in the discount bin.

Cyber City Oedo (CCO) probably isn't taking up too much space on the Blockbuster videoshelves just lately, in fact you'd be pushed to find it in any major retailing store.But if you like Sci Fi (Blade Runner in particular) and also know about the world of Japanese Manga & Anime (Akira) then you're in luck because CCO is just such a film that you really must try to hunt down.CCO comes in three 50 minute episodes following the fortunes of three prison convicts, who have being allowed to reduce their life terms if they carry out dangerous police detective work for the city of Oedo (formerly Tokyo).All three episodes are surprisingly rich in character development & storyline coupled with some truly excellent cell-animation. Don't be put off into thinking that because its animated its nothing more than a 50 minute cheap cartoon! A lot of work & attention to detail has been put in to make the episodes as real & compelling as possible.The real bonus is the wonderfully haunting soundtrack at the end each chapter and that the dubbing into English (so often a big let down with most Japanese conversions) is really well done.Try and track the series down, it will be well worth it.****/*****