Bruce Von Stiers

What do you get when you throw big business, government agencies, a secret organization and a third rate detective agency together? A big mess. That is what the gang at Kagura Total Security find themselves in when they take on a new client. I just finished watching the new US Manga release called Geobreeders: Breakthrough. This anime title features the animation work of Yur Miriyama who worked on some of the Robotech series.

This film begins with a man huddled together with a little girl at the edge of a roof. There are a gang of men approaching them, apparently trying to harm them. The gang turns into some kind of monsters.

Move forward and we find the gang at Kagura Total Security just kind of hanging out. What they don’t know is that someone is checking them out from a sniper’s scope from the roof of a nearby window. The sniper doesn’t kill anybody but nicks a gas line and the office blows up. What a way to start the day.

Then we find the woman sniper going after some guy and tricking him. She kills him and gets some kind of security card. What does she need it for? It seems that there is some kind of governmental experiments going on and a secret organization called the Phantom Cats is trying to control them. The motive seems to be world domination by the cat race.

Our gang at Kargura has no place to do business. They hang out in the park and then later have a new van to travel in. They are on the highway in the new van when they are attacked by not only the hit woman, but one of those monster guys.

We find out that the Ministry of Health and Welfare would like to be the controlling governing body for Japan. What is the motivation behind this? And who is the head of the Ministry detail always talking to on the phone?

The cat people seem to be able to meld into the computer systems and wreck havoc. It seems that some of the computerized functions are messed up. What would happen if all of the Japanese governmental and industrial computers were to suddenly go offline and stay that way? And what would happen if somebody could get into and control the satellites for a Star Wars (‘80’s slang for satellite defense) type of aggressive weapons?

While a lot of this is going on, the Kagura people are out in the woods at a remote location. They are trying to find out information for the new client. They are kind of oblivious to what is going on elsewhere. But trouble comes and finds them and they end up having to help save the world.

The English Language vocal cast includes Scott Cargle, Angora Deb, Tara Jayne, Scottie Ray and Becca. Why some of these actors have names like ones out of bad ‘80’ porno movies, I’ll never figure out.
Other voice talent includes Rachael Lillis, Al Gonzalez, Suzy Prue, Mina Sands and Megan Hollingshead.

The Japanese production had Kiyoushi Fukomoto as Director and Shigeru Kitayawa as Producer. Kotaro Nakagawa was in charge of the music for the film and the Chaos Project looked after the animation. The series was coordinated by akihiro Ito (the show was based on his graphic novel series). The film was produced by Victor Entertainment.

The English Language version saw John O’Donnell as the Executive Producer and Stephanie Shalofsky doing the background work as Producer. The Dubbing Supervisor was Tom Wayland and the ADR Director was Arlen Tarlofsky. The dubbing was done by Mercury Productions It seems that a lot of the same names keep coming up in the US Manga releases.

The plot for Breakthrough was a little a little weak. The Phantom Cats could have been built up more so that we knew where more about where they came from and more about why they want to rule the world. The girls of Kagura seem to want to show their breasts and underwear a lot for some reason. The big eyes and yelling that is predominant in anime titles is in full force here too. I find these last two things really annoying, but I was once told by my resident expert (my 14 year old son) that this is the style of anime and I should just get over it.

You should be able to pick up a copy of Geobreeders: Breakthrough in stores about the middle of August.

There are three web sites that you can visit to get more information about this title. They are www.centralparkmedia.com, www.cpmmanga.com and www.animeone.com.