Kimera Anime Review
Kimera
/ OVA / Horror / 17-up
Bottom Line
Creative twists, cramped, wacky plot, and unimpressive on average.
It’s Like...
...A low-rent Wicked City with alien vampires.
Vital Stats
Original Title
キメラ
Romanized Title
KI•ME•RA
US Release By
Genre
Supernatural Horror Suspense
Series Type
OVA
Length
45 minutes
Production Date
1996-07-31
What's In It
Categories
Look For
- Alien Vampires
- Hot Pod People
- Gender-Flexible Aliens
- Convoluted Horror
Objectionable Content
- Violence: 3 (significant)
- Nudity: 3 (significant)
- Sex: 3 (significant)
- Language: 2 (moderate)
Plot Synopsis
When a couple of friends stumble onto a secret military project after some kind of accident befalls the truck carrying it, they end up helping the... person escape. As if things weren't confusing enough, another mysterious person shows up and tells them that their new friend, Kimera, is going to destroy the world if they don't kill him/her (it changes depending on the situation). Well, Kimera proceeds to escape, then an alien vampire with a grudge against humanity shows up, and meanwhile our hero can't even decide if he wants to kill the would-be destroyer of the human race or marry it.
Quick Review
Based on the manga by Kazuma Kodaka (available from ADV), Kimera is another one of those stylish, dark, erotic, "there's something creepy and evil that wants to eradicate or enslave the human race, and do it subtly" one-shot OAVs.
This particular outing has a plot that's weirder than most, and has some interesting (if unrealistic) characters. The art is fair to good, the character designs lean toward realistic, and the animation is generally fluid. Kimera, however, is killed by its pacing--it gets going pretty quickly, but then things just start happening without much rhyme or reason, and it's all over before you've even figured out what's going on. Yet another anime that feels like a two hour movie with everything that's not absolutely vital to the story removed to make it the length of an OAV. Its most memorable point (other than the out-there plot) is probably the music: The entire thing only features a single piece of music (it's used more than once), but it's a cool one--a modernized version of "The Hall of the Mountain King."
In all, fans of this kind of stylish, out-there horror will enjoy it, and it does have some rather unusual plot twists, but Kimera is just too uneven to be appealing to most.
Notes and Trivia
Staff & Cast
English Dub Cast
Kimera: Kim Sevier
Osamu: Brett Weaver
Kianu: Bryan Bounds
Ginzu: Guil Lunde
Fender: Phil Ross
Gibson: Robert Peeples
Jay: Tristan MacAvery
Hunter: Paul Sidello
Secretary: Erin Rosaire
Soldier: John Swasey
Man A: Steve Spurgat
ManB: Lew Temple
Kimera's Mother: Yvonne Aguirre
Jay's Wife: Tiffany Grant
Jay's Daughter: Jessica Williams
Additional Voices: Yvonne Aguirre, Charles Campbell, Jayson Carr, Tiffany Grant, Brian Granveldt, Dan Rockwell, Paul Sidello, Steve Spurgat, Hohn Swasey, Lew Temple
Crew
Producer: Masako Fukuyo, Nagateru Kato
Director: Kazu Yokota
Based on the Comic By: Kazuma Kodaka
Screenplay: Kenichi Kanemaki
Character Design: Yasuomi Umezu
Animation Director: Yasuomi Umezu
Art Director: Masumi Nishikawa
Music: SENSATION (Toshiba EMI)
By: Kazuma Kodaka/Seiji Biblos, Toho, and Animate Film.
Availability
Available in North America from AD Vision on hybrid DVD. Was originally available on subtitled and dubbed VHS.
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