Download

Gibiate (Episode 1) – Spirited Away

Gibiate Title

A pandemic has swept the world ravaging the populace. Once infected, a violent mutation turns normal people into powerful monsters with an urge to spread the virus further. A cure might be possible, but only if someone survives!

What happened?

Kathleen Funada has seen the world crumble around her, but her resolve remains. She will survive and see that a cure for this terrible disease is found. It started in Venice and spread quickly around the world. Those infected have become monsters that hunt the remaining humans, desperate to spread the virus further.

Back in the Edo period, a samurai who has taken the fall for his lord and a disgrace shinobi are being exiled from their kingdoms when a freak storm destroys the boat they are travelling in. Next thing they know, they awaken in a strange world with unnatural looking buildings. They find another person who transforms into a huge monster that attempts to kill them. Luckily, a girl arrives with a taser and incapacitate the beast. She invites the samurai and shinobi back to her camp. They could certainly use some strong fighters.

Gibiate Episode 1 Kathleen Funada

What did you think?

Hmmm! Where to begin with this one? I picked Gibiate as one of my shows to cover this season and as I’m only going to cover three, I was hoping for a good one. So far, the jury is out. I will say that I enjoyed the art style. It has a very retro late nineteen-nineties feel to it like Ninja Scroll. The CGI, however, is not so good. I still don’t understand why studios continue to push them when they look so out of place in an anime.

Right, let’s talk about the story. We have a global pandemic that turns people into monsters, which I am fine with and it’s actually one of the reasons this appealed to me. We have a samurai and a ninja ripped out of their time and brought to the future. Well, I love samurai and ninjas so this should be great… shouldn’t it? That’s what I thought. I don’t love the time travel element to this and I found the way everyone just accepted that they were from the past to be infuriating. Why even have it be a thing if it’s not going to be a thing?

Gibiate Episode 1 Sensui Kanzaki

What have you learnt?

One of my criticisms of Deca-Dence was how much it gave away too soon. It wasn’t loads, but it was enough to annoy me. Well, Gibiate is pretty much the poster child for too much too soon so far. This episode should have been focused on the two warriors in the wrong time trying to survive and find answers. We didn’t need an explanation at the beginning of the episode, in the middle of the episode when Kathleen found them, and then at the end of the episode when they met the doctor. This could have been a cool opening with some insane fights and crazy monsters. I am a little worried about this one, but hopefully, it can find it’s feet once Sensui has a sword.

One more thing. If you’re going to claim that the monster’s form is determined by a person’s DNA, don’t try to claim that race is a factor. There is no genetic marker for race. I knew that beforehand, which is why it pulled me out of the story, but if you didn’t it wouldn’t take long to research that and find out what DNA can tell us. That goes for the writers too. Do your research. Stuff like that really annoys me. I once read a book where someone flew from Nigeria to Egypt in thirty minutes and then it took twelve hours to get to London. It’s easy to Google stuff like that and I will admit that I didn’t read any more of that book.

Gibiate Episode 1 A Samurai and a Ninja Transported into the Future

Other reviews in the series

Lynn Sheridan The Otaku Author Header
Tags

8 Comments

  2. I’m hoping some of the lack of reaction to a Samurai and a Ninja showing up will be explained.

    Good point about DNA, too.

    The thing that blew me out of the story was Kathleen saying she was going to make a vaccine. She’s not a doctor. She doesn’t seem to have even field medic training. But she’s going to formulate a vaccine?

    That said, I’m hoping they pull it off. I’m interested for the same reasons you said you are. Fingers crossed!

    • Kathleen hasn’t even graduated high school, but she’s got plenty of drive though.

      I just hope this focuses on being the monster action series it should be and if they want to throw zombies in there too, well, that would be grand!

    • I’m watching it on Crunchyroll and have literally just finished the second episode. There were several moments that left me grinning like an idiot. Classic monster movie stuff. CGI is still terrible, but I think I’m going to have fun regardless.

    • Sounds ace – I’m really tempted to sign-up, even temporarily, to CR now, so I can check this out (plus ‘Tower of God’ and a few others, of course).

    • I did a free trial last year to watch DanMachi and haven’t stopped. I have CR and Funi and they cover most things all for less than $20 a month (less than I used to pay for a 45 minute anime video).

    • That’s pretty ace – it’s so much more affordable than in the past, huh?

      I just have to double-check that if I sign-up for premium, hoping to watch a few specific shows, that they’re covered re: licensing in Australia. (Without Animelab I’d have far less access to stuff, I suspect).

What did you think?

You might also like…