Gibiate (Season One)

A deadly plague has swept the world turning the infected into monsters who then seek to pass on the disease or kill their prey in the process. Can a group of warriors plucked out of time stop the spread?
What did you watch?
After making a shortlist of shows that I’d like to watch from the Summer 2020 schedule, I narrowed it down to just two – Deca-Dence and this one, Gibiate. I selected those two based on the promo images and the dark premises. They seemed like the obvious choice given my personal preferences, but things didn’t go quite as I had expected. Deca-Dence ended up being pretty average thanks to it’s rushed and disjointed storytelling and Gibiate… well, let me tell you all about Gibiate! There will be spoilers, even though it would be hard to spoil…

What happened?
Kathleen was one of a handful of survivors. They had a brilliant doctor who was determined to find a cure to the Gibia scourge, but that meant staying alive long enough to do it, which didn’t seem too likely. However, two warriors were pulled out of their own time and transported to the future where they met Kathleen and agreed to help. Things continued pretty much as before but with a legendary samurai and ninja on their side, some of them managed to survive. Not many, though.
As they continued their journey to find a cure, they gained new allies. One had even been pulled out of his own time too. There were even those that sought to take what they had but were soundly defeated by Sensui and Kenroku. Then, there was a mysterious Gibia that relentlessly pursued them across the country. Can anyone survive this nightmare?

What did you think?
This series was awful. It was just a complete mess. The story was literally just a giant trope-fest but without any nuance in the way they were connected, it just felt completely forced. On top of that, the pacing was a disaster. We’d spend so much time watching Kenroku adjusting his footing during a fight and then, of course, there was no room to do much else. On the whole, the fights were a bit of a letdown too. I doubt anyone goes into a series like this expecting to be wowed, but to get everything so completely wrong is beyond what most can take. It had to potential to be a cheesy horror monster series which would have been a guilty pleasure for me, but it was a complete waste of potential.

What was your favourite moment?
Probably the most entertaining moment was when Sensui got a sword to fight with. Luckily, the Gibia had attacked en mass when the power failed at their camp and Sensui had to cut his way out. He developed a bit of a demon-like appearance and it was cool for a moment or two. Sadly, it didn’t last and Sensui became a bit of a joke because he kept overexerting himself and would be out of action for a couple of episodes. Another waste!

What was your least favourite moment?
Where to begin? I think I’m going to go with the big reveal. Dr. Yoshinaga who had quite clearly been the villain from early on revealed that he was an alien and the strange Gibia following them was his fiancee who had been infected. He was trying to cure her when he inadvertently created the Gibia plague. I say inadvertently, but he obviously couldn’t care less. The most annoying part was when Sensui finally killed Meteora, the strange Gibia, Yoshinaga came running with his cure and then got mad at them for killing Meteora despite him never once mentioning that they shouldn’t do that. He then lost it, infected Ayame and went on a season finale killing spree.

Who was your favourite character?
It has to be Kenroku as he was the only character that seemed to make any sense. Kathleen seemed to bounce back and forth between being strong and helpless, Sensui spent too much time taking a nap, and everyone else was pretty much useless. They spent so much time killing off random characters that no one cared about and focusing on pointless movements in the fights that the characters really didn’t get many chances to develop. So when they gave us a montage of all the people lost in the series, it was just laughable and not at all what they were probably going for.

Who was your least favourite character?
I wanted to say Kathleen’s mother, but Dr. Yoshinaga takes it. Every time danger appeared he just happened to be somewhere else doing something else. He was the least trustworthy character in it and yet all the other characters seemed to accept whatever he said and were pretty surprised when he turned on them. The stupidest thing about all this was they had plenty of chances to kill him before he turned, especially after he’d just infected himself. Seems like the ideal moment for a samurai or a ninja to show off their skills.

Would you like some more?
No, absolutely not. In true horror fashion, the series ended without any real resolution. Kathleen and Kenroku sailed away while a potentially infected Sensui faced off against a giant horde of Gibia. I literally don’t care what happens next, especially as they’ve failed to make me care about a single character. Oh, and while you’re here, let’s talk about the CGI monsters. Spoiler, they were awful and not just the CGI, but the design of the monsters was terrible too. Otherwise, I kind of like the old-style animation, but that was probably the only thing I did like.

What have you learnt?
Even a guilty pleasure can be bad. I believe that we call them guilty pleasures because too often we’ll ignore their indiscretions or flaws because we’re having fun and there’s nothing wrong with that. This series has shown me that even if they throw all of my favourite things in and have what should be an absolute sure thing, they can still get it wrong. As is so often the case with stories, it’s not the ingredients that matter, it’s how you put them together that really counts.

Other posts in the series
- Season One
- Episode 1 – Spirited Away
- Episode 2 – Beyond the Maelstrom
- Episode 3 – The Third Man
- Episode 4 – Danger Zone
- Episode 5 – Evil VS Bushido
- Episode 6 – Desperate Situation
- Episode 7 – Dream Road to Death
- Episode 8 – Letter of Farewell
- Episode 9 – Until It All Burns Out
- Episode 10 – New Allies
- Episode 11 – Illusory Love
- Episode 12 – A Life’s End

[…] series that I would then be forced to continue… I’m looking at you Plunderer, Gibiate, and Shironeko. Nothing saps your energy more than feeling like you’re being forced to do […]
I recently finished this and I definitely agree, it was not great.
Somehow, there was just enough for me to want to find out how it ended, but the show was memorable for too many of the wrong reasons.
Agreed. The premise was interesting and it could have been a great story, but it just kept falling over its own feet. So many bad decisions!
(Part of me being able to finish it was skipping through a fair few of the action sequences, too, I must say).
I only finished it because I’d already started reviewing it. Otherwise it would have found its way to my On-hold list… probably indefinitely!