Night Head Genesis - Psychic bishounen, brotherly love
August 30th, 2006, 8 responses
Psychic bishounen, brotherly love - Night Head Genesis is quite clearly aimed at the yaoi fan girls, yet an over abundance of melodrama and an almost laughably over the top collection of villains fails to render this completely unwatchable. It’s trashy, homo-erotic and somewhat dull, but for now I do intend to watch more of Night Head Genesis. At 24 episodes in length, something genuinely interesting must be set to happen, right?
There are a few things I quite enjoy about this. I complained above about the larger than life – often insane – bad guys, but it’s still quite fun seeing them kick ass and hop around acting totally evil (like being crazy enough to abduct and murder any girl wearing purple clothes) only to get their comeuppance in gruesome or disturbing ways. That’s right; I’m in it for the violence! Night Head Genesis sets a dark (sometimes extremely moody) tone and it can be impressively harsh - seeing these psysic powers used to cause damage is very enthralling and brings back better memories of Tetsuo going ape shit in AKIRA.
Unfortunately the two brothers and their whole melodramatic history (being abandoned by their parents and forced to live their younger years stuck in a special hospital for the mentally “enhanced) fails to illicit any kind of empathy from me – there is no subtlety to their characters; they lack personality and humour, share no rapore with one another (or anyone else for that matter). What does interest me about them is their purpose in the story – why are they important? I have many questions and to get answers I’m happy to sit through another couple of episodes before deciding whether or not Night Head Genesis is limited to merely offering trashy eye candy for the fan girls.
@Celeste: I’m off work on holiday for the next two weeks...
8 Responses to “Night Head Genesis - Psychic bishounen, brotherly love”
j.valdez Says:
August 30th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
>>"It’s trashy, homo-erotic and somewhat dull, but for now I do intend to watch more of Night Head Genesis"
LOL, that’s just too funny…so, what would it take to get you to stop watching it?
Baka-Kun Says:
August 31st, 2006 at 1:48 am
“Unfortunately the two brothers and their whole melodramatic history (being abandoned by their parents and forced to live their younger years stuck in a special hospital for the mentally “enhanced) fails to illicit any kind of empathy from me”
jeez, they managed to elicit all kinds of sympathy from me for just those aforementioned reasons, and I’m not a particularly emotional guy. You must be pretty hardboiled.
“It’s trashy, homo-erotic”
Really? where and when?
I’ve only watched up to episode 5 so far but I’ll take that as a warning. I’m all for teh yuri, but I try to avoid the BL. Hopefully your just insinuating because they are two brothers who only have each other to rely on, and you don’t seem to be enjoying the show.
If not, cripes!
bateszi Says:
August 31st, 2006 at 8:50 am
"LOL, that’s just too funny…so, what would it take to get you to stop watching it?"
I think if it keeps up with the villain of the week formula, I’ll drop it after the next couple of episodes. I really enjoyed the first few episodes, mainly because the story seemed mysterious and had some great action, but it took a big down turn the moment the lads got out of hospital.
"You must be pretty hardboiled."
Not really, I just prefer real drama and tragedy handled with sublety and a human touch. Nothing about the brothers really suggests to me that they are really feeling this situation.
"Really? where and when? … I’m all for teh yuri, but I try to avoid the BL"
It’s homo-erotic in the same way as say Jyu-Oh-Sei or Get Backers i.e. it’s more of a strong undertone where the brothers rely on and hold each other like a married couple. It’s not blatent or in your face, but the more anime I watch, the more I pick up on these kind of things.
And I’ve only seen up to episode 4 so far. I’m not giving up on Night Head Genesis just yet.
TP Says:
August 31st, 2006 at 11:31 am
Hmm, I disagree with the underlying homo-eroticism: both brothers are too emo to really show any form of tenderliness with one another (then agaiin, I was limited by the no. of episodes I’m watching).
That said, I was very iffed of the somewhat long delays in some of the instances, like they’re waiting for some sort of input from the higher plateau. It breaks the continuum of the show.
Too bad, I have to relegate this anime as another "Meh" show: good potential, bad execution. Though I must say, I’m pretty tired of shows that requires the audience to feel, "Oh, there must be a hidden meaning to some of the symbolism." A.k.a. mindf***.
Anonymous Says:
August 31st, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Seeing that this was orginally adapted from a BL mangaka’s work, its not surprising that there are a lot of "trashy, homo-erotic" tones in it, LOL.
I had high hopes for this when it was announced, but I have to agree the melodrama and the lack of chemistry between the brothers is dragging the series down. Bad producing and editing I guess.
You want more yaoi undertones, check out Glass No Kantai, the mother of all trashy psedo-yaoi drama crap. It’s so trashy I thought I was watching The Bold and Beautiful in anime form.
Asuka Says:
September 1st, 2006 at 2:28 am
This show’s biggest turn-off for me is the crappy animation.
Ramadahl Says:
September 1st, 2006 at 4:53 am
"Hmm, I disagree with the underlying homo-eroticism"
Plenty of fangirls would disagree ^_^
Nagi-kun Says:
July 30th, 2008 (2 weeks ago) at 11:18 am
I tend to disagree, but then again I’m not as into the violence or fangirling aspect of this series myself. There does seem to be a brother complex going, I do have to agree with you there (and as a hardcore yaoi fan, that’s somewhat expected. ^^). I just rewatched the series, cus oddly enough I liked it overall. I like the fact it gets you really thinking about things such as the spectrum of existence and the purpose to humanity. And though some aspects are indeed annoying (such as some of the melodrama, though I still tend to adore angst), if you focus on the main premise of the story, it’s really quite entertaining. It keeps people guessing cus you cant anticipate what is going to happen in this series like you can with most animes out there. I’ve seen more than my fair share of anime out there too, so I can plainly say I know what I’m talking about. And the OST is indeed excellent. I’m working on getting it hopefully sometime soon if they have one released. If not, I may just do some audio ripping….what a pain.