Cyber City Oedo 808

The year is 2808 and criminals are being enlisted as members of the Cyber Police to help keep Oedo (formerly Tokyo) safe. In exchange for their help, the Cyber Police are bargaining reduced sentences for the enlisted criminals. Three criminals, Sengoku, Gabimaru, and Merill are continuously used by the Cyber Police under threat of death from exploding neck collars if they do not complete their missions in time or try to remove the collars and escape.

Cyber City Odeo 808 is a 3 episode OVA sett, with each episode running about 45 minutes. It is an older anime, being released in 1993, so for retro anime fans, this has the old school Manga Corps vibe to it. The animation and artwork is very much paralleled to older classics such as Ninja Scroll. Having a futuristic motif, the soundtrack has the whole rock theme going on, very much like Fist of the North Star.

The plots throughout were nothing spectacular, but the action sequences and coarse language certainly helped to mask this aspect. Every other word coming from a character would leave this as being less than desired for younger audiences. I truly felt through this short series that I was watching an anime authentically intended for adults. This aspect, tied in with the whole retro theme and futuristic nuances really helped to grab my attention and keep me entertained.

The characters were more or less  very generalized relative to some of the other anime series that were out at the time. While there wasn't really any defining aspects that make any one character stand out tremendously, they still had a cool look and feel to them which was satisfying enough to keep my attention and attempt to remember who is who.

Overall, Cyber City Oedo 808 is an entertaining anime that will certainly deliver the whole nostalgia factor to fans of retro anime from the late 80s and early 90s. The artwork is visually appealing given the time of production and the soundtrack is bound to stick with those who enjoy the rock inspired OSTs. Given the graphic violence in some scenes and heavy coarse language, this one might be worth keeping younger kids away from. Cyber City Oedo 808 is truly and anime for adults and is bound to please older anime fans such as myself who grew up on shows from this era.

Cyber City Oedo 808 Opening Video