Pandemic Pandemonium and 3D Beasts
- Episodes : 12
- Genre : Action, Horror, Martial Arts, Samurai, Fantasy
- Airing Date : Studio elle, l-a-unch・BOX
- Producers : July 2020 – September 2020
In the year 2028, Japan and the rest of the world have fallen to a strange virus that morphs its victims’ DNA into contorted forms which create monstrous mutations. With the vast majority of the population wiped out by the Gibia Virus, humanity remains clustered together in small settlement groups to survive.
Kanzaki Sensui and Sanada Kenroku are a pair of samurai who were exiled from their respective clans shortly after the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600; however, as they were being ferried away, they found themselves spirited to Japan in the year 2030, a land ravaged by the effects of the Gibia Virus. The two meet Funada Kathleen, a young scientist who is part of a community of survivors and she takes them back to base, where they meet a few other survivors before being thrown into battle against the monstrous Gibia.
Displacement and disconnection
The main plot point of Gibiate is the spiriting away of the main characters, Sensui and Kenroku. The aspect of time-travel adds a layer to the pre-existing element of displacement that is presented to us when Sensui and Kenroku are exiled from their home clans after the Battle of Sekigahara (1600). They are both geographically and temporally displaced, a theme that isn’t too far away from the experience that one can have of life during a pandemic, a life to which Sensui and Kenroku are abruptly introduced.
This theme is further explored by the main characters when they try to reconcile that they left their lives four hundred years ago. When piecing together what happened to their clans, we get to look further into the characters of Sensui and Kenroku, but also Kathleen, who accounts for her own past and the death of her father, as Sensui struggles to come to grips with the fate of his clan
Pandemic Apocalypse
Gibiate’s titular beasts are created when a human being is infected with the Gibia Virus or stung by a Gibia and exposed to its venom. This prevailing theme paints the horrific post-apocalyptic landscape; however, it would be unwise to refuse to see the connection between this element of the plot and the times we find ourselves in as humanity today. Pandemic-inspired art is but in its infancy at this point.
Monsters and, um... Aliens?
A basic primal fear of being attacked and eaten by vicious beasts is very vigorously played with by this series, as human beings turn into strange chimeras that cause death and destruction, in addition to being innumerable. Gibiate’s strange plot gets really weird in the latter stages, however, as the virus is traced back to an alien origin.
Gibiate is a smorgasbord of themes and plot devices, which make it a very unfocused anime experience. Time-travel, a virus that turns people into giant monsters and aliens, Gibiate feels like it tries to stack up as many different themes into one storyline, which does make it rather interesting in theory; however, execution is everything. Gibiate fails to explain why our main characters have been sent to the future, which is an incredibly glaring plot point to go unexplained; however, it could still be amended in the final episode. Each one of Gibiate’s themes could do very well on their own.
Gibiate tried to do too much and ended up fumbling promising combinations of well-known plotlines. The combination of time-travel and monster pandemic were interesting enough to be a draw; however, the art and animation couldn’t quite carry the show in the way that it needed to be, especially when it comes to the monsters. The use of CGI and other techniques to create the Gibia worked against Gibiate because the monstrosities looked too out of place when contrasted with the designs of the characters themselves.
Coming up to the conclusion, Gibiate has been a rather unfortunate experience despite the initial promise it might have shown. The big reveal in episode 11 that exposed the origins of the Gibia Virus only managed to answer a single question but left open several others, in addition to it further saturating the various themes and plot devices already at play by introducing aliens to the mix. The reveal also felt like a major cop-out and use of a cliché in order to attempt to wrap-up an idea that wasn’t all that well-executed to begin with and because of that, Gibiate isn’t a show that goes highly recommended by us. But, what are your thoughts about Gibiate? Drop a comment below and let us know what you think!
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