M.D. Geist Complete Works - Fully scanned

[Vendaval Este]

You know you want it.

[Zach of Manime]

It's a only crazy dream
It's only foolish dream

[zombi1978]

My life has no meaning anymore.

[Vendaval Este]

Aug 8, 2010 12:42:32 GMT zombi1978 said:

My life has no meaning anymore.

I lol'd, tell me what you think of this stuff.

[zombi1978]

Those preproduction works look highly developed and great. Much stuff made up for a 90 minutes movie, I´d say.

And very inspiring, too.

[Vendaval Este]

It makes me the wish the whole OVA was longer and bigger budgeted so more attention to detail could have been paid to a lot of things, including story. I think I like some of Vaiya's earlier designs better than her final one.

[zombi1978]

I also like Pieya´s (89, 61, 90 lol) first designs; and Geist´s first armored uniform, too. Perhaps one of those other early characters (that guy with Chinese hairstyle and the other one black haired dude with big nose) could have been high ranked comrades of Col. Kurz. Or enemies within the own unit? Who knows?

And remember the very first concept art where Geist is "storming down" a taken out Negusrom battle mech? One of the other Vightex soldiers (right top in the picture) comes in on an awesome device that looks much like that "plain" Princess Nausicaä uses. That is definitely much better than what was going on with the soldiers in the actual OVA!

It´s pretty sad everything seems to have gone very, very wrong back then.

[shinobi]

Love the sketch of Geist with his helmet literally turns into demon So much good stuff that was never used in the OVA.

[loadrunner81]

Aug 6, 2010 18:21:42 GMT Vendaval Este said:

You know you want it.

You ROCK.

I honestly think you'll go on to become the biggest M.D. Geist fan that ever lived. Although the file sizes of those page scans are way too big, I am glad that you went out of your way to scan this. I'm glad those pics of the stills from the anime appear to be brighter and sharper than what was shown in the original anime. I've now noticed stuff I originally missed because the animation was just too God damn dark for my eyes. This especially goes for the Brain Palace scenes.

Here are my opinions on the some of the pages:

-0000: Too bad we couldn't see more of Geist's non-armored half like you can with page 1. In my opinion, it would have made for a great wallpaper with a little PhotoShop.

-0004: That unused still of Geist makes be believe there was a plan for a another flashback scene with Geist in action. I know it's used in the scene where Geist takes down the Nexrum jet, but the guns appear to be different.

-0011 and 0012: Somebody make a wallpaper out of that pic ASAP. Seriously, I want that pic as a wallpaper on my PC.

-0027: I was under the assumption that Vaiya was looking smug and arrogant in the scene where Geist shakes Krutes's hand. Another plus for having a brighter and sharper still.

-0028: I would have never known that those dead soldiers that Geist is standing over were so...decayed.

-0036: Now here's something I've always wondered about this scene: where in the hell does that elevator come from!? One possible explanation would be that the animation staff planned for a freight-like elevator but accidentally made a standard elevator by accident.

-0039: In my opinion, Geist looks like a tokusatsu superhero mixed with Wolverine's trademark claws. Are those supposed to be claws anyway, or are they steel, sharp knuckles?

-0050: In my opinion, the early Fightech armor designs looked more believable. Even Geist's early armor design on this page looks much thinner in comparison to the big and bulky Fightech suits used in the final. I'm somewhat glad the football-like helmets got scrapped. Also, in the background, there appears to be Fightech soldier riding a hoverboard. Now why was an awesome thing like that scrapped!?

-0051: LOL, M.D. Guile!?

-0053: Holy shit, early Vaiya looks like Meryl Silverburgh from Metal Gear Solid! I assume Ohata-san was originally going to model Vaiya off Molly Ringwald, whom was pretty big in Hollywood at the time.

-0055: There appears to be another unused soldier. Also, who is that woman with the big hair!? Could it have been possible that Ohata-san was planning to give Geist a real love interest (and possibly give him a shred of real humanity)? She doesn't look like Vaiya, but I wouldn't be surprised if was supposed to be her.

-0056: It looks like they put young Brigette Nielsen's face on Vaiya's body. There's that unused soldier again with the bald head and ponytail. There's also another character I've never seen before. I assume he was another rejected soldier character.

-0057: It appears that the Final Terminator was supposed to to sport a Japanese demon-like look in the early design. It kinda reminds me of that monster from Cybernetics Guardian. Coincidence?

-0058: Geist doesn't look half bad with even shorter hair. Also, it appears that Geist's early Fightech suit design was supposed to have a jetpack on it.

-0059: Damn, Vaiya should have kept that big '80s hair. In my opinion, it would have made her look cuter. Honestly, I don't think the Molly Ringwald look would have worked.

-0063: Those sketches of Geist "shouting" lead me to believe that he might have been planned to be more vocal or more fleshed out.

-0073: Ruster (Lester) didn't make an appearance in the film but was mentioned.

-0074: Jack, the black regular army solider, only made one appearance as a Fightech solider testing out his suit's hand functions. I hate how the Japanese draw lips on black people in anime, and Golem and Jack are no exceptions.

-0080: There appears to be three unused weapons: a worn knife, a grenade-launching pistol, and what appears to be submachine gun. Above those weapons are two sketches of Golem's ride. I wonder what kind of animal was used to fashion out a skeletal tent for it. It certainly doesn't look natural.

-0089: What the fuck is that monster thing with Geist's helmet!?

-0091: Wakamoto-san was looking pretty awesome in the '80s.

-0092: Fumi Hirano looks pretty cute with that short haircut. I'm still shocked that the voice of Vaiya and Lum from Urusei Yatsura are done by the same person. They sound nothing alike.

-0094: Hironobu Kageyama must be happy that this dumb cartoon made him a celeb in his home country.

Well, once again, thank you, sir, for scanning this book. The early sketches and concept art make me believe that M.D. Geist was intended to be an awesome sci-fi/action anime movie in a future world with post-apocalyptic lawlessness and brutality mixed with high-tech war and fascism.

[Vendaval Este]

Nice to see all the comments, as for some of your questions loderunner...

The OVA's character designer was Tsuneo Ninomiya, I'm unsure how much input Ohata had, but I do like a lot of those early designs. Yes too, Geist does look a bit like Guile, way before Guile too.

A lot of those cel images are good for spotting where the animators went insane/used different people, the whole thing particularly falls apart with the guardian robot. Those claws are metal spikes on his gauntlets that are pretty much useful when Geist balls his fists, they don't seem to have an extending mechanism.

I quite like that mysterious design for the guardian robot, it looks like it was partly meant to be flesh-based. The most interesting thing about that machine, was that its battle with Geist was meant to take place in a cathedral-like locale, but they had to scrap that because the paints would have cost too much.

I have to agree, I like Vaiya's fully longer-hair look more rather than female mullet thing. I don't have much of a problem with Jack and Golem's pronounced lips, it seems like a pronounced detail (hell, a black friend agrees), at least they don't have inflated red lips and no shoes.

And that pic of the monster is Geist, plain and true, once you take away all the skin.

[loadrunner81]

Do you think you'd be able to get some of the pages translated in the near future? I'm curious to know what the staff had to say.

[Vendaval Este]

Mhm, I plan on doing it.

[loadrunner81]

Saw this on Deviant Art today:

living-with-aliens.deviantart.com/art/Request-I-172242325

Enjoy!

[zombi1978]

Vendaval Este, can you help me with this one?
Who was the character designer in the beginning?
From what I know is that Ohata hired somebody else to create first drafts of them like the 4 different versions of Colonel Curtz. But was it really Tsuneo Ninomiya from the beginning?

EDIT: Take a look at the guy on the left. Don't you see a bit of Ninomiya's style here, too?



By the way this picture belongs to Final Yamato, a movie from 1983. So quite a long time before the production of the M.D. Geist OVA.

[Vendaval Este]

You're gonna have to tell me the page because I can't tell what you're talking about I'm afraid.