Kimera Anime Review

Kimera
ADV Films
Movie - 48 mins. - 1 disc
$19.98 (2007) w/Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma
$19.98 (2002)
ISBN 702727026829
Japanese/English Audio - English Subtitles
Director - Kazu Yokota
Studio - TOHO

Synopsis: A strange craft crash lands on Earth and a lone hunter finds the crash site.  The craft appears to be empty and a fearsome creature attacks the man sucking out his life essence.  Two men, Osamu and Jay, are cereal salesmen and returning to their corporate headquarters when they come across what appears to be the site of an accident.  An Air Force security detail has cordoned off the area when they are attacked by an unknown hostile force.  Osamu stumbles into a transport and sees a figure inside a containment pod.  The figure awakens and Osamu is drawn in by its powerful sexual aura.  He falls instantly in love, but this creature is not ordinary.  Its appearance is androgynous and otherworldly.

A lone hunter in the forest is the first to find a crashed spacecraft

Jay manages to get Osamu away from the creature just in time to escape the carnage at the crash scene.  They return to headquarters, but Osamu is obsessed with the creature.  Their employer is a huge corporate conglomerate (cereal is just one of the many brands they produce) and it seems the company is somehow involved in the disturbance.  They learn the creature is named Kimera (pronounced kee-meh-raw) and the last hope of a dying, vampiric race to repopulate its planet.

Osamu stumbles upon a strange figure in a containment capsule

Osamu doesn't care, he's in love with the creature and wants to protect it at all costs.  Two powerful vampires appear to battle it out and claim Kimera for their own - Ginzu is a disfigured, tentacled monster and Kianu (not that Keanu) is a noble warrior.  Osamu is caught in the middle, but can Kimera truly be a threat to the human race?

Osamu is enthralled by the androgynous creature

Pros: Decent animation quality (for a mid-90s production), alternate take on vampires (as aliens), a few good action scenes, awkwardly funny at times (totally unintentional), one decent soundtrack song (based on  a classical piece)

Kianu vows to free Kimera and out of the clutches of Ginzu

Cons: Seriously bad dub, bit confusing since Kimera is androgynous, alien space vampires, creepy sex scene where two random dudes try to fool around with Kimera

This handsome devil is Ginzu

Mike Tells It Straight: Kimera is a messy attempt at a science fiction vampire story mixed with a heaping dose of androgynous erotica.  The dub script and acting are some of the worst you'll find in a domestically released anime.  Not to say the story isn't equally bad.  Osamu and Jay are cereal salesman who get caught up in a plot which threatens human life on Earth.  Seriously?  It was far-fetched even for anime.

Personnel at the corporation keep turning up like this

The anime is based on a manga by a well known artist (Kazuma Kodaka) who specializes in yaoi - male-on-male romance stories.  Kimera was supposed to originally be male, but was portrayed as being female in the American dub version.  A key fact hidden from Western viewers to avoid any potential censorship.  The story was too short and underdeveloped for it to make much of a difference in my opinion.

Kimera is one horny creature

I'll say Kimera is noteworthy for being a yaoi anime from the '90s, but its American release is badly sterilized (kind of like the alien vampires).  It's left being a cliche science fiction vampire movie with some erotica thrown in.  Many other yaoi titles have been released since and this short feature is better left forgotten in the dollar bins.

TO BUY and Recommendations: