OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *M.D. Geist

What is considered one of the best/worst anime ever made, M.D. Geist was created by Riku Sanjo in his first anime writing credit in 1986 after doing the Dragon Quest manga series. The original OVA was a single episode project when it came out, but John O'Donnell from U.S. Manga Corps loved the anime so much with the did the English release in the early 90's that he made the title character the company's official "spokesmecha", even though it wasn't a robot but a guy in Warhammer armor. O'Donnell went on to fund what was also one of the first independently produced anime for the American and Japanese market in an extended Director's Cut with all new footage added to the then decade old anime, as well as an official sequel anime, M.D. Geist II: Death Force. Not only that, but the crazy O'Donnell had a special prequel manga mini-series created leading up to the events of the first OVA. The original story is a standard 80's grindhouse anime by Koichi Ohata who also directed the equally gory Genocyber. The anime took the idea of Mad Max and threw some alien mecha suits into the fray.

Way in the future, humans had colonized the planet Jerra which had erupted into civil war leaving the world largely decimated. One of the last remaining members of a batch of super fighters known as Most Dangerous Soldiers going by the name Geist is let out of suspended animation after a few decades. Geist wrangles a local gang of scavengers into helping him bail out one of the two warring factions from a different group of raiders. Geist gets his new crew and the army to stop a giant doomsday machine called the Death Force from unleashing an army of man-eating robots on Jerra's remaining populace. The most dangerous soldier launches this joint operation only to make sure that the ultimate weapon launches its payload because Geist is a homicidal maniac. The sequel episode takes place sometime later with Geist having reveled in it, although he sees his fun being ruined by another MDS named Krauser running the collected resistance. Geist leads the Death Force to Krauser's fortress for a final battle between the opposing forces where the two super soldiers wreck each other in roided out robot suits.

M.D. Geist was a bugbear upon its initial release, and its modified American funded re-release along with its sequel didn't gain much more respect from either side of the world. Otaku have a habit of rejecting some titles outright, and U.S. Manga Corps' attempt to bring fresh life into it failed in its undertaking. The original and sequel anime were released on dubbed and subtitled VHS and DVD, including the DVD release containing the Director's Cut. The physical copies have been out of print for a while, and only have sporadic appearances on streaming services.