Megazone 23, Part III

500 years after the survivors of Megazone 23 returned to Earth, the Human Race lives anew in the city of Eden.  However, the peace long fought for by Shogo Yahagi is nowhere to be found within the walls of this metal paradise.  Hackers and corporations vie for control of Eden’s key systems, pushing Humanity once again to the brink of war.  Still active, Eve calls out for a new partner, Eiji Tanakada, who must finish what Shogo started lest Humanity return to edge of ruin once more.

While I had many issues with the first two chapters of Megazone 23, the story seemed to come to a conclusion with an apocalyptic, yet weirdly hopeful finale in Part II.  Which begs the question: what the heck was Part III going to be about?  The answer is this probably would have been better off as a duology but we got a third chapter instead because reasons.  The stage is reset one more time for one more go at Megazone 23 with a new cast, new setting and newfound sense of this had no idea what it wanted to be about from the get go and has just been making up as it goes right into the ground and deeper and deeper down.
 
Starting the final chapter 500 years later is the first major hurdle.  I think we learn less about Eden than we do about how things work in the Megazone ship.  Scratch that, they did attempt to explain how the Megazone kept its populace blissfully unaware of their outer space journey.  Eden is just cryptic nonsense about Systems and Hackers and secret project names run by shady corporations.  Eve tries to explain how things came to be but it only begs the question why not start this a few years after the end of Part II to see how Eden even came to be in the first place?  Instead, Part III saddles viewers with nonsensical jibber jabber attempting to be more prolific than it is.  It lacks the would be mystery of how the truth of Megazone 23 would affect its populace and just feels like your generic Cyberpunk City with very little to enjoy.
 
And nothing is less enjoyable in Eden City than the new cast.  Not that I had any real love for Shogo or Yui but they are the faces of this little franchise, along with Eve.  Eiji is a poor replacement for an already “meh” lead, actually he’s worse.  At least Shogo had a rebel without a cause feel to him.  Eiji is just a guy who looks smug all the time cause he’s good at hacking and video games and not much else.  Ryo is a way more boring love interest than Yui ever was.  Heck I think Eiji and Eve had more chemistry together.  I’ll admit, even if Eve is mostly used as an exposition machine for what’s clearly a missing chapter of this saga, it’s good to see her more involved than before.  Besides her, no one else is worth mentioning because Eiji’s little hacker crew vanishes after the first half of the OVA, save for one who needlessly becomes an antagonist.  As for the actual bad guys, Jacob’s just a guy with a Cyber God Complex while Won Dai’s possible true identity is more wasted potential for Megazone 23.
 
One consistent positive of all three Megazone 23 entries has been the animation and Part III for the most part does maintain said consistency.  However, there are noticeable dips in quality here and there and, I kid you not, there are segments in the first half where the frame rate dropped to one per second.  It’s baffling the production got that lazy with three years between Megazone 23 entries (Part II came out in 1986 while Part III arrived in 1989).  No matter how good Part III looks at its best though, it hardly masks how dull and uninteresting everything is.  The action is nowhere near as gratuitously gorey as Part II but its not exciting and its kinda minimal, taking a back seat to all of the Cyber Gospel speak of how all important the “System” is.  And when your Cyberpunk reinvented series cant even pull off must see action sequences, you know that something has been seriously screwed up.
 
Maybe I went into the Megazone 23 Trilogy with too high of expectations given it’s pedigree and generally positive reception by others.  But I couldn’t find much to write home about in a positive light other than snippets of Part I and Part III has saved the worst for last.  Ditching the Space Opera Mystery for a Cyberpunk dystopia robs what made Megazone unique to begin with and doesn’t help itself by populating its world with bland and boring characters, a lack of exciting action, and poor world building.  Personally, I don’t think Part III needed to exist but I also think that Part II did a crappy job of following up the promise of story potential with Part I.  At the end of the day, this is a series with no identity and very little to make it stand the test of time like Gundam or Macross.  And I can see now why when Megazone 23 does get brought up, they’re mostly talking about Part I and Part II.  Cause Part III…woof, no amount of good animation can mask how bad this poor finale really is (honestly though, the animation and Eve are the only reason this isnt getting a straight up 0).
 
1/10
 
Ugh, thank God that’s over with, cause now it’s time for the real gauntlet, the main event.  It’s the beginning of the Macross Phase of Mega Mecha Summer with a special Fourth of July Review of Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Flashback 2012 on Friday.  Then Monday, it’s time for our Extended Summer Series Review with Macross 7.  Get ready cause it’s time to rock right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.