Product Details

• Actors: Yvonne Aquire, Bryan Bounds, Charles Campbell, Jayson Carr, Tiffany Grant
• Directors: Kazuyoshi Yokota
• Producers: Masako Fuyuko, Masamichi Fujiwara, Nagateru Kato, Yutaka Takahashi
• Format: Animated, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English, Japanese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Adv Films
• DVD Release Date: September 10, 2002
• Run Time: 55 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006FD8W
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,500 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Kimera" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Based on a manga by Kazuma Kodaka, this 1996 OAV is a bloody hodgepodge of gothic images and anime sci-fi clichés. A spaceship crashes on Earth, carrying three weirdly dissimilar creatures that are half human, half alien. The aliens need humans to reproduce and continue their species. Cereal salesman Osamu is strangely drawn to the androgynous Kimera. After rescuing her from a research facility where illicit experiments are being performed by a corrupt scientist, Osamu confronts the other two aliens in a violent face-off in a ruined church. He and Kimera escape together, hoping for a future together. A jejune, violent recycling of old themes and images, Kimera falls just short of "tentacle porn." Rated 17 Up: Violence, cannibalism, nudity, profanity, sexual situations, grotesque imagery. --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An Abomination, February 14, 2000

By 

Professor J (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

A bit of background, for those of you who are hardcore anime fans. This movie is based on a manga of the same name by Kazuma Kodaka---a popular professional artist who specializes in writing "yaoi" manga (a subgenre of manga written for women, by women, about male/male "homosexual" romance and sex---a kind of hentai for women). She's the same artist who created "Kizuna." In the original Kimera manga, Kimera was once male, before being genetically altered into an hermaphrodite.

The movie version toned down the graphic sexuality and gore of the manga a great deal, but otherwise was fairly true to the manga plotline (abbreviated, of course). However, this English-language translation, in an attempt to avoid annoying the homophobes among the US anime-viewing audience, made one significant alteration to the translation in order to avoid any sign of homosexuality: they translated Kimera's gender as female. Yaoi fans, take note. Kimera still *looks* male (you never see genitalia in the anime, but I've read the manga; Kimera still has male equipment, at least externally), but the other characters repeatedly call it "she" and "her," which gets *really* annoying after a while.

In addition, the English-language dub of this movie is... wretched. The mis-translations are one problem, but the voice acting is just plain bad---flat in some places, overacted in others. The art's not bad, but the animation is jerky in some places---as I understand it, Kimera had a lower budget than anime aimed at male audiences.

If you're interested in a low-budget badly-dubbed horrorfest, you might like this movie. If you're a yaoi fan, or a Kodaka fan, you'll hate it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars KI-ME-RA, October 2, 2002

By 

animeeyes (Brampton, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kimera (DVD)

Only 2 negative points on this anime.
1), the volume on the English sound track is quite LOW. My DVD player is a SONY DVP-S570D. I had the volume cranked to the max with headphones on and I still had problems hearing the english track. So, for customers who only like to enjoy these anime in english dubbed you will probably be disappointed.
2), Profanity is regulated to the english track. (I guess the producers assume that the consumer wants profanity. It doesn't help the story.) The japanese track is better.
I give KI-ME-RA a 4, since I enjoy viewing anime in japanese with subtitles. They have better Voice Actors too. : )

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Man and his Alien Vampire Hermaphrodite Lover, October 10, 1999

By 

Nangke (Cali, USA) - See all my reviews

A surreal, erotic animated feature created by Kazuma Kodaka, the Japanese manga (comic book) artist who has also produced "Kizuna", two volumes (VHS) of which is also available through Amazon.com. Excellently animated, dubbed into English very well -- my only argument against this anime would be the translation. The biggest example of which is that a certain main character is inaccurately portrayed as a dominantly female being. Bad enough that Kimera HAS female parts... but c'mon! All of Kodaka's works that I'm aware of feature gay men, and "Kimera" is a stab into sci-fi macabre that works so well in mainstream exactly because Kimera's 'swishy-ness' can be taken in another way... Sigh. But aside from the implications of a storyline that at least comes off adequately to the Western viewer ("Just pass it off as more surrealism!"), I do admit that I found myself watching it over again within a few minutes of finishing. The dynamic of a cereal salesman stumbling upon a mysterious beauty (whatever gender Kimera is!) in a setup that's vaguely X-Files-esque is truly unique. And just wait til you experience Shiro Sagisu's score, a techno remake of a familiar classical piece (name escapes me at the moment -- I remember hearing it in one sequence of Disney's "Fantasia"). I recommend buying this title.