“Yesterday’s” Trade> Bio-Booster Armor Guyver

“I can’t breathe in this thing!”

Bio-Booster Armor Guyver

Viz Comics (April, 1995)

(original publisher: Tokuma Shoten Publishing CO)

This collects the first six issues of the US printing of the comic in its more traditional form, but flipped (the Western “left to right” rather than the Japanese “right to left”) so some of you are already turned off. You may also seen one of the animated versions, and I hope it was the one good one rather than the one “okay” one or the one “lazy as possible so let’s up the gore just a bit” one. And this comic is already filled with some pretty violent stuff. However, and maybe the black-and-white makes it look less bad than it is, I still enjoy this story. I picked it up while I was still in my “get every armored hero comic” phase and I had seen the live-action movie. The first few arcs I picked up as graphic novels after I started collecting the series.

The story follows Sho Fukamachi, a high school student in Japan, and his friend, Tetsuro Segawa. Sho’s unrequited love for Tetsuro’s sister, Mizuki, is the least of his problems when the boys stumble upon the Guyver unit, a bio-organic device that unleashes a suit of armor on Sho, turning him into the Guyver. Pursuing the Guyver unit are Chronos Corporation, your typical company that really wants to rule the world by turning people into monsters. Like most Japanese businesses. I hear Sony and Nintendo have their own. Microsoft and Apple need to get on the ball. However, one of the other Guyver units is in the hands of someone with a huge mad-on for Chronos and will let Mizuki get drawn into the battle.

While I do enjoy the live-action movie, unlike some of my peers in the “Reviewaverse”, I think Sho’s story is superior to Sean’s. While elements, like the origin of the Zoanoids and humans being the result of a halted experiment by aliens were present in both, Sho gets a larger cast to play with and the characters are more interesting. I’ve been in Sho’s shoes…minus the organic armor and evil monster-making corporation of course..so I connected to him pretty quick. Not that there’s a lot of character development and all we know about him is his place on the student council, that he has a father, and that he’s willing to fight to protect his friend. Tetsuro is a good guy and Mizuki is a nice girl who, if rumors are true, in interested in the student council president. (She’s the vice president.) It’s a good start, and not having read these comics in a while I hope we learn more about them at some point.

I also like the design of the three Guyvers and we see in Guyver 2 the potential fate that comes with its use. The weapons involved seem to be thought out and Sho has to learn how to use them, rather than having everything for the first fight.

The artwork is very good, and silly as the “we were created by aliens” thing is it serves the story. The designs on the various levels of Zoanoid are good if not necessarily inventive. The one thing to remember is that the comic is pretty violent. Heads being crushed, people melting, all that stuff you probably don’t want younger readers to see. Still, I did enjoy this first issue and will be holding on to this one.