Going Above and Beyond the Legendary Animation of Genius Party: Genius Party Beyond
Genius Party was a movie composed of seven different animated short films, released in 2007.
The following year, Genius Party was met with its successor, Genius Party Beyond. Produced by Studio 4°C, this collaborative movie was a landmark in the history of Japanese animated cinema, inspiring tons of other projects in the same field for years to come.
This time, it was an amalgamation of five films, which were “Gala” by Mahiro Maeda, who worked with Ghibli Studio and Neon Genesis Evangelion; “Moondrive” by Kazuto Nakazawa alias Takeshi Tsuji; “Wanwa’ the Doggy” by Shinya Ohira; “Toujin Kit”, which is probably the best known short film out of the Genius Party collection, by Tatsuyuki Tanaka, and “Dimension Bomb” by Koji Morimoto, who previously worked on Akira.
Boundless imagination is the key to the Genius Party films, but this was also a cause of controversy within their audience, who criticized the project to be too random, while simultaneously being the most prized part by most critics. Just like its predecessor, Genius Party Beyond was separated into “chapters” for each different short film, which is only connected by the genius and singularity of its art and staggering storylines.
In contrast to its first film, Genius Party Beyond was acclaimed to have upgraded its content, but both are incomparable when it comes to their eccentricity and novelty since no other film offers as much excellence and character on top of the range.
The anthology film is not only narratively complex but invites to a new world of anime, exhibiting all kinds of stylistic anime, into the mania of Genius Party Beyond. Sharing the DNA of Tekkonkinkreet and Love Death + Robots, Genius Party Beyond is a succession of visually stimulating mind puzzles, being one of the weirdest, most fulfilling cinematic buffets.
About the Author:
Mizuki Khoury
Born in Montreal, based in Tokyo. Sabukaru’s senior writer and works as an artist under Exit Number Five.
