The first time you saw Guyver

[superpack]

Hi everyone, I would like to know what was your first reaction when you saw Guyver for the first time. How old where you? was it a video or comic book did you first see about Guyver? How did you find out about Guyver, what made you love Guyver? etc.

 

For me it was 18 years ago I was 9 years old. I went to this shopping market for the first time and I came across the video tapes section and there it was the OVA Guyver video tapes. I just saw the covers of the 12 episodes of OVA and I was speechless, freezed, blown away. I just saw the covers and I was like woooooooow this looks incredible I got to get them but, I could only buy 1 tape so, I had to choose and I got episode 3. I was so young and my English was not so good that I would understand the story of the Guyver. English is not my first language so at 9 I couldn't understand much. Every few month's I would go back and buy one episode, I only bought episode 10 and 12 the final episode before I found out that my cousin has all 12 episodes and I had to get them. I always thought that after the final episode it was the end for Guyver, I never knew about the Manga until maybe 10 years later which shocked me. I really wish they would bring the OVA UK version back and continue with it until where the story has reached today. The OVA is my fav for the Guyver because, it is way more violent than the 2005 Anime and it was more serious like more drama and scary and the soundtrack was just unbelievable. Anyway just wanted to share my story about how I found out about Guyver.

[Salkafar]

I saw ads for the toys in comics magazines. I dunno, early 1990s?

 

Then it was VHS tapes of the anime, during the manga fad here around the same time... that's what started everything for me. Not just Guyver, but everything...

 

It's the Puma Twins what did it.

[Cannibal]

It was ~1993 (I was 8 y.o.), somehow I got to watch the VHS with the first part of 89-92 OVA (one of the episodes was missing, I don't remember which). I remember I was really worried about Guyver 1's death and it seems that the episode where he was restored was missed. I was excited, mainly because Guyver's armor design - it just blew my mind, so cool it was. About the second part - I don't remember, it seems that I missed it back then.

 

And then I basically forgot about Guyver till 2006. I remember how I decided to ask one of my friends something like "Hmm, do you have the Guyver OVA in your huge DVD collection?". I was surprised when he answered "Yes". Actually I have the chat log with that conversation somewhere on my PC.

 

So I rewatched OVA, found out about TV series and finally the manga. My first reaction to Gigantic was like: "wow, weird", but after few minutes I understood that I love this new form.

[superpack]

I saw ads for the toys in comics magazines. I dunno, early 1990s?

 

Then it was VHS tapes of the anime, during the manga fad here around the same time... that's what started everything for me. Not just Guyver, but everything...

 

It's the Puma Twins what did it.

I only saw two episodes of the Puma Twins which I totally forget about by now lol but, I remember seeing their trailer it was sexy. Gotta watch it again and the series.

[superpack]

It was ~1993 (I was 8 y.o.), somehow I got to watch the VHS with the first part of 89-92 OVA (one of the episodes was missing, I don't remember which). I remember I was really worried about Guyver 1's death and it seems that the episode where he was restored was missed. I was excited, mainly because Guyver's armor design - it just blew my mind, so cool it was. About the second part - I don't remember, it seems that I missed it back then.

 

And then I basically forgot about Guyver till 2006. I remember how I decided to ask one of my friends something like "Hmm, do you have the Guyver OVA in your huge DVD collection?". I was surprised when he answered "Yes". Actually I have the chat log with that conversation somewhere on my PC.

 

So I rewatched OVA, found out about TV series and finally the manga. My first reaction to Gigantic was like: "wow, weird", but after few minutes I understood that I love this new form.

Nice story, for some reason we all tend to forget about Guyver when we are young because, in the 90's we didn't have easy access to the internet like now but, for some reason after many years we come across Guyver again and that makes us wonder what happened to the story and you get excited and want to know where the story has got to. Man it just gives me goosebumps when I watch Guyver all over again. Yoshiki Takaya is such an amazing talented writer who has a gift.

[Salkafar]

I only saw two episodes of the Puma Twins which I totally forget about by now lol but, I remember seeing their trailer it was sexy. Gotta watch it again and the series.

 

There's only two episodes, really... well, unless you count 'New dominion tank police' which was nice, but a little too stiff  by comparison. And the Pumas really didn't get much chance to shine...

[¬./Anonymous¬]

I discovered it in 2002. I liked it. That's all there is to tell.

[Shion]

As a little kid way back in the 90's, I saw Guyver for the first time on Scifi channel among other animes, ( Ghostin the Shell, Akira, Robotech, Fist of the Northstar, ect.)

The episode I saw was Guyver I killing Sho's dad who turned into Enzyme II, that actually scared me... 

It left me with a fear for bloody anime and characters with robotic voices. XD 

 

Some years went by, and the Guyver OVA series aired on TV, every saterday. and the very first episode that's I saw, was Guyver I fighting the Hyper Zoanoid Team Five.

It was still be a scary, and my parents changed the channel everytime I was watching it. XD

My English was very bad, but I could read the dutch subtitles a bit, so the story around the Guyver was kind of hard to follow.

 

Afterwards, I rented the avilable VHS tapes at the local video store and watched some of the episodes, until 2005/2006, I heard of the remake and decided to watch the older ones first.

when I got all VHS taped from a friend, I watched them back to back, marking my first time watching the complete series.

[Guyver1]

I came across the 1989 OVA series when I was about 15 or so in 1996. I was at Specs, a music and video store and came across the first VHS tape. I watched it... then watched it again... and again and so on. Totally fell for the overall design of the characters, especially Guyver 1. As time went on, I found the comics and graphic novels from Viz. Read them all. Back then, as others have stated, the interwebs weren't as accessable so I had to stop when Viz ended their run in English. I searched online sometime later for the mangas in Japanese just to see the art progress... I finally found his first appearance this year, some 18 years after my initial encounter and LOVE it more! The chapters of the manga get better and better and my 2 boys love the anime! It's kind of a pain to collect in some ways due to its lack of popularity in the US, but that makes it a bit cooler. Like being a part of something awesome most don't know of. I introduced my girlfriends brother to it last week (the newer anime) and made another fan. Word of mouth gets new peeps eyes on this, it's the least I can do to repay Takaya for his almost 30 years of herd work on, in my opinion, the best manga out there!

[LordSpleach]

I can pretty say Solid Snake introduced me to the series.

 

I remember for seeing the cover for Guyver 2: Dark Hero at my local Blockbuster back in '94-'95, but I quickly watched it through the Sci-Fi Channel. They played it a lot during the mid-90's. I liked the movie.

 

Then, during another Blockbuster visit, me and my dad found the OVAs(The Manga dub.) and I fell in love with it. 

 

For the longest time, I only had the first 5 episodes with actually 'two' copies of Episode 4. One contained Episode 4, and another was label Episode 4 but had Episode 9's tape reel inside. About just before they started advertising for Guyver 2005, I managed to get the complete OVA on DVD.

[superpack]

As a little kid way back in the 90's, I saw Guyver for the first time on Scifi channel among other animes, ( Ghostin the Shell, Akira, Robotech, Fist of the Northstar, ect.)

The episode I saw was Guyver I killing Sho's dad who turned into Enzyme II, that actually scared me... 

It left me with a fear for bloody anime and characters with robotic voices. XD 

 

Some years went by, and the Guyver OVA series aired on TV, every saterday. and the very first episode that's I saw, was Guyver I fighting the Hyper Zoanoid Team Five.

It was still be a scary, and my parents changed the channel everytime I was watching it. XD

My English was very bad, but I could read the dutch subtitles a bit, so the story around the Guyver was kind of hard to follow.

 

Afterwards, I rented the avilable VHS tapes at the local video store and watched some of the episodes, until 2005/2006, I heard of the remake and decided to watch the older ones first.

when I got all VHS taped from a friend, I watched them back to back, marking my first time watching the complete series.

Great story, actually yesterday I was watching Guyver OVA episode 9 Sho fighting his father Enzyme II, it is one of the best episodes diffidently but, for me the most scariest episode was episode 5. Enzyme I was so scary than Enzyme II even my younger brother was affected by watching that episode, he just couldn't believe that the fight was so brutal and that Guyver I died. Damn I always wished Guyver III would interfere and help Sho and just kill Enzyme I the most horrifying way possible.

[superpack]

I came across the 1989 OVA series when I was about 15 or so in 1996. I was at Specs, a music and video store and came across the first VHS tape. I watched it... then watched it again... and again and so on. Totally fell for the overall design of the characters, especially Guyver 1. As time went on, I found the comics and graphic novels from Viz. Read them all. Back then, as others have stated, the interwebs weren't as accessable so I had to stop when Viz ended their run in English. I searched online sometime later for the mangas in Japanese just to see the art progress... I finally found his first appearance this year, some 18 years after my initial encounter and LOVE it more! The chapters of the manga get better and better and my 2 boys love the anime! It's kind of a pain to collect in some ways due to its lack of popularity in the US, but that makes it a bit cooler. Like being a part of something awesome most don't know of. I introduced my girlfriends brother to it last week (the newer anime) and made another fan. Word of mouth gets new peeps eyes on this, it's the least I can do to repay Takaya for his almost 30 years of herd work on, in my opinion, the best manga out there!

Diffidently the best Manga out there, I have watched other Animies in the past such as Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon & Mazinger, there all great but, for me Guyver is on another level, I never even bought Manga comics before but, because I love Guyver so much I just had to buy the comics and read the story. I just wish they would bring the OVA back and continue with the story.

[superpack]

I can pretty say Solid Snake introduced me to the series.

 

I remember for seeing the cover for Guyver 2: Dark Hero at my local Blockbuster back in '94-'95, but I quickly watched it through the Sci-Fi Channel. They played it a lot during the mid-90's. I liked the movie.

 

Then, during another Blockbuster visit, me and my dad found the OVAs(The Manga dub.) and I fell in love with it. 

 

For the longest time, I only had the first 5 episodes with actually 'two' copies of Episode 4. One contained Episode 4, and another was label Episode 4 but had Episode 9's tape reel inside. About just before they started advertising for Guyver 2005, I managed to get the complete OVA on DVD.

Most people I think saw Guyver for the first time on OVA, and we all didn't know about the Manga. I think I also had the same problem as you with the 2 copy episode 4 but, one of them is a different episode but, I had one big problem that killed me. The first time I bought the final episode on tape episode 12, it was corrupted. Remember the scene when Aptom was going to kill Guyver I and Guyver I couldn't use his hands to use the mega smasher. Just before Guyver I managed to open the mega smasher the tape would cut off and the screen would turn to black, I mean what the hell was that. I never knew what happened because I never saw Guyver open his mega smasher not until 1 year later when my cousin gave me his tape lol. That really pissed me off and what I used to do as a kid I would just keep rewindin the tapeg and hoping it would continue normally instead of cutting of but, it never happened lol.

[Shion]

Its save to say, we all had fond memories of Guyver OVA series.

Too us, it was a awesome anime that gave us cool looking monsters, kickass hero and a deep plot.

[Shin Mefilas]

I first guyver experience was back in 1994 when my parents got me the third ova for my 5th birthday. To this day I dont know why they got it for me. It was my first anima and I was hooked. Over the next few years I collected all the ovas (and I still have them) as well as the movies but I never found out about the Viz manga untill a about 3 or 4 years ago. I think the reason I liked it so much at the time was because partly because I'd watched and loved the alien movies and also because I was fascinated by how much detale went into the guyers and zoanoids and how they worked. It also helped that the story was good and the characters where very likeable and/or intresting. My love for the series has only grown over the years especially thanks to the 2005 series and finding manga translastions online.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Blue Nitro

[Guyver0]

In 1997, I was 11 at the time and my mother and I went to my favorite movie rental place "Hit List" and I was going through my sci-fi monster movies and Power Rangers phase, so when I saw the cover for Guyver 2: Dark Hero(As it orignally was called at the time) I immediately picked it up and read the summary on the back and was captivated.  But since it was the second movie I decided to grab the first movie as well and watched the both of them and I was hooked.  Then about a year later I went to Suncoast videos and went to their anime section and noticed the 12 part OVA.  I immediately grabbed the first one and watched it the moment I got home.  From that moment I, every bit of allowance I got I put it towards completing my collection.  Shortly after I noticed the mangas that were released by VIZ and it took me a few years, but I finally completed that as well.  Thats pretty much it for how I started.

[*V Guyver]

Must have been 1991. The Blockbuster had just recently brought in the first OVA VHS and it would remain that way for a few years. Loved the concept for the first two episodes and kept it in mind. Kept it in mind for a long while, and I remembered how awesome the soundtrack was too. A few years later I eventually came across an advertisement for the re-release with all new animation on the VHS (There hardly was any) but I finally got to see the rest of the VHS series around 1993 and Blockbuster had finally brought over the complete OVA series. What truly won me over was The Enzyme I VS Guyver battle, it was the most raw, horrifying thing I've seen down to a superhero (Death of Superman doesn't come close) and it finally cemented the series for me. I eventually discovered the two live action movies too. Though in all honesty I hated the first one but loved the second. Though I can understand why people would love the first one, it's got a lot of inside jokes from several horror movies, but I'm not a horror movie fan despite Guyver being Horror themed.

After that, I would occasionally visit the series in rentals. Knew there was a manga but not much else. It wasn't until the internet became more common that I could finally start keeping track of the series. I spent a lot of years just going on the Guyver fan forums and websites keeping up to date on what I couldn't read only to learn how crazy the series evolved. This eventually leading me to here in Japan Legend. 

I suppose this makes me a weird breed of fan. Not exactly hardcore, but still dedicated. 

[superpack]

Must have been 1991. The Blockbuster had just recently brought in the first OVA VHS and it would remain that way for a few years. Loved the concept for the first two episodes and kept it in mind. Kept it in mind for a long while, and I remembered how awesome the soundtrack was too. A few years later I eventually came across an advertisement for the re-release with all new animation on the VHS (There hardly was any) but I finally got to see the rest of the VHS series around 1993 and Blockbuster had finally brought over the complete OVA series. What truly won me over was The Enzyme I VS Guyver battle, it was the most raw, horrifying thing I've seen down to a superhero (Death of Superman doesn't come close) and it finally cemented the series for me. I eventually discovered the two live action movies too. Though in all honesty I hated the first one but loved the second. Though I can understand why people would love the first one, it's got a lot of inside jokes from several horror movies, but I'm not a horror movie fan despite Guyver being Horror themed.

After that, I would occasionally visit the series in rentals. Knew there was a manga but not much else. It wasn't until the internet became more common that I could finally start keeping track of the series. I spent a lot of years just going on the Guyver fan forums and websites keeping up to date on what I couldn't read only to learn how crazy the series evolved. This eventually leading me to here in Japan Legend. 

I suppose this makes me a weird breed of fan. Not exactly hardcore, but still dedicated. 

well spoken and your absolutely right about Enzyme I vs Guyver I, it was so scary and brutal, it was like blow for blow till death, man that was one hell of a fight that Enzyme is one hardcore monster 

[ZangetsuOfRivea]

I was 7 years old when I happened upon the first VHS copy of the original Guyver TV series, it blew me away, it was albeit cheesy but fantastic. I grew up in generation of DB-Z, Gundam Wing and Naruto when that first began. This really is what into Anime/Manga. I have never looked back. Never would i have know that this Manga would be so complex and interesting, the artwork is also brilliant. Can't wait to see how this ends.

[Ur_Faust]

Everyone has similar stories. Makes sense. Afterall, the OVA was pretty impressive.

I don't think I was even 5 when I first saw the first 4 episodes of the OVA. I was able to get my hands on Out of Control and the first two live action movies as well, but even as a kid, I couldn't really get into the first live action movie. Dark Hero left a big impression on me though especially since my parents tried to censor the gore. But anyway, I watched those and it wasn't until a few years later that I was able to view the rest of the series from blockbuster. I was lucky to cultivate my interest in the series since the Japantown near me was selling the original japanese comics and a local hobby shop was selling the model kits. Maybe I'll post that collection on here one day. I tried to give the 2005 series a go, but never really finished it.

[¬./Anonymous¬]

I tried to give the 2005 series a go, but never really finished it.

 

I guess it wasn't for everyone.

[river_chaos]

My dad said (and swears by) that me and my brother saw it when we were itty-bitty, but ever since I had a concussion I can't remember much before Junior High.  I know I was introduced to the 2005 anime in High School by a computer junkie friend, who also showed me the fan art on deviantArt.  I guess that's also how I got introduced to the site and to the fandom.  Ever since then I've been addicted to Guyver like a kid addicted to sugar. 

[Matt Bellamy]

I remember it was around 1993... I believe I was just entering the 7th grade... I had just moved ( we did that a lot sadly) and during this time I had only been watching TV based Anime... So Robotech, Dragonball, Dragonball Z... All of which I could tell were different than "normal" cartoons, and instantly became addicted to finding Anime looking video games, and scanning over those Anime ordering ads that gaming magazines had. At that point I was already drawing, and through drawing at school, I met my best friend, who was also drawing in the similar "anime" style.

 

After a few months, a video store opened up in town ( we lived in a tiny town on the outskirts of a city)... And lo and behold, they had a bunch of anime.

 

We rented something like 10 tapes, and decided to plow through them all. I can't remember all the ones we got, but the Guyver was the first 3, which was the first half of the OAV.

 

And it was glorious. From the awesome opening, to the armor and monster designs... And naturally the bloody violence.

 

So we started drawing Guyver related stuff. I must have rented those tapes well over a few hundred times. When the rental sales were going I'd rent 6 or 7 tapes... 3 of which were always the 3 guyver tapes ( I actually did not see the second half of the OAV until Manga video's release) At the time, we'd also do little comics based on whatever was our fancy at the time. While I was moving out of the drawing comics, I still had stories in my head... And once we got a computer (around 96-97) looked online for more.

 

That was when I found the Warrior Guyver fanfiction... And well... The rest is kind of a slow history.

[RazorLaser]

Went to 'Movieland' (video rental store) in Australia with dad. I believe it was 1997, so I was 7 years old. Dad pointed out 'Guyver: Dark Hero' because he thought I'd like the cover since he thought it looked like a Power Ranger (I was HUGE into PR).

 

We rented that, plus some American Ninja movies and who knows what else! Was hooked on Dark Hero and must have watched it a billion times. Not long after, I went to another video rental store called Video Ezy and found the 12-part series on VHS and my life changed forever! The first OVA episodes I saw were 3 and 4. Went back every week to try and find the others and eventually saw every episode, aside from 7 and 8 which I couldn't find at any video store.

 

We eventually got Foxtel and I saw in the tv guide that they were airing the whole series over two days on a channel called Aurora. Excited, I asked dad to record it for me on VHS. I still have that somewhere...

 

I remember looking for Guyver stuff on the internet when we first got it, and seeing all the fan-art and fan-fic on Warrior Guyver, which I thought was real! Haha

 

Didn't see the first live-action movie (titled Mutronics here) until I was about 12-13 which probably wouldn't have been long before or after I joined Guyverboard. Don't think I've seen it again since then either.

[H222G981]

I was introduced to the first movie with Mark Hamil when I was 7 years old back in the early 90's. Saw the OVA while I was in High School. I really didn't get into anime until than. But when I was 21, I saw the 2005 version of The Guyver reboot, I guess you can call it that. I really got into Guyver than. I was still pretty ignorant of that the fact that manga existed.