Things are not well in the twenty-first century, at least not in the city of Cyberwood, where violent crime is spilling forth from a nasty part of town known as Cancer. Leyla, a blond, big-haired scientist at the Central Guardian Company, devises a solution by making a suit of mechanical police armor from an energy-collecting metal known as Astenite. Piloting this new machine is the eager young John Stalker, who grew up in Cancer and wants to see it turned into something other than a despised slum. However, Leyla's project isn't quite as popular with Adler, a vindictive researcher who decides to sabotage one of her demonstrations.

During this ill-fated test run, the prototype unit explodes with John inside, but he somehow survives, perhaps due to a mysterious form of energy that he observes. While recovering in the hospital, he's snatched away by members of a religious cult known as the Brethren of Doldo, which was apparently responsible for an enigmatic power than engulfed John during the experiment. The Doldo (Go on, try to say it without snickering.) are out to resurrect some ancient God of Destruction named Saldo, and John just happens to be the best candidate to embody the deity. While speeding from the hospital, a Doldo priest awakens the spirit of Saldo within John, causing a massive explosion and sending poor Johnny running off into the depths of Cancer.

In her search for her patient, Leyla heads to Cancer with the dubiously helpful Adler. Upon locating the seemingly brainwashed John at a Doldo ceremony, Adler elects to shoot him in the head. This, of course, simply arouses the wrath of Saldo, who manifests by turning John into a huge, apelike armor-beast that savagely attacks Adler and Leyla.

At this point, Cybernetics Guardian becomes one of Koichi Ohata's characteristic kill-fests, as Saldo unsuspensefully slaughters his way across the city. While the results are less apocalyptic than Genocyber or M. D. Geist, Ohata still satisfies his penchant for viscera and brutality in place of any sense of drama. As with his other directorial efforts, Cybernetics Guardian is simplistic, yet so incoherent that it's extremely hard to follow. Ohata himself doesn't seem to know what to do with it, as he begins with some semblance of social commentary and soap-opera plotting, and then ends with rampant, pointless violence and what feels like the world's oddest reference to King Kong (which one of the characters even mentions). He can't even muster some decent mecha-on-mecha combat, which is usually one of his work's few strengths.

I'm fairly certain that Ohata didn't intend this as a comedy, but that's the only genre it which it could possibly succeed. Plot details are divulged in a spastic, abbreviated way that makes them confusing and hilarious. Are the Doldo trying to wipe out humanity or, as their leader states, advance its evolution? Does Adler want to kill John to cover up his dirty deeds or so he can jump Leyla? Or is he just a sick, stupid freak? And why does Saldo look like a suit of samurai armor with monkey hands and a mohawk?

This sloppiness can't really be attributed to the short running time, as Ohata squanders about a third of Cybernetics Guardian's 45 minutes by showing explosions and gruesome deaths that, like the awkward plot, are overblown to the point of hilarity. But hey, why develop a story when you can just show this?

Voice acting rarely saves something like this, though Hiromi Tsuru (Meryl in Trigun, Kiddy in the Silent Mobius TV series) sounds as though she'd be a fine Leyla if the script gave her more of a character to work with. Takeshi Kusao isn't very striking as John, though, and the same goes for the rest of the Japanese cast.

In all fairness, Ohata's not always terrible. With enough of an animation budget, he can frame a nice action sequence, and he also directed the entertaining Sadamitsu the Destroyer, created the lead robot in Gunbuster, and gave Dangaioh and Macross II better mecha designs than either deserved. But deep down, he's still the man responsible for stuff like Cybernetics Guardian.