Goddamn

Synopsis:

Characters:

• Todoroki, Gen (Main) - Voice Actors: Yamadera, Kouichi
• Announcer (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Hashimoto, Tetsuya
• Arnold (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Suzuki, Kiyonobu
• Erik (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Miki, Shinichiro
• Joe (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Anbe, Atsushi
• Polignac, Josephine (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Fuchizaki, Yuriko
• Rokkouji, Tsukasa (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Suzuoki, Hirotaka
• Row, Rov (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Nakao, Ryusei
• Schultz, Hans (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Seki, Toshihiko
• Senmu, Saji (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Takagi, Hitoshi
• Shindou, Yuki (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Shinohara, Emi
• Sin, Raoul Uzbekk (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Genda, Tesshou
• Tobita (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Nakahara, Shigeru
• Utsugi, Joumu (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Naya, Gorou
• Van Dyke, Dick (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Ebara, Masashi
• Yasuda, Taeko (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Sakuma, Rei

Staff:

• Furuse, Noboru (Director, Storyboard, Animation Director, Character Design)
• Iwanami, Yoshikazu (Sound Director)
• Shinohara, Toshiya (Episode Director, Storyboard)
• Andou, Mikihiko (Key Animation)
• Masuda, Chieko (Background Art)
• Nakajima, Hiroaki (Key Animation, Assistant Animation Director)
• Sakakibara, Toyohiko (Special Effects)
• Sasaki, Mamoru (Key Animation)
• Shintani, Kaoru (Original Creator)
• Shouji, Masahiro (Sound Effects)
• Souzaki, Nobuyoshi (Key Animation)
• Sugai, Eri (Music)
• Suzuki, Shinichi (Key Animation)
• Takahashi, Hideki (Key Animation)
• Tozawa, Minoru (Key Animation)
• Wada, Izumi (Background Art)

Reviews:

• User alop92 (Score: 6/10):
  I honestly don't know where to begin, but here it comes. The story line for me is ok, but with tremendous flaws in terms of timing. Cars: Todoroki starts the Safari Recce on the Sierra RS (car that could be the 1986-1989 4x2 version or the 1990 4x4 version). Later he's seen in the Montecarlo Rally in a Lancia Delta HF Integrale, (1990, judging for the tiny badge on the right of the license plate in the back.) Here's the first flaw for me: In the Safari Rally the Lancias are using the 1988 Livery, which means that is the Integrale version. The Subaru Legacy debuted in the1990 season, the Nissan 200SX was outrunned after 1989, and Toyota is using neither a Celica Supra or Celica Twincam Turbo, both of them replaced for the GT4 ST165 in 1989. (Both Peugeot 205 and Lancia Delta (which again is a weird thing to me. It really look like the 1983 Beta Montecarlo from the front, but looks like a 1986 Delta S4 in the back) are older than the others, so makes sense to use it as road cars because Group B cars were banned in late 86).nnWhat's worst is this fact: They present the Safari Rally as is being in the 4th edition. A quick research will make you realize that the Safari was a WRC event since 1973, and the first home edition was 20 years prior. nnIf you're brave enough to put those flaws away, it seems to have an OK story behind. nnThe key story, the Safari Rally is weird. They use full liveried cars to recce, which is slighty incorrect. They are running at night!! It is not accurate. Other aspects of it is well, like the control point, the mobile repairing and the helicopter following the frontrunners.nnIs hard to find an anime purely based in rally and when i heard of this i was happy. now i feel like i'm been discussing about the topic with an F1 fan. Multiple flaws, weird conclussions but the general idea is ok, i think. it is sad it lasted just 2 chapters and will not know what could have happened in the other WRC dates.
• User Kamezuki (Score: 4/10):
  This interestingly-titled anime is a 2-episode OVA that follows a Japanese driver participating in the world of rally racing. Unfortunately, the title is about the only notable thing about it; the confusing plot, unlikable characters and lack of an ending, combined with subpar technical aspects, make this a frustrating watch. After an “in medias res”-type start, the first episode shifts to the real beginning, in which the main character, Gen, is walking around Paris rather haphazardly. The reason he’s there isn’t explained well, if at all. He gets followed in a car by another Japanese person, a young executive in a major Japanese company. The guy,Rokkoji, introduces himself, treats Gen to dinner, and asks Gen to sign a contract with him to drive for his company in the World Rally Championship, but only on the condition that Gen is able to race up a mountain within a certain amount of time. Due to some odd circumstances, Gen fails, but Rokkoji decides to offer him the contract anyway, because of his “brand image” of being a “survivor.” You see, Gen has a nasty habit of totaling just about every car he drives, but miraculously surviving every crash, as he utters the OVA’s titular expletive. Specifically scouting out and offering a racing contract to a guy who habitually crashes cars doesn’t seem like the smartest business decision in the world, but I guess it had to happen for the sake of the plot.nnMost of the rest of the OVA is set in Kenya, where the rally is taking place, with brief cutaways to the company’s headquarters in Japan, since there are some executives there who are displeased with what Rokkoji’s doing. Gen has some issues with the people on his racing team, particularly his first co-driver (who’s apparently named Dick Van Dyke), and he gets into a lot of arguments and car crashes everywhere he goes, while also being followed around by a French girl named Cotti (seriously, why is she there?). Can he successfully complete the Kenyan leg of the rally, or will his car-crashing and hotheaded tendencies get the best of him?nnThe plot is confusing and it jumps around a lot. I don’t know anything about rallies, but apparently even people who are rally fans deem this to be an inaccurate depiction of the sport, so having prior knowledge about rallies probably wouldn’t help that much. Events that should be dramatic turning points are presented in an underwhelming manner, and the anime ends rather abruptly (presumably to be continued in the manga). Also, there are some anti-foreign undertones to this OVA, with regards to economics, race and culture.nnThe characters aren’t developed at all, and sometimes it’s not even clear why they’re where they are in the first place. For instance, Cotti is first introduced cutting Gen off in his race up the mountain, and after she crashes her car off a cliff and it explodes, he saves her. But then, she’s down in Kenya as part of the team helping…
• User Reviews-rants (Score: 5/10):
  Note: the following comes from a video review, links on my profile page. The two-episode OVA randomly titled 'Goddamn' doesn't give away much in terms of what it might be about (while it does somewhat touch on religion, that isn't the point or genre, although that moment happens to be of sociological interest). It features scenes of nature in between semi-comedic interactions of a mechanical sort - the weather is also of import, although it doesn't really matter ultimately as the protagonist is almost immune to disasters despite their constant occurrence. It has a similar atmosphere to Nasu despite being set on a different continent and beingabout car, as opposed to bicycle racing, although they are more than a decade apart. It also derives some of its comedy from characters' conversations, and often hammers the point, and uses as a repeated prop, the potential dangers of, say, driving really fast up a mountain (which can mostly be 'funny' confined to an animated medium).nnThe environments here may be of more interest than either the comedy or sport, as in the limited time it doesn't quite establish a consistency that others in the same genre (e.g. Slam Dunk adapted at around the same time) develop over tens of episodes. It is still, though, chilled out somehow despite the accidents that would normally, and in real life, easily turn the comedy into a tragedy.nnSome may approach this from a technical perspective, but anime isn't usually a documentary, as if it was characters wouldn't end up with only a few scratches, and so it seems it would detract from any potential interest if it was treated as such. In comparison to Nasu it isn't quite as 'existential' as the latter half of the cycling story turned out to be, but as usual all have differing focus (this doesn't then have as much commentary as Nasu's first episode which may be perceived as monotonous).nnOverall, it may be yet another atmospheric OVA animated in the 90s, as so many seem to have been, when studios were possibly not in the mood for much longer series as in earlier decades, but then not even a few more episodes that became standard later on and in recent times, and as such it is a sort of pilot.

Forum Topics:

• Goddamn Episode 2 Discussion
• Goddamn Episode 1 Discussion

External Links:

• AniDB
• ANN
• Wikipedia

Related Anime/Manga:

• Goddamn (manga - Adaptation)