The Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor, Volume I

Not to be confused with television hero McGyver, the Guyver is a piece of alien-based organic armor that disrupts the lives of the lead characters in both the original Japanese animated TV series and its American live-action film adaptation. The unwitting heroes have to keep the Guyver out of the wrong hands (including the shadowy corporation that developed it) and subsequently battle a score of ugly bio-armored enemies. The U.S. Renditions tape, The Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor, features the first two episodes of the animated series, and aside from the cross-cultural idiosyncrasies — a catchy synth-pop theme song with lyrics like ''Guyver! Corpse of an ogre!'' a yuppified villain, a high-school-romance subplot — it's an involving piece of synthetic storytelling. B