Roots Search: Shokushin Buttai X

Roots Search

ルーツ・サーチ食心物体Ｘ

4.3(2,190)

Ранг#14661

#9671

OVA1 ep.Finished Airing43 min

When a research crew in deep space discovers the desolate ship "Green Planet" that warps into their area, they encounter Buzz, the commander and sole surivor of the ship. Being too incapacitated to make them aware of the situation of his ship, the research team will soon discover that they have found something far, far worse... (Source: BakaBT)

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tomateunmate

June 19, 2017

Mixed Feelings

For many this just another piece in the long catalogue of AIC properties that were made by nobodies and can be only enjoyed by riffing on them. The two names that stand out in the production are the script writer, which is closer to what the US calls "script doctors" and just tries to make sense of the director's idea; and the mecha designer that you could know from Nadesico or Rayheart S2. The production costs are divided between the gore scenes (with some decent blood splashes because 90's) and set designs. If there's something to enjoy here is the biologicaly infected spaceships, the lateris what made me watch this in the first place. On the other hand the characters look like a poor imitation of generic anime designs, there are barely any inbetweens and the general plot could not be there. The main idea is an alien that dispenses justice on the guilty, but we only find out who is guilty and of what right before they die. There are espers, because it's japanese scifi, and very basic metaphors to explain things that require more, for the same reason. If this hadn't been taken by Manga Corp no one would know about it, I'd risk to say that it was made as a cheap export as AIC used to do. In that way it serves as a way to understand that brief moment in the anime market and that's more use than it deserves to have. It also has very cool promo art, the laser disc cover in particular. I'd heavily recommend checking those images out.

Straight from the heart of the OVA boom of the mid 1980s comes Roots Search, a weird sci-fi horror with a rushed, bland plot and the finest mediocre animation 1986 had to offer. I couldn't tell you were I found this one as it had been in my collection for quite a while but I could not recall where exactly I'd obtained it. Probably part of a larger batch with some other equally terrible 80s OVAs. I watched a sub on Laserdisc. The best part was those sweet refraction effects that just don't look the same outside of Laserdisc. The story was awful. Quite cliche.It was a blend of Event Horizon, Alien, and Solaris (I'm aware that two of those movies came out after). That sounds awesome but in practice it was far from it. Note that this is about 45 minutes while those are all around 2 hours. Before the viewer has any real idea what's going on, there is suddenly an alien on a table and everyone is just "huh, that's weird" about it. I do appreciate hopping right into the action but this was a bit too rushed. Much of the early plot implied we knew more than quite literally nothing about the characters. Everyone gets existential for no reason out of the blue. With no prompting whatsoever, characters question life and the nature of existence. The female lead knows the male lead for, what, half an hour before before falling in love with him? As for the animation/art, poor. Just plain poor. The lines are far from crisp and the characters have wonky proportions. The female lead is the only one who seems to have had any effort put into them. The alien just looks goofy. Environments are bland. The period was known for its painstaking detail and none of that can be found here. The editing is also atrocious. Midway through a scene the action will just stop. The sound is mediocre at best. The voices were recorded at different qualities, making conversations distracting. Sometimes objects like guns do not make any sound. The music improves toward the end but is just overall 'eh'. I did not know this was a horror anime until I looked it up on MAL. With that, it was not scary. The thrills are boring. The zingers are bland. Nothing to see here. The ending will make you shrug. No satisfaction at all. Despite the awfulness, I don't regret watching it. I love the low budget OVAs and I believe they are an important feature in the history of anime. While on the whole Roots Search was trash, it had elements that can be found elsewhere. Will I watch it again? No.

BuRizzle

February 20, 2026

Not Recommended

The 80s OVA boom really was the gift that kept on giving. Wow! All original animation straight to your home on VHS! What could possibly go wrong? A lot, actually. For every Angel’s Egg, there was a Psychic Wars. For every Gunbuster, an Angel Cop. And for every Record of Lodoss War, there was a Roots Search. Roots Search, or Roots Search: Shokushin Buttai X (“Life-Devouring Alien X”) is the stuff of legends. A primo bad anime. The stuff only talked about in hushed tones lest you invoke its unholy wrath. While there were no doubt bigger turds out on the market at the time, there’sjust something about this 43 minute one-shot that draws people in with its crap factor. By all accounts, it should’ve been completely forgotten about, and for a while - it was. Nobody knew or gave a damn about this for a good 20 years until Justin Sevakis of Anime News Network dredged it back into the public consciousness for his Buried Garbage series. From then on, it went from just another crappy mid 80s OVA to one of the titans of bad direct-to-video anime. And considering the competition, that’s saying a lot. The story focuses on Moira (Keiko Han), a young woman currently working aboard an ESP research station with her colleagues Scott (Kaneto Shiozawa), Norman (Banjō Ginga) and Marcus (Osamu Kobayashi). Moria appears to have some kind of precognitive ability that lets her see into the future, but this doesn’t do her many favors as all she can see are the gruesome deaths of her three shipmates (by the way, the space station is absolutely huge, yet there’s only four people on board?). During a routine checkup, a mysterious ship called the Green Planet suddenly warps into the station’s sector. Moira and Scott form a search party, only to find the crew massacred, the only survivor being the enigmatic Buzz (Kenyu Horiuchi). As they move the unconscious man back to their station, the crew uncover a cardboard cutout looking alien with a vagina mouth sealed in the medical bay. From that point on, all hell breaks loose. If the story sounds familiar to you, it probably is. The concept of a crew of astronauts coming across a psychotic alien killing machine that slowly picks them off is as basic as you can possibly get for a sci-fi horror story. It’s an idea that has been done to death and for the first half of the anime, Roots Search doesn’t exactly bring much to the table, outside some unintentional comedy and incoherent pacing. To give an example - mere seconds after ordering the specimen be fired into space, Marcus returns to his room only to be psychologically attacked by the alien as it dredges up his deepest fear: his old boss! The alien then fires a bunch of stone pillars at Marcus, goring the shit out of him and turning him into a human dartboard. Upon discovering his eviscerated corpse, Moira and Scott don’t seem terribly fussed. In fact, Moira seems more interested in the newly awakened Buzz; getting all doe eyed and airheaded upon spotting him peering around the corner, ignoring the mangled body stapled to the ceiling. After that, Marcus is never mentioned again and the next scene sees Moira waxing philosophical about the nature of God and humanity while Scott tries to put the moves on her. Therein lies the problem with Roots Search - Its script is so disjointed and bizarre that any attempts at horror or building tension typically fall totally flat. That’s all thanks to a combination of the strange faux-religious existentialist dialogue, awkward exposition and incredibly odd character interactions. Every time it seems like something scary or interesting is about to happen, the OVA will undercut it with some laughable dialogue or throw a curveball at you, usually involving Moira’s ESP powers which somehow lets her and Buzz fall madly in love despite only knowing each other for an hour and a half max. I will admit that there are a few moments that are actually somewhat effective. The flashbacks to what happened aboard the Green Planet, while brief, have a fairly tense and ominous atmosphere to them, mainly thanks to the heavy usage of shadows and bold coloring. The sequence where Scott is tormented by the spirit of his deceased lover Katherine, complete with bathtub suicide, is also quite creepy. Unfortunately, any genuine tension that is built up quickly goes down the drain when the Alien stops mindfucking the crew and instead turns into a big pile of writhing tentacles that try to take over the ship. At that point, the psychological horror aspect vanishes completely, and the OVA turns into a generic sci-fi action romp as Buzz and Moira attempt to trigger the self-destruct system and escape. This all coalesces into an ending that… happens. Yeah, the OVA just sort of stops and shrugs its shoulders before cutting to the credits; smooth jazz ballad accompaniment and all. Resolutions? Character arcs? Who needs ‘em. It’s fairly obvious Roots Search (why is it called that, by the way?) had a low budget. Allegedly most of its limited funding came from the yakuza, of all places, one of the few truly interesting things about this short. The art style is simple and generic, dare I even say ill-fitting. There’s an almost cuteness to it that feels completely out of place next to the whole cosmic horror sci-fi psychodrama shit, making the graphic violence and body horror stick out even more (especially when it’s not that well animated in the first place). Animation is stiff and janky, with it really falling apart in the final 10 minutes. The titular Alien X itself is also a true sight to behold, looking less like a terrifying alien monster and more like a melting candle. The animators seemed to realize this too, as its physical form is quickly done away with and replaced with this Lovecraftian mass of flesh and bone that honestly isn’t much better. More creative, sure, but it’s still pretty goofy. Speaking of Lovecraft and cosmic horror, that’s one thing I have to give Roots Search some props for. The alien itself is a character in its own right instead of being a silent killer that exists purely to slaughter the crew. Its motivations stretch far beyond the typical “kill/eat/breed” operandi of these sort of villains, even if the reveal of just what it is could’ve been handled better. But beggars can’t be choosers. You have to take what you can get. There’s not really much else to say about Roots Search. It’s your typical shitty OVA that lined the shelves in the 80s, destined to rot in the bargain bin. I have to wonder why it even received a western release to begin with, courtesy of Central Park Media. Then again, given some of the dogshit they used to foster onto consumers, it seems right up their alley. Despite its reputation, I wouldn’t say it’s as comically horrible as some other stuff on the market at the time. Definitely not “worst anime ever made” stuff, even if it does suck. Roots Search is definitely of a low quality, but there’s worse out there, and amongst the poor animation and nonsensical script, there are one or two cool ideas that are worth exploring. But guess what? You don’t even have to watch Roots Search to see them done better! For some reason the movie Event Horizon is strangely similar to this silly piece of shit. Religious imagery and references, a demonic alien force using the crew’s worst fears to drive them mad, an abandoned ship where the crew all killed each other, bathtub related suicides, airlock deaths. It’s near one-to-one in some cases. Probably a coincidence, but it would be pretty funny if Paul Anderson and EH writer Philip Eisner actually stole a bunch of ideas from some dumb horror anime for their movie. Anyway just watch that instead of this. It’s much better. Roots Search is owned by Nippon Columbia. It was licensed by Central Park Media but has gone long out of print and will likely never see another release.