Ask John: Is the American Version of Variable Geo Edited?

Question:
Why does Variable Geo only have three 15-20 minute episodes? And why does it end like that without telling you what happens? It completely killed the story! Did they cut stuff out?

Answer:
V.G. (Variable Geo) was originally released in Japan as three separate 30 minute long OAV episodes. When AD Vision brought the series to America, the interior opening and ending animation sequences were deleted and the three episodes were edited together to make a single “movie” version. That explains the shorter running time per episode.

Like many anime adapted from video games, VG suffered from some lapses in storytelling. This is the fault of the original production, not editing by AD Vision. The OAV series story was continued in the “story mode” and animation sequences of the Playstation Advanced VG 2 fighting game, but this continued story only moved forward rather than filling in plot holes and explanations from the OAV series.