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Posted by: MorriganAensland Nov 26 2008, 4:55 PM

I discussed this with Asher, and considering how simple it really is, I thought I'd give it a shot. Each week I'll post information about a Super Robot or Real Robot show/movie... including Western ones like Robot Jox and Megas XLR and what made it unique.

Of course, if I am going to make this list, I need to start with the series that laid the groundwork for the genre: Astro Boy.

Astro Boy was conceived by a Japanese man named Osamu Tezuka and is considered one of the greatest cultural achievements of the Japanese nation. Tezuka originally was in medical school, but found his true passion from imports of Disney cartoons. Tezuka, until his death in 1989, cited Walt Disney as the man who helped make him who he was, and it shows in his art style. The large noses and general design and art style always carried more than a hint of a Western flavor to them.

Astro Boy actually had his beginnings as a supporting in a short series by Tezuka known as Captain Atom in 1951, taking place in the future and examining relations and interactions between humans and aliens. Astro himself got is own series, one that ran for 16 years, a year later, which took place in the same continuity and focused on Astro. In the future, artificial intelligence for machines made amazing leaps, to the point that a robot was capable of emotions and thinking for itself. There were, however, two rules programmed into each robot:

1. A robot must never harm a human (Astro Boy took place before Isaac Asimov made the Laws of Robotics, incidentally)
2. It is the duty of robots to help people and make them happy.

The titular robot himself was made by Dr. Tenma, the head of Japan's prestigious Ministry of Science. Tenma devoted himself to his work a great deal and did not spend much time with his son Tobio, and one day Tenma's son died in a car accident. Suffering from a severe depression, Tenma decided he would create a replacement for Tobio in the form of a new robot far more advanced than any other made before it. The result was Astro; a robot with "a heart and a soul", in Tenma's own words. Although initially loving towards Astro, Tenma began to realize how foolish his action was since he could never replace his own son and Astro would never grow.

Furious and in a drunken state, Tenma sold Astro to a circus owner and went into hiding. Astro was later saved by the new head of the Ministry of Science, Dr. Ochanimizu. From then on, Astro's tales were fairly episodic and in varying length, where he had various adventures throughout the world.

Prejudice against robots was a recurring theme of the stories, along with the pointless nature of war. The stories were surprisingly mature and a few of the larger-scale and serious serials racked up a large-sized body count by the end. Astro often found himself fighting alien invaders or very militant humans or robots, and it was as much a tragedy as an adventure. Astro was a child, and he made childish mistakes many times. But he also had a strong sense of what was right and wrong and always tried to save people. I've read a little less than a third of the manga, which was donated to my mom's library. The stories are truly amazing, even looking back after 50 years. The truly epic and thrilling "World's Greatest Robot" arc, in my opinion, is one of the greatest stories ever told in any medium.

Japan owes a lot to Osamu Tezuka and Astro Boy. Astro Boy's library had tales of love, sacrifice, teamwork, tragedy, social commentary, humor, and above all else; heart. If you take anything from this list, I implore you to look into the legacy of Astro Boy. You will not be disappointed in it.

Posted by: Zhanneel Nov 26 2008, 9:44 PM

Oh my god. It's like SRW 101 class. lol *sits down in lecture hall*

*mildly wonders if I should do a thread for my beloved genre--80s cartoons ^^*

Posted by: Asher Omega Nov 26 2008, 11:08 PM

yea, Astroboy is definitely the basis of the entire Robot genre of anime.

Side note, PATRICK HAS RETURNED! and he's got a nickname too! sorry just had to share it. (Gundam 00 S2.)

Posted by: MorriganAensland Nov 26 2008, 11:39 PM

If you do that, I would certainly love reading it. I was born in '88, the only 80s cartoons I remember were Ducktales and Voltron, and I know about Voltron because of reruns about ten years ago.

And I'll keep it simple. I gave a lot of background here because I've read a good sized chunk of Astro, and he set the groundwork for *so much*. Most of my later installments will be much smaller-scale. I'll probably just give a brief description of the series while keeping things simple for the non-initiated and also bring up the various things each series brought to the genre.



Lolz. Now I'm imagining the starfish from Spongebob in a Gundam. And that's as awesome as that Bassard thing we thought up earlier. And I even think they use the term "Super Robot" at one point where Astro and a bunch of robots combined together to beat an energy, sucking alien.

Posted by: Zhanneel Nov 27 2008, 5:04 PM

I was finally able to read through the Astro Boy discussion, since surprisingly my Thanksgiving Day morning is rather slow. I really didn't know much about the history or storyline of Astro Boy himself, but I did notice the Western animation style was a dead give away to borrowed traits from old Disney. I also didn't know the show was mature, in the subjects of death and social issues. That's pretty breakthrough for a 50's cartoon. Astro's boyish nature reminds me of the (much more recent) so-so cartoon "My Life as a Teenage Robot," trying to give robots a human complex. Astro Boy's beginning were really touching, if not sad. But that's okay, I put feelings aside in the event that it makes for a great story.

(I'm also not brave enough to start a 80s cartoon thread either =P. Not that I wouldn't love telling people about all the great Western animation that occurred before so many people were born ^^.

Posted by: Asher Omega Nov 29 2008, 7:47 AM

well it looks like I've been enlisted (not that I mind, note you) to help with some series that do come along that Morrigan hasn't seen or doesn't understand (which will probably be very little). so far I've been recruited for Patlabor (just tell me when to make the post) and it would help me to see what other series I can do.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Nov 29 2008, 5:22 PM

You've seen Gundam 00 too, and considering it's still going on I think I wouldn't really be able to do it justice. That being said, it's going to be a LONG ways down the road.

Planned schedule:

YEAR ONE:
1. Astro Boy (done as of November 24th)
2. Tetsujin-28/Giant Robo (EDIT: done as of December 1st)
3. Mazinger franchise (Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Grendizer, Mazinsaga, and Mazinkaiser) (EDIT: done as of December 8th)
4. Getter franchise (Getter Robo, Getter Robo G, Getter Robo Go, Getter Robo Armageddon, Shin Getter vs. Neo Getter, New Getter, and the various mangas) (EDIT: done as of December 15th)
5. Eartly Universal Century Gundam works (Gundam, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, and Char's Counterattack.) (EDIT: done as of December 22nd)
6. Tomino's pre-Gundam Super Robot works (Raideen, Zambot 3, and Daitarn 3) (EDIT: done as of December 29th)
7. The Nagahama Romance trilogy (Combattler V, Voltes V, and Daimos) (EDIT: done as of January 5th)
8. Beast King Golion/Voltron (EDIT: done as of January 12th)
9. Space Runaway Ideon/Space Warrior Baldios (EDIT: done as of January 19)
10. Aura Battler Dunbine/Heavy Metal L-Gaim (EDIT: Done as of January 26)
11. Neon Genesis Evangelion (EDIT: Done as of February 2nd)
12. Transformers (hey, I promised to cover Western Super robots too) (EDIT: Done as of February 9th)
13. The Braves metaseries (mainly GaoGaiGar) (EDIT: Done as of February 16th)
14. Robot Jox (A western movie made in 1990) (EDIT: Done as of February 23rd)
15. Megas XLR (EDIT: Done as of March 2nd)
16. Go Nagai's lesser-known Super Robot works (Gloizer X, Kotetsu Jeeg, Kotetsushin Jeeg, Space Dragon Gaiking, and the Gaiking remake) (EDIT: Done as of March 9th)
17. Super Metal Beast God Dancougar (EDIT: Done as of March 16th)
18. UC Gundam side-stories (Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory, Gundam 0080 War in the Pocket, 08th MS Team, MS IGLOO) (EDIT: Done as of March 23rd)
19. Latter-UC Gundam (Unicorn Gundam, Gundam F91, Crossbone Vanguard, and Mobile Suit Victory Gundam) (EDIT: Done as of March 30th)
20. Machine Robo (Mainly series 1) (EDIT: Done as of April 6th)
21. Metal Armor Dragonar (EDIT: Done as of April 13th)
22. Combat Mecha Xabungle (EDIT: Done as of April 20th)
23. Martian Successor Nadesico (EDIT: Done as of April 27th)
24. Future Robo Daltanius (EDIT: Done as of May 4th)
25. The Big O (EDIT: Done as of May 11th)
26. Gekiganger III (Yes, I KNOW IT'S PART OF NADESICO! BUT IT DESERVES TO BE COVERE-*gets shot for being a blatant fanboy*) (EDIT: Done as of May 18th)
27. Aim for the Top: Gunbuster/Aim for the Top 2: Diebuster (EDIT: done as of May 25th)
28. Super Dimension Fortress Macross (EDIT: Done as of June 1st)
29. Alternate Continuity Gundam series excluding SEED and 00 (Mobile Fighter G Gundam, New Mobile Report Gundam Wing, After War Gundam X, and Turn A Gundam) (EDIT: Done as of June 7th)
30. Super Dimension Century Orguss (EDIT: Done as of June 15th)
31. The J9 Trilogy (EDIT: Done as of June 23rd)
32. Six God Combination Machine Godmars/Mighty Orbots (EDIT: Done as of June 30th)
33. Megazone 23 (EDIT: Done as of July 6th)
34. Dangaioh - Hyper Combat Unit (EDIT: Done as of July 13th)
35. Overweight God Gravion (EDIT: Done as of July 21st)
36. Hades Project Zeorymer (EDIT: Done as of July 28th)
37. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (EDIT: Done as of August 3rd)
38. Armored Troopers VOTOMS (EDIT: Done as of August 10th)
39. B't X (EDIT: done as of August 18th)
40. Super Dimension Calvary Southern Cross (EDIT: Done as of August 31st)
41. Gold Lightan (EDIT: Done as of August 31st)
42. Planet Robo Danguard Ace (EDIT: Done as of September 6th)
43. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny (My SRW RP's version of it) (EDIT: first part done as of September 14th)
44. Gun X Sword (EDIT: Done September 21st)
45. Detonator Orgun (EDIT: Done as of September 28th)
46. Betterman (EDIT: Done as of October 12th)
47. Lord of Lords Ryu Knight (EDIT: Done as of October 12th)
48. Zoids (EDIT: Done as of October 22nd)
49. Space Emperor Godsigma (EDIT: Done as of October 26th)
50. Shin Mazinger Impact! Z-Chapter (EDIT: Done as of November 16th)
51. Tetsujin 28, 2007 version (EDIT: Done as of November 16th)
52. The 2009 Astro Boy Movie Pluto (EDIT: Done as of November 16th)

YEAR TWO:
53. Psalm of the Planets: Eureka seveN (EDIT: Done as of December 22nd)
54. Whirlwind! Iron Leaguer (EDIT: Done as of January 6th)
55. The Wings of Rean (EDIT: Done as of January 16th)
56. Warring Demon God Goshogun (EDIT: Done as of January 16th)
57. Acrobunch
58. Combining Squad Mechander Robo
59. RahXephon
60. The Vision of Escaflowne
61. Burst Angel
62. Tekkaman
63. The Macross sidestories (Macross Plus and Macross Zero)
64. The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot
65. Soukou no STRAIN
66. Macross 7
67. The Wings of Rean
68. Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor
69. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Stargazer
70. The Eldran metaseries

... And I think that's a good list for right now. Can't plan too far ahead, after all.

Posted by: Zhanneel Nov 29 2008, 5:42 PM

O_O

This is more like a 300 level class now. xD

Oo! Transformers is on the list. *breaks out G1 Soundwave action figure from the closet*

Posted by: Asher Omega Nov 29 2008, 7:32 PM

so far, (you can tell me which ones you don't want me doing Morrigan) it looks like I'll be covering:

Patlabor
Gundam 00
Code Geass
Full Metal Panic
the Works of Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell, Dominion, Black Magic M-88)
Overman King Gainer (funny thing is I'm currently watching the series.)
Infinite Ryvius (uh I'll have to discuss this with Morrigan)
Sousei no Aquarion

I'm leaving some series alone (G Gundam and Big O for sure) because while I do like them I'll probably won't be the best choice for them.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Nov 29 2008, 8:08 PM

That list looks fine, and you can write up reports on them whenever you want. A lot of the series are ones are ones I probably won't get to for a *very* long time, if I ever watch them at all.

And yes, I *will* do G Gundam. It was the first Gundam series I ever saw all the way through. And I'll probably cover Big O sometime. Escaflowne'll spring up sooner or later, since it was the very first mecha anime series I ever watched.

I'm also thinking of posting SRW clips for various shows that have been included in the franchise, along with noting about their performance in games I've played. Going through SRW3 again has helped jog my memory and my love of Daitarn 3, among other things.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 1 2008, 2:36 PM

The first of the Super Robots I cover this time is Tetsujin 28, technically the first Super Robot.

Tetsujin-28 was created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama in 1956, and ran for 10 years in manga form and 2 years in anime. I've never watched it/read it, unlike Astro Boy, so I can't go too in depth, but it does feature a great deal of political commentary. But more on that later.

The hero this time is the young boy Shotaro Kaneda, boy genius and detective, who commands Tetsujin 28 via a remote control box. Each installment was fairly episodic, with Shotaro and his friends and associates (nearly all of them older/dumber than him... which wasn't that hard) traveling around the world to solve mysteries. These usually involved people going missing, things getting stolen, or something similarly mundane. Oftentimes, however, the guilty culprits were from another, fictitious country oppressing another one, which was meant to be very critical of Cold War policies of both America and the Soviet Union.

Usually Tetsujin would be summoned to fight various military forces or occasionally other giant robots as well, but the battles were fairly basic. At this point in time, nobody had really thought of equipping a giant robot with weapons, so Tetsujin had to rely completely on punching and kicking. At the very least, he could fly.

The story was very popular in Japan, and was exported to America under the name Gigantor. It proved fairly popular and its legacy remains today, with several remakes having been made, along with a live-action film.

This may not seem like much, but remember I read a bit of Astro Boy so I could give more info about it. Tetsujin 28 was very important to the genre of Super Robots because it was the first time there was a robot someone would pilot, if only indirectly. These two ideas set the groundwork for many a Super Robot series afterwards, where in each case either the robot had a mind of its own or was ordered around indirectly.

The other series I'm covering today is a similar one to Tetsujin 28, and with good reason, since it was made by the same man. And that one is...

Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, better known in Japan as... GIANT ROBO!!!



Giant Robo started out as a 1960s manga before being remade into a live-action Tokusatsu anime. Robo in the live-action adaptation was played by an actual man. And the story in that case was... weird.

Johnny, known as Daisaku Kusama in Japan, was the son of a brilliant scientist. Be forewarned, *many* times in this genre, the hero is the son or some other relative of a brilliant scientist. It just comes with the territory.

Anyways, Daisaku's father was kidnapped by the villainous Big Fire organization, which wanted to take over the world under the command of their alien leader. Daisaku and friend attempted to save him, only to discover a massive hangar filled with robots Big Fire was going to use to conquer the planet, but Daisaku's father -who had been mortally injured- gave him a communicator that would let him communicate and order around the greatest of them, Giant Robo. It also turned out that his friend was also an agent of the International Police Organization, which was trying to defeat Big Fire. Daisaku joins them, helping out with various missions and working to bring down Big Fire.

Robo, unlike Tetsujin, was capable of some independent thought, but usually it just involved protecting Daisaku. Robo couldn't fight at his full potential unless Daisaku was giving him commands about what to do. He could also be given the command "Od ton yebo redro", literally "Do not obey order" backwards, to come to Daisaku's rescue if he were kidnapped. Lastly, Robo was powered by a nuclear reactor, giving him a little bit of commentary about the dangers and benefits nuclear power gave.

In 1992, a plan to make a series of direct-to-video releases, known as OVAs, was planned to commemorate the series. The director was Yasuhiro Imagawa, who would go on to make amazing series such as Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Anyways, due to *absurdly* complicated licensing issues, Imagawa was allowed to include Daisaku and Robo in the OVAs, but nobody else from the series. Rather than give up or do a bad job, Imagawa got the green light from Robo's creator Yokoyama to include in the series characters from other Yokoyama works.

The end result?

Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still



Asher provided me with the episodes via Megaupload, and the series is amazing. It is meant to be the penultimate battle between the IPO and Big Fire, but it is just so epic. The story involves the Shizuma Drive, a power source that is clean, dirt-cheap, can be recycled indefinitely, and was considered to be the ultimate end of the energy crisis.

Of course, things are never that easy.

What follows is a climactic struggle between those wishing to plunge the world into a new dark age, which they are easily capable of, and those wishing to save the world from this new threat. It didn't do very well in Japan, tragically, and it took six years to finish... but found a tremendous fanbase in America and nowadays enjoys a cult following.

Again, Daisaku is the hero, grappling with the gritty and painful struggle he's caught in the middle of. He and he alone can control Giant Robo, the only hope in the world and the last remaining nuclear powered machine in existence (apparently nuclear power, as dangerous as it is, can't be turned "off" even by the will of god). Surrounded by him are many a good man and woman, those willing to stand up against Big Fire for his sake and the sake of the world, although some are a bit more cynical than others. Eiji Murasame comes to mind... he's the guy in the pink trenchcoat.

The series was planned to be followed up by more OVAs, including a crossover where Daisaku and Giant Robo would meet Shotaro and Tetsujin 28, but in the 12 years since the Day the Earth Stood Still finally reached its conclusion, no other stories have been animated. There has been, however, an alternate continuity manga story Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Burned that's been running for about two years, however. It features many of the same characters, and examines similar issues.

Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood still has managed to appear in two Super Robot Wars games, 64 and Alpha, and some character do appear as well. Supposedly, Shocking Alberto from the OVA series is capable of ripping apart one of the monsters from Neon Genesis Evangelion with his bare hands. Then again, he's pretty tough.

Robo in SRW Alpha: (animation is choppy... sorry. The guy that did it has an old computer)


Robo in SRW 64: (couldn't find an exhibition video... this'll have to do)

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 1 2008, 10:59 PM

Comments from the front row:

Gigantor (or Tetsujin-28): I was just thinking how odd is was for the US to be airing that series when we were currently dealing with the Cold War (and I'm assumming some of our actions and participation were being criticized in the show). Unless it wasn't until the early 90's or later that it aired here? Just sounded weird.

Giant Robo: Hmm, pretty much the basis for the later Super Sentai Series (or Power Rangers) it seems. (*laughs* I can't believe I used to play in the backyard with the neighbor kids wanting to be Kimberly xP).

OVA of Giant Robo: Pointy-headed villains = creepy, like that oh-so-wonderful group who currently wears pointy white hats in the US. *hides*. However, the animation did a lot to raise the "cool factor" of Giant Robo himself. Wow, somehow his animated self pulls off that weird Egyptian/Sphinx-like motif he's got going on. And I can believe it did better in overseas than in Japan. Recently it seems that Japanese kids don't care so much for anime, but overseas we're drinking it up like water. I think it's Japan's biggest export now and they're spitting out new ones as fast as they can. Could be wrong.

And Chibi Robo from the SRW game is cute *ahem* and cool of course.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 2 2008, 1:04 AM

Side commentary: The "relative to 'scientist'" also appears in some Real Robot universes (Morrigan will explain that when he gets to it), but its not as predominant as it is in the Super Robot universes.

Giant Hobo (haha) also had a three episode side series that was mostly comedy/non-canon stuff. I still have the links to the OVA if you're interested just send a PM my way and I'll send them asap. which reminds me I need to upload the Gaiden eps. for Morrigan.

and I'm adding two series to the list I'm going to do.

Soukyuu no Fafner
Gundam Seed (yes I'll be enduring the pain for you Z)

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 2 2008, 1:08 AM

Well, Tetsujin-28 didn't get too in-depth into the matters. It worked with fictional countries, if I recall correctly.

And the Tokusatsu genre's been around long before Power Rangers. It wasn't until the 70s when Marvel made a deal with the Japanese animation company TOEI (long story) that the Super Sentai franchise took off.

And with Giant Robo's OVA, those hoods were for the ten most powerful members of Big Fire, the Magnificent Ten, to hide their faces. They don't actually wear them in the series. But yes, there was just something about Giant Robo that was more appealing to Americans than the Japanese. The same went for Big O, which was meant to have a 24 episode season cut in half due to low ratings, and then canceled after that. American sales saved it too.

*reads Asher's message and breathes a sigh of relief* Good. SEED is something I dare not approach, lest the evil powers of Jesus Yamato strike me down.

And those Gin-rei specials would be great to watch. I've heard they get more and more ridiculous with each one.

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 2 2008, 1:22 AM

Don't do it Asher! Dooooon't--oh, too late. Actually, I have yet to know why it's not a good series, or not a fun one to cover. Remember, I am naive to most anime ^_^.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 8 2008, 7:00 PM

The time has come. The time to tackle on of the genre's greatest creations... a Super Robot that would, for years to come, be the standard that all others would be compared to... one that remains, to this day, one of Japan's greatest stories.

MAZINGER Z!!!!!!!

Mazinger Z was created by one of the foremost manga writers in Japan, Go Nagai. At the start of his career, Nagai mainly stuck with writing gag comics, but quickly gained the ire of Japanese PTA groups due to the inclusion of fanservice in his works. Compared to nowadays, it was very tame with people drawn naked more meant to look cute than blatantly sexual. But that's not really important.

Anyways, Nagai's first attempt at a semi-serious work was Cutie Honey, the first Magic Girl story where the heroine would actually fight rather than just have goofy hi-jinx. It was well received, but people still wanted him to just do gag comics. Eventually he got fed up and decided to take on a darker-themed story, which became Devilman. Devilman was a very important anime and manga series in Japan because it literally was the *first* horror story ever told... especially the manga.

But writing the Devilman manga was exhausting, and Nagai wanted to make something more basic and action-packed to blow off steam. He had for the longest time wanted to make his own robot story since he loved watching Astro Boy and Tetsujin-28 when he was younger, but he couldn't think of an idea that didn't seem like ripping one of the two off. Eventually, however, he got an idea when looking at a traffic jam and mused it might be nice if someone in the back of the jam had their car sprout legs and walk past the others.

And then it hit him. Make a story where the robot was piloted like a car or another type of vehicle.

He began work almost immediately, and drafted up a machine called Energer Z, but decided to rename it Mazinger Z since it was meant to evoke the idea of a Devil (Ma) or a God (Jin/Zin). The anime company TOEI thought it was very good and so the work on the manga and the anime began at about the same time, with Nagai tackling the manga and helping out with the anime.

The premise is very basic. A group of scientists traveled to the fictional Greek island of Bardos where, after much drilling, discover the remains of tremendous mechanical animals left behind by the long-thought-extinct Mycean Empire. One scientist, with the oh-so-innocent name of Dr. Hell decides to use these machine designs to fuel his ambitions of world domination. Making a few rudimentary monsters of his own known as Mechanical Beasts, Dr. Hell uses them to kill all of the scientists except one that escapes named Dr. Kabuto. Kabuto flees to Japan with a few designs of his own and quickly begins work on a machine to combat Dr. Hell, using the amazing new metal alloy he's discovered in Mt. Fuji known as Fujium.

When specially treated, Fujium can be made into the nearly indestructible Super Metal Alloy Z, which he uses to make his machine, called Mazinger Z. However, just as he is putting the finishing touches on the test model, one of Dr. Hell's subordinates, Baron Ashura, locates his base and bombs it. Mazinger Z is barely damaged, but Dr. Kabuto dies.

The hero of the story is Kabuto's grandson, Kouji, who manages to find Mazinger Z and use it to battle Dr. Hell's robots. However, because Mazinger Z was not completed, it lacks many of its various weapons, and so Dr. Kabuto's good friend Professor Yumi offers to help Kouji out by protecting the machine at the Photonic Power labs, and at the same time going over Dr. Kabuto's notes to further perfect Mazinger Z. As a result, over the course of the series, Mazinger Z receives upgrades such as stronger armor, the Jet Scrander which lets it fly, different weapons like spraying corrosive wind at its enemies, and so forth. At the same time, however, Dr. Hell also learns from his mistakes and makes progressively better Mechanical Beasts, to the point the final ones could battle Mazinger Z evenly.

Rounding out the cast was Kouji's love interest Sayaka, Dr. Yumi's daughter and the pilot for the feminine-looking Aphrodite A, which is later replaced by Diana A, Kouji's little brother Shiro, a few other goofy scientists at the labs, and friendly gang-leader Boss. Boss eventually manages to convince the lab workers to make a robot for him out of scrap metal known as Boss Borot, which never really was much more than comic relief, but he was still very iconic and surprisingly cunning when he wanted to be.

Over the course of 92 episodes, yes 92, Kouji mainly fought against Dr. Hell's machines, but occasionally Dr. Hell was provided much stronger machines known as Battle Beasts from a benefactor named Archduke Gorgon. Gorgon himself was a member of the still-existing Mycean Empire, the civilization that Dr. Hell got his idea about the robot monsters from in the first place. The Battle Beasts were superior due to the inclusion of organic parts, for some reason.

Anyways, after many a long battle, Kouji and company succeeded in defeating Dr. Hell's forces and killing the madman himself, but things took a turn for the worst when the Mycean Empire decided to swing into action themselves. During the last episode of the series, as well as a Mazinger Z movie which retold the events of the final episodes, just with a lot more meat and quality, Mazinger Z is eventually overwhelmed by a group of Mycean Battle Beasts and defeated. Just when things seem bleakest, another machine looking shockingly similar to Mazinger Z appears and saves the day before flying off.

It's name is Great Mazinger.



Great Mazinger was the direct sequel to Mazinger Z, picking up right where it left off. It turns out Kouji Kabuto's long-lost father Kenzo has been living in America, raising two adoptive children, Tetsuya Tsurugi and Jun Honoo, along with using his father's Mazinger Z designs to make a machine that corrects its faults. The original Mazinger lacked any kind of melee weapon, hence, Great Mazinger corrects that problem by including a pair of swords.

But returning to Japan, Kenzo makes a new science lab as Tetsuya and Great take over for the wounded Kouji and the horribly-trashed Z. Kouji entrusts the safety of the world to Tetsuya before heading off to America with Sayaka to continue his studies and also help repair Mazinger Z in relative safety. The Mycean Empire responds by dispatching their seven Beast Generals, who are in charge of the Empire's seven armies, although Great Mazinger and Jun's Venus A stand in their way.

Kouji's little brother Shiro and Boss and his gang came over from Mazinger Z, comic relief as usual. After defeating the Great General of Darkness, the Empire's military leader, in episode 36, he is replaced by the Grand Marshal of Hell, actually a revived Dr. Hell. Not long after that, Kouji and the repaired and improved Mazinger Z return, along with Sayaka and the rest of the Mazinger Z cast.

Great Mazinger did not run as long as Mazinger Z, only 52 episodes, but it was still very popular and built on Mazinger Z's foundations. A great deal of drama came from Tetsuya's jealousy of Kouji since Kouji was Kenzo Kabuto's real son (in Japan, there is a strong bond between father and biological son), but Kouji also was jealous of Tetsuya because Kouji had barely known his father. Overall, it was a nice conclusion to the entire struggle, and had a fulfilling ending.

After that Go Nagai began working on various Super Robot shows as well. One of the next ones he began working on was the short manga story the UFO War, which was a spiritual sequel to Mazinger. It was well-received, but it ended up being brought into the Mazinger canon as well and was retooled into Grendizer.



The story this time is radically different, with the alien Vega Empire planning to dominate Earth. Our only hope this time is the sole survivor of the last planet attacked by Vegans, Duke Fleid, who stole their advanced machine Grendizer, which was meant to spearhead their invasions.

To bring the story into the Mazinger franchise, Kouji Kabuto returns... tragically demoted to being Fleid's sidekick and piloting his support craft... not even being allowed to pilot a Super Robot of his own. There are three main support craft for Grendizer, the Spazers which let it operate better in the air/space, water, and underground. Kouji typically piloted the air/space Double Spazer, whilst Fleid's love interest Hikaru piloted the Marine Spazer and Fleid's miraculously-alive sister Maria piloted the Drill Spazer.

Grendizer had some nice character development in it too, such as Hikaru wanting to help out Fleid and training to be a Spazer pilot, and Fleid himself had to confront his own mortality during a long arc dealing with him suffering from Vegatron radiation poisoning. It also raises the issues of fate, considering Grendizer was meant to let the Vegans dominate planets and yet it is the only thing protecting the Earth.

Grendizer was also one of the first anime brought over to Europe and the Middle East, where it proved very popular... enough that when Mazinger Z came over a few years later, people derided it was a cheap rip-off of the far-superior Grendizer. People can be idiots sometimes.

Anyways, since then, Go Nagai's done a few shorter Mazinger-based stories, such as the connected-only-in-name God Mazinger manga/anime that was short lived and canceled before it accomplished much of anything, the on-hiatus Mazinsaga which helped be an inspiration to Neon Genesis Evangelion and then... Mazinkaiser.

Mazinger Z has been in every single non-Original Generation Super Robot Wars game ever, but the people over at Banpresto that made the games wanted to give Kouji Kabuto the justice he deserved. Lots of other mainstays to the genre got better robots as you got further in the game, but Mazinger Z was just... there. No upgraded form. So they asked Nagai to draft up a machine that Kouji could pilot in the final stages of the game. The result was Mazinkaiser.



Depending on which SRW continuity you go by, Mazinkaiser's backstory differs. In the Classic Timeline, it was Mazinger Z, exposed to the evolution-inducing Getter Rays from another Nagai franchise, Getter Robo. In the Alpha continuity, it was the prototype to Mazinger Z that was deemed far too powerful and dangerous to ever see the light of day. Anyways, Mazinkaiser proved insanely popular, and so Nagai got the go-ahead to make a seven-part Mazinkaiser OVA series. It came out in 2001.



The Mazinkaiser OVA series was really a re-imagining of the original Mazinger Z, which threw in Tetsuya and Jun from Great Mazinger for good measure. The story is that during the battles against Dr. Hell, Great Mazinger is damaged and Mazinger Z is captured as Kouji goes missing. Things seem hopeless as Baron Ashura takes the upgraded Ashura Mazinger and nearly destroys the Photonic Power Lab until Kouji returns piloting Mazinkaiser and demolishes his enemies.

What follows is a story that celebrates the original manga incarnation of Mazinger Z, complete with Mechanical Beasts that never made it to the original anime. I've watched it, and I loved it.

Nagai also penned a Mazinkaiser manga about this time, which covered roughly the same story, although it did change a few things. In the anime, when Kouji finally confronts Dr. Hell, Hell manages to escape before the explosion from his base kills him. In the manga, Kouji just shoots him.

Anyways, a year afterwards Mazinkaiser got a full-length movie which retooled the events of the Mycean Empire's invasion. Naturally, Mazinkaiser didn't get trashed and got to duel and kill the Great General of Darkness in the end.

I love the Mazinger franchise, as does Japan. The dynamic and action-packed struggles which went for what looked cool over what was realistic, the interactions between the cast, the fact Kouji was the first "Idiot Hero"... it just adds up to a wonderful experience. It was also the first time a Super Robot came equipped with actual weapons instead of relying solely on punching and kicking, and it *created* the idea of a Rocket Punch... which robots have been doing to this very day.

Pretty much the only thing Mazinger fans are divided on is whether Grendizer or Mazinkaiser is stronger. But I won't get into that there. All I'll do here, at the end, is showcase the Mazingers in the Super Robot Wars games.



Tragically, Mazinkaiser hasn't been brought to Super Robot Wars Z yet and his last console SRW game was Alpha 3, which was a few years ago. Its most recent appearance though, was Super Robot Wars W for the DS.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 8 2008, 10:57 PM

*snicker* Cutey Honey. oh lord there are so many Go Nagai franchises that just don't die. not that there's anything bad with them, they just keep going. I can't add much here since I believe Morrigan got most of it down. but yes, people thought Cutey Honey was too "Risque" at the time. but considering some of the things that came later, its really tame (with a few excepts of its re-incarnations).

and yes, Mazinger did "invent" the Rocket Punch.

@Morrigan I just learned that the voice that does Ribbons (Double 0 character) and the Narrator for Double 0, is Toru Furuya. the Original Voice Actor who did Amuro.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 8 2008, 11:44 PM

They've got Toru still doing new roles? Cool! And that narrating thing is like how they had Akira Kamiya, the original voice actor for Ryoma in Getter Robo be the narrator at the beginning of Getter Robo Armageddon!

And I'm glad I covered what needed to be covered with Mazinger. It was... taxing. And hopefully the next SRW Z game will have Mazinkaiser in it, since they were hinting that Shin Getter would be in it too.

And right now I'm caught in an arguement with someone on Youtube who doesn't seem to realize that Judau wasn't a powerful Newtype.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 10 2008, 8:57 PM

I've just watched the first two episodes of Seed. NO WAY IN HELL AM I GOING TO LIKE THIS SERIES. I've found several things bad about it. only one thing actually interested me and it wasn't even a mecha. it as a jet fighter! with fly-by-wire Bits! the Char isn't even a good one, he should just hand in his mask and give it up to the jet pilot because he had more Char-ness than the Char! the mechs look like someone just decided to animate some kit bashes of previous (read Successful) Gundam models. and my back up plan has changed a little, I'll play Persona 4 to recover from the horrendousness that is Seed. (more on P4 in the games section). I'll have a full synopsis when I either finish the series or just give up on it.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 10 2008, 9:12 PM

That's alright Asher. We can just tell Zhanneel to avoid it. Not every story in a successful franchise has to be golden. I really didn't like New Getter Robo (the last of the OVAs). It's plot jumped around *way* too much.

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 10 2008, 9:35 PM

You could watch it and take "Science Theater 3000" notes on it =). Some things might be so bad they are funny. Or...maybe it's one of those instances where you want to rip out your hair. In that case, just bypass it ^^.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 10 2008, 9:41 PM

oh don't worry I'm working on making a few photoshops of some screen shots of the series.

I ates the white base!

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 10 2008, 9:52 PM

But now Ryu can't jump onto it!

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 11 2008, 2:42 AM

(My comments section got kind of long *innocent grin*)

Mazinger Z:

^^ I heard the pronunciation, "Zet" instead of "Zee."

And drawing cutesy naked people rather than the other method is very important. Well, at least to me, since I admire adversity to oversexualization on Go Nagai's part. But right, besides the point...

(just a side question: did Cutie Honey occur after Sailor Moon?)

Lolz! The traffic jam inspiration. You know how many flipping times I've wanted my car to Transform at a stop light and charge over everyone? And Nagai was basically the first to imagine pilots driving a robot?

And thanks for explaining the title "Mazinger," I like how he chose the name.

A little confusing why there are ancient machine animals left over from an ancient Greek civilization...but, maybe the universe isn't the same as ours so I'll let that slide. Hehe. Also *cry for Dr. Kabuto*.

92 episodes is very impressive too (even more than Avatar, =P)

I like the twist! Where the first Mazinger Z falls, but then the Great Mazinger stands in its place. And the father spin on the plot was twisty too.

New name: Grand Marshal of Hell. @_@


Grendizer:

Awesome, the female sidekick, Hikaru played a pretty big part and actually got to drive a machine! Instead of some side character that shouts "Oh do be careful!" everytime the hero goes into battle, and we see her standing near the robots thrusters as it takes off, and her little housewife dress starts billowing around her ank--I'll shut up now.

They thought it was a rip-off of Mazinger Z? *and the peasants lolz-ed*


Mazinkaiser:

Cool! They basically did him a fanservice for the game to make him even more awesome? =) (well, from what I could see since youtube decided to fall apart when I tried to watch half of your video links)

As to the differences between the manga and OVA, I think I like the finality of just shooting Dr. Hell best ^^.

Okay, so youtube blew up my firefox browser somehow, so I didn't get to watch the cool SRW game vids. But, from playing them I know how kick-butt the fight sequences is and I can imagine how cool the giant Mazinkaiser would be in chibi form busting up other super robots. ^_^


Almost forgot: great job on your labor of love Morri!

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 11 2008, 2:57 AM

Cutie Honey came *long* before Sailor Moon. Cutie Honey was in the late '60s, Sailor Moon came out sometime in the '80s.

And Sayaka was the first of the heroines in a Shonen anime that actually didn't just stand on the sidelines. The relationship was very unique in the manga, where Nagai decided to make her different than most of his more tomboyish heroines and be someone that, still tough, viewed Kouji as someone she could trust and rely on, and vice-versa.

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 11 2008, 4:37 AM

And now for my student presentation I would like to add a Garfield and Friend's nod to the Super Robot franchise:

Invasion of the Big Robots ^_^

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 11 2008, 4:59 AM

Oh, GOD! I just *barely* remembered that episode when I was a little kid. Just a blast of nostalgia.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 12 2008, 12:47 AM

and now I present "Gundam Seed is Horrible Picture Show!"

http://imageshack.us

http://imageshack.us

http://imageshack.us

http://imageshack.us

And now a picture of who took these horrible photos,
http://imageshack.us

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 12 2008, 1:33 AM

DAMN YOU ARCHANGEL! The White Base was fifty times the carrier you'll ever be!

Incidentally, the guy in the last pic looks like that one guy from Giant Robo.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 12 2008, 3:10 AM

its is that guy. its from one of the specials, and it should be blatantly apparent as to what he's actually up to.

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 12 2008, 3:30 AM

Um...I'm guessing the guy in the last picture is having "nose bleed syndrome"?

Ugh...*cringe*. I hope I'm wrong though.

Anyway, cool! Space whales!? =P I still like the whale ships though, and I will forever feel bad for blowing them up. And I think I even got the joke in the second and third pics!

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 12 2008, 3:53 AM

almost, only he's sneaking off to take pictures of someone bathing. of the opposite gender.

and I've got a few more screen shots which will (once I figure things out) turn into an animated gif.

ps. SHOOT THE PINK HARO! SHOOT IT NAOW!

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 15 2008, 7:28 PM

As you know from the previous installment here, Mazinger Z was quite revolutionary. It also had a number of unused ideas Go Nagai opted not to include because of various reasons. One of them was the idea that the Mazingers would actually be a series of jets that combined together, which would later be used to kick-start another of his long-running series, Getter Robo.

Coming out in 1974, Getter Robo's premise differs radically from Mazinger Z. In the Getter Robo continuity, Professor Saotome has, after years of research and development, harnessed the power of the power-providing evolution-inducing Getter Rays as the energy source for the three Getter Machine jets. The red one, Getter-1, is designed for maneuvering in sky and space mainly; the one with the drill, Getter-2, is meant for functioning on the ground and under it; and lastly the one with the tank treads, Getter-3, serves for underseas duties.

The plan for this is to use the Getter Machines for space exploration... but tragically that will not happen. Because for countless millennia, the ancestors of the dinosaurs have been waiting underground, hoping for a time when they could retake the Earth. Just as they plan to kick-start their invasion, they discover someone has harnessed the power of what REALLY killed the dinosaurs, Getter Rays. Getter Rays are lethal to most life forms in sufficiently large quantities, and reptiles happened to be particularly vulnerable to them.

During a test flight of a prototype Getter, the Dinosaur Empire attacks and destroys the prototype and the Saotome Research Institute's test-pilots. Soccer athlete Ryoma Nagare, at the lab to visit Michiru Saotome, the professors daughter, realizes something has to be done, and begs the Professor to let him use the actual, combat-capable machines to defend the Earth. Together with local loner Hayato Jin and the portly captain of the school's Judo team Musashi Tomeo, they resolve to work together to battle the Dinosaur Empire and defeat them. In the meantime, Michiru pilots the support craft Lady Command to refuel the Getter machines and provide additional firepower.

And of course, you needed a tagalong kid, so Michiru's little brother Genki covered that problem.

Now, the original anime *seriously* watered down the gritty nature of the manga. In both continuities, we had our three pilots, but they were radically different. In the manga, Ryoma was very aggressive whilst Hayato was a cunning and ruthless madman, and they were both mainly doing it because they wanted to get in Michiru's pants. Originally in the manga, Professor Saotome piloted Getter-3 himself, but when the anime aired and Musashi was well-received by the audience, Go Nagai added him to the manga as well.

Due to the runaway success of Ninja Science Team Gatchaman and its teen drama, known in America as Eagle Riders, Battle of the Planets, or G-Force depending on the localization, Getter Robo also had some drama in it as well. Including the infamous sequence when Hayato kills a guy by kicking a soccer ball into him numerous times. Or early on, when Musashi had to cope with his fear of reptiles. ^_^

The series ran for 52 episodes, culminating in the Dinosaur Empire being provided the ultimate siege device from the alien Hundred-Demon Clan. With conventional tactics against the behemoth proved useless, the team resorted to using the Getter machines to deliver a bomb powerful enough to destroy the creature. An unnoticeable and minor defect in the Getter-3 machine causes the plan to fail, resulting in the destruction of the three Getter machines, and all seems hopeless until Musashi bravely pilots the Lady Command on a suicide mission, which manages to just *barely* succeed at the cost of his life. In the ensuing explosion, the Dinosaur Empire was snuffed out.

Getter Robo stands out for a number of interesting features. For one, Musashi's skill in Judo lent him expertise in using the Getter-3 machine which would often emulate his fighting style. This would be an inspiration for the motion-capture machines of later series like Daimos and G Gundam. It was also the first time a Super Robot came equipped with a drill, which would later be done a *lot* in Gurren Lagann. And Getter-1 came equipped with an axe, which would become the iconic weapon of all the Getters.

Just like Mazinger Z before it, Getter Robo was followed by an immediate sequel, known as Getter Robo G.



Getter Robo G (the "G" stood for "Gundam". LOLZ!) came right afterwards. Suspecting another attack, Professor Saotome pours his energy into developing a superior machine with ten times the strength of the original Getter Robo, and the end result is G. Once again outfitted with three separate machines, they easily are meant to be superior versions of the previous ones. Getter Dragon could use two tomahawks at the same time, in addition making a "longer", two-handed varient. Getter-2 had to rely on firing its drill as a missile which put a severe limit on its ammunition, while Getter Liger stores its missiles inside itself. And Getter Poseidon possessed actual legs in contrast to Getter-3's treads.

The only problem was... who to pilot it?

It wasn't until Professor Saotome's young son Genki was walking in the park one day that he discovered a heavyset guy who ended up provoking the ire of the Judo and Kendo teams, while managing to overpower them all with generally more "peaceful" actions and mannerisms. This man was Benkei Kuruma. After a bit of convincing by Genki and company, Benkei decided to join up with the Getter Team, taking over for Musashi.

Getter Robo G also introduced the first genuine "desperation attack" in the Super Robot franchise; the Shine Spark. In the Mazinger franchise, all its attacks were pretty much "use them when you want to", and you were just as likely to see Kouji open with one as end a fight with one. In Getter Robo G, however, there the Shine Spark was reserved for ending particularly tough fights, where Getter Dragon would energize itself with all of the machines' Getter Rays before dive-bombing the enemy and pulling up at the last second. Apparently, all the energy it had stored would keep flying straight and crash into the enemy. It obviously inspired the Metroid technique of the same name.

The status quo also got shook up a bit near the end when Hayato got captured, prompting Michiru to take over piloting Getter Liger, and proving herself to be just as good as him. The group also met a few members of the Hundred-Demon Empire that they managed to convince to help them, mainly Koucho Ki who piloted the Tekken Butterfly and some other guy that piloted the Tekken Oni.


Anyways, at long last the Clan was defeated and the day was saved, and that was the last of it.

Or at least the original Go Nagai draft.

Go Nagai had a few assistants, one of them being Ken Ishikawa. Ken helped him out with monster designs in Mazinger Z, and proved a *huge* help when drafting up Getter Robo and its scenarios and in fact is credited as one of the series's creators. In 1990, he got the approval from Go Nagai to make a new manga series called Getter Robo Go, set in an alternate continuity.

Getter Robo Go's story is interesting. It revamps the final days of the battle against the Dinosaur Empire, wherein Musashi makes a bold and daring last stand to try to save New York City, only to be forced to destroy Getter-1's core to defeat the Empire there at the cost of himself and the city. Afterwards, a ban is put on Getter Radiation and all is thought well... until the Dinosaur Empire returns five years later.

*EDIT*: Having read the Shin Getter Robo manga, I have learned this is false. That manga, a prequel to Getter Robo Go, picks up not long after Getter Robo G and explains that Ryoma and Hayato, having seen the horrors of what Getter Rays are capable of, decide to go their separate ways and avoid using it for the defense of humanity. Getter Robo Go also makes an appearance in it.

Now, this didn't matter to Gou Ichimonji, a local streetfighter, until through a series of events he ended up leading him to become a pilot for the new Getter Robo Go, a machine that didn't run on Getter Rays and could thus be allowed to fight the Dinosaurs again. And who created it in the first place? Why Hayato Jin, now resigned to being in charge of the overall operation due to an old injury that keeps him from piloting.

The story proved very successful, and got an anime under the same name.



Unfortunately, in spite of a kick-ass opening, the story was mangled and butchered, and even through it ran 50 episodes, is pretty much derided by the anime continuity. Bummer.

But there was still hope, at least for the manga was today is still considered one of Ishikawa's greatest works. It ran for seven volumes, and due to the introduction of the super-powerful Shin Getter Robo which was introduced in the last few volumes, sparked interest in a prequel after it appeared in Super Robot Wars 4.

Shin Getter Robo was explained to be a powerful machine many times stronger than Getter Robo G. The manga version of it, told in a two-volume series, had it up against the insanely mighty time-manipulating massive insects of the Andromeda Flow Country. Shin Getter Robo was up to the task though, capable of moving at the speed of light, cutting black holes in two, spamming powerful attacks for hours on end with no visible decrease in performance, and pretty much making God-Modding look *cool*... until you realize that the Andromeda Flow Country is so much more powerful than anybody else that the Getter Team's faced you NEED a machine that can cut black holes in half just to stand a chance of winning.

Afterwards came the manga story Getter Robo Ark, taking place MANY years after Getter Robo Go, and featured Ryoma's son as one of the protagonists. In addition, the bitter remnants of the Dinosaur Empire had at long last made peace with humanity, and so we got a half-human/half-dinosaur pilot too. The Andromeda Flow Country was back again and tougher than ever, but the Earth responds with the colossal Getter Ark, which again makes God-Modding look *cool*.

The popularity of the mangas, in addition to the original Getter team's appearance in every Super Robot Wars up till that date sparked the interest in another alternate continuity for an Audio Drama, known as Getter Robo: The Moon Wars.

The Moon Wars told of the battles humanity waged against the terrifying Invaders, creatures that could assume any shape and assimilate any life form into themselves. In fact, Getter Rays made them stronger in small-enough quantities, but if you feed them enough, they'd die of over-evolution... kinda like cancer. Long story short, the Invaders kick the bucket, but Michiru dies a pointless death in a testing-mishap for Getter Robo G and the professor goes insane. Fun.

The popularity of the drama caused Dynamic Productions to produce an OVA sequel to it, known as Shin Getter Robo: Last Day of Humanity, known in America as Getter Robo: Armageddon.



Ten years after the Moon Wars, things aren't looking so great. Ryoma's in jail for killing Professor Saotome, little Genki's gone autistic over the fact he watched Ryoma kill the Professor... and then the Invaders come back. Bummer.

Turns out Professor Saotome's *not* dead, but was spamming the Omniscient Morality License of his to develop the most powerful Getter to date!... not counting Getter Ark. By combining hundreds of Getter G machines together, he has Getter Shin Dragon, a towering robot with the power to bring about the world! Or not. The story was a little clunky because the directors kept getting switched around.

Long story short, the Invaders take hold of the UN and launch a nuke at Shin Dragon. Hayato, the newly freed Ryoma, and Saotome's clone/son Gou (different continuity for the guy) step in and use Shin Getter Robo to try to stop the nuke, but the overlords of the Invaders, Stinger and Cohen, intervene and the team is just seconds too late. Getter rays bathe the Earth, beefing up the Invaders and killing off most of humanity.

The series starts up again thirteen years later. The few survivors in Japan, including Benkei Kuruama and his adopted daughter Kei (later revealed to be Genki Saotome who repressed all her childhood memories... and YES, in this continuity, they said Genki was a girl raised as a boy), along with a jovial guy by the name of Gai, find themselves in a wasteland where only the Invaders hold sway.

Well, except for a mobile military force led by Hayato Jin.

After discovering Shin Getter Robo, the surprisingly unaged Gou, Kei, and Gai work to use it to defend humanity and track down the missing Shin Dragon, which has the power to either snuff out the rest of humanity or save us. Along the way, Ryoma returns and the Getter G team of Ryoma, Hayato, and Benkei eventually take over piloting Shin Getter while the new kids use the revived Shin Dragon, all leading up to the climactic battle in space against Stinger and Cohen for the sake of humanity.

I watched Armageddon and I liked it. It had a lot of action and good fights in it, plus the first introduction of Black Getter Robo. All the episodes are on Veoh, if you want to watch them.

But after that came the desire to redeem Getter Robo Go. A year after Armageddon, a four-part OVA was released retelling the story of the story of this new Getter, now referred to as Neo Getter Robo.



Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo (and NO, they DON'T fight at all in this. Most Go Nagai works that feature the "vs." in the name are merely crossovers) retells the colorful and dynamic story of the manga version of Getter Robo Go in condensed form. It's still very good; I've watched it and they really make the most of those four episodes. There's not much I can say about the premise changing except just one thing.

Texas Mack. Texas Freaking Mack.

Texas Mack was the whole "coyboy American" Super Robot originally present in the manga continuity of the original Getter Robo. Its pilot, Jack King, fit in with the gritty and dark atmosphere by being a borderline jerk and racist. Due to the nature of the story, nobody really had a problem with that, especially since the original manga has yet to be brought over to the states. But it's in Shin vs. Neo that he really shined, as this goofy, Engrish-spouting moron who was just so silly you couldn't help but like him. Most Super Robot Wars game tend to use this incarnation of him. And why not? See for yourself!



These various continuities and sub-continuities enjoyed popularity in various Super Robot Wars games, mainly where some amalgamation of the original manga and anime continuity were used, although Shin vs. Neo was used in the Game Cube SRW GC and the X Box remake XO along with SRW Reversal. Armageddon was also featured in SRW Destiny and the real-time game Another Century's Episode 3.

Then in 2005, they made an attempt to make a new Getter Robo continuity capturing the dark nature of the original manga. It was ironically called New Getter Robo.



It incorporates a lot of the manga's original material, like Ryoma and Hayato's mannerisms, and Professor Saotome piloting Getter-3 at first until they find... Benkei Musashibo. Yep, rather than have Musashi and then kill him off, they combined the two Getter-3 pilots together into a hedonistic and lazy-ass Buddhist monk. It works in context here.

The enemies THIS time are not the Dinosaur Empire, but the evil and mysterious Oni... similar to the Hundred-Demon Clan but portrayed much more malevolently. The action sequences were pretty cool and the art had a nice retro feel to it, but I honestly think the OVA tried to do too much. I mean, there's this whole little arc they could've gone without dealing with traveling back in time to a steampunk feudal Japan, for instance. The series would've been fine without it! The way the camera panned around also was something I was upset about... it wasn't done in the right way.

It's... hard to explain.

Anyways, New Getter Robo has yet to appear in any SRW games. And speaking of which, no, I will NOT be posting all the different games with different robots here. That would take too much time. The number of clips I'm showing anyways borders on murder as it is! Pretty much I'm just going to show *one* exhibition of each of the different models.

First up is the original Getter in its SRW D incarnation.


Then Neo Getter Robo... which actually appeared in a SRW *before* the Armageddon continuity did. The sound is *slightly* out of sync.


Then Getter Robo G in the new Super Robot Wars Z.


And lastly Getter Shin Poseidon/Liger/Dragon's attacks in Super Robot Wars D... sound will be out of synch again.


And Shin Getter Robo's from Super Robot Wars W.


*sigh* This took a longer time to make than most of you will spend reading it. That's the hard thing about this. *checks list* Oh crap. UC Gundam's next. That's going to kill me.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 16 2008, 2:59 AM

not to sound too prententious, but wasn't Poseidon, Getter 2's upgrade while Liger was Getter 3's?

and a suggestion for the next installment, concentrait on Gundam, Zeta, Double Zeta, and Char's Counterattack, and leave the rest of the UC stuff for smaller updates, along the way.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 16 2008, 3:39 AM

A smart idea. I'll tackle the big 4 and then deal with all the other UC stories later on.

And no, I believe it was Getter 2 -> Liger and Getter 3 -> Poseidon. In the Getter G video, Benkei says "Change Getter Poseidon, switch on" to form the yellow one. Not to mention the name "Poseidon" implies an aquatic specialty.

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 18 2008, 6:04 PM

If it's any consolation to you Morri, I found it interesting. A..a lot to take in, but I think I absorbed quite a bit =). *hug?*

Anywho, I just had my comments. Some parts I found interesting, a lot I happen to find funny (but don't worry, I'm not dissing the shows).

Getter Robo:

(Just a blast from the past, but Getter Robo's theme of air, sea, and land totally reminds me of an 80s show called the Centurions. Three pilots, each piloting a craft meant for one of the three earthly domains. Of course Getter Robo did it first though ^^.)

I do like the Getter Rays concept though. Puts an awesome biology spin on things. *wears my "I am a bio nerd" shirt*

Tag-along kid...*smacks self*...ugh. And I also find it funny (but since it's anime I'm not going to worry myself about it) that a soccer player can manage the piloting of a robot, with what seems like no formal training. If that's the case, then there's hope yet for me to one day roam the streets in my Alt =). (After reading a bit further it seems that it's implied your body movements help control the robots, so maybe...)

Getter Robo G:

*knocks self over head* Oh no, not the "Shine" attacks. lolz (of course I'm "shined-out" due to watching B't X, and every other word to descripe Teppei is he "shines" this and "shines" that.)

Woot for Michiru! I won't go into that, to save you guys from hearing my Tough Chick ranting.

Getter Robo Go:

Well, you know me and my preferred animation style, so I like the looks of this one =). Too bad it didn't do so well.

Lol@ the entry method to the robots--the awesome drop shaft/slide method.

Getter Robo Ark:

Whoa, hold the phone. "Half-human/half-dinosaur pilot" *tries to imagine a human and a Brachylophosaurus...uh...* Oh my. Interesting though. We go from war, to peace, to...haha.

Texas Mack:

Buahaha! He's shooting down a meteor like a typical cowboy, with only two (albeit, huge) pistols. Then I liked how Getter Robo sliced the bullets. Epic.

Oh my god! Jack pulled a giant iron ring, which is attached to a case holding a conveniently hidden cannon rifle? *cackle* Truly awesome though.

(And yeah, I'm totally bopping/grooving to the SRW video music)

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 19 2008, 9:11 PM

I'm going to make a clarification. Ramba Ral didn't die at the hands of Amuro, he committed suicide so he wouldn't be captured by the crew of the white base/ He lost his concentration during the raid in when he saw Sayla. that is all. (been watching Gundam with a friend.)

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 19 2008, 10:13 PM

Yeah. I remember that.

And in the original novel he actually *survives* the war. To be fair though, his character was radically different but...

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 19 2008, 10:25 PM

now I'm wondering where I got the idea of where Ramba Ral died during a battle with Gundam because of his heart condition (which is stated in the anime).

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 19 2008, 11:10 PM

Maybe someone used their Death Note?

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 22 2008, 5:52 AM

why would anyone want to use a death note on Ramba Ral?

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 22 2008, 6:29 PM

Hey, Light Yagami and Amuro *have* shared voice actors.

And now here it comes. We've set the foundations of the Super Robot genre with the likes of Mazinger Z and Getter Robo... but what of the Real Robot genre? Where the machines were typically smaller, and viewed as simply tools with larger-scale version of normal weapons? Well we have the original Mobile Suit Gundam for that.

Mobile Suit Gundam was originally a compromise between Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise Productions on one side and their sponsors on the other. Tomino, already famous for directing the successful Super Robot anime Invincible Superman Zambot 3 and followed up by the Invincible Steelman Daitarn 3, along with being in charge for the first season of Brave Raideen, had set his eyes on doing a war story anime. His sponsors, however, wanted another Super Robot anime. Eventually Tomino appeased them by drafting up the concept of an anime wherein the soldiers of this war would battle in giant mechanical suits. The result was Mobile Suit Gundam, which first aired in 1979.

Gundam's story is radically different than that of Mazinger Z or Getter Robo, taking place in the distant future of the Universal Century calender, year 0079. Mankind has begun to slowly expand its realm of influence in the solar system, with numerous colonies around the various Legrange Points of the Earth, along with a few more settlements on the Moon and mining facilities around Jupiter.

Unfortunately, things turn sour in UC 79 when Side Three, one of the colonies, having since become more militaristic and having slight echoes of being Space Nazis, declares itself the Principality of Zeon and no longer under control of the Earth Federation and its government. War quickly breaks out, with the smaller Principality having the upper hand due to the invention of Mobile Suits; specifically, the Zaku.

The Earth Federation, mainly just using larger-scale battleships, are totally unprepared for battling relatively minuscule fighters armed with assortments of weapons. The battle quickly escalates to using nukes, and lots of them, when Zeon retaliates with a Colony Drop. They literally take a single colony, get rid of everyone on it, and drop it on the Earth. Their plan was to destroy the Earth Federation's headquarters in Jaburo, but due to intervention it gets redirected and destroys much of Australia. Eventually a treaty is made that, while not ending the war, has both Zeon and the Earth Federation promise not to use biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons, along with Colony Drops.

Our hero is a young dabbler in electronics and small-scale robots named Amuro Ray, a citizen of the still-neutral Side 7. A small recon group from Zeon has their suspicions that the Earth Federation is using Side 7 to develop their own response to the Zakus in secret, and they are correct. They promptly attack the colony and the Earth Federation vessel stationed there, the White Base, in a hopes to destroy this secret weapon. The effect is twofold: nearly wiping out the entirety of the officers on the White Base, and forcing Amuro to pilot this new machine... the Gundam. It is in these first sorties that Amuro meets his longtime rival, Char Aznable.

Initially winning his first few sorties simply because the Gundam is so much more powerful than a Zaku, Amuro is assigned to the White Base. The sole surviving officer, an Ensign by the name of Bright Noah, takes command of the White Base in an attempt to bring it to Earth and return the Gundam to the Earth Federation headquarters, as per his orders. Rounding out the cast included the tragically ineffectual Sayla Mass, the slightly less ineffectual Frau Bow, bratty little kid Katz Kobayashi, his adoptive older brother Hayato Kobayashi, snarky jerk Kai Shiden, and the jovial fat guy Ryu Jose. To help out Amuro in battles, Hayato and Ryu work together to pilot the tank-ish Guntank while Kai uses the more humanoid Guncannon. There were also some minor characters... most of whom died since the story was taking place during a war and that was just how it worked.

On the side of the antagonists were various enemy ace pilots, most prominent being the recurring Char Aznable. Char himself would clash with Amuro many times, initially having a profound advantage in skill with his machine, but Amuro gradually bridged the gap to the point of being Char's superior. There was also the famous Ramba Ral, the three-man team known as the Black Tri-Stars, and a young girl named Lalah Soon. There was also the dastardly Zabi family, those in charge of the Principality and at the same times at each others' throats in some cases.

Gundam also had a slight hint of mysticism in it regarding some people that had been born in Space with unusual powers. They were known as Newtypes, and were believed to be the next step in human evolution. Newtypes could sometimes sense enemy attacks before they would happen, communicate to each other, and had other abilities similar to psychics, and yet Tomino has repeatedly stated that Newtypes are not psychics nor Espers.

Building on some of what he had done in Raideen and Zambot 3, Tomino featured a lot of character development with the cast. Amuro goes through a lot of phases during the story, ranging from whiny loser not wanting to fight (Brightslaps solved that) and realizing that the war didn't effect just him and training furiously to match and surpass Char. Char himself mystified audiences with his unique story and setting the foundations for the "blonde, red-themed rival" so prevalent today in not just Gundam but Japanese media entirely. Zero from Megaman and Ken from Street Fighter come to mind. The infamous "It's three times as fast" line in regards to Char's red-colored Zaku early on has sparked the belief painting anything red made it three times as fast/better.

The series, in spite of selling lots of toys, did not get very good ratings. Probably because it was the first Real Robot series and people didn't know what they were getting into. Nevertheless, in spite of pressure by his sponsors, Tomino was able to get 43 episodes, enough to wrap-up the story decently and give us some closure. As a safety precaution, Tomino also during this time penned a novel retelling of the story, in a much more adult and mature atmosphere. The story differed a bit, though, including the death of Amuro during the final battle complete with the traditional Tomino "You're going to die and your death won't accomplish anything" style. Nevertheless, in the anime Amuro survives, along with Char, who made some semblance of peace with each other in the end.

Tomino himself hated doing sequels. His big reason for killing people off was mainly to just to make sure not enough of the cast was around so there could *be* a sequel. Oh, how foolish of him.

Thanks to stellar sales of its toys, Gundam immediately went into syndication and just like Family Guy got its second chance. Tomino was commissioned to do a series of compilation movies for Gundam. They also proved successful, partially for fixing a few stupid moments in the anime, such as replacing the whole "I killed Ryu!" "No, I killed Ryu!" sequence with "Amuro, you could've saved him!" "Shut up, YOU could've saved him!" Nevertheless, the show remains today the most popular in the franchise.

Due to a mix of interest on his part and the pressure from the higher-ups, Tomino returned to the Gundam series in 1985 with Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.



Zeta Gundam takes place in UC 87, and things have taken an overall turn for the worse. In the time since the victory over the Principality of Zeon, the Earth Federation has gradually slid down the slippery slope, instating the powerful ace group known as the Titans to ensure dominance over the colonies by any means necessary. Many members of the Federation, however, know the line has to be drawn somewhere, and abandon the Federation to found two separate but equally important resistance groups.

The first, Karaba, is stationed on Earth and is led by Gundam veteran Hayato Kobayashi. The latter, the Anti-Earth Union Group, abbreviated as AEUG, handles space duties. The flagship of the AEUG is the Argamma, captained by the now older and no less awesome Bright Noah. Helping him out and in charge of the Mobile Suits on the ship is none other than a mysterious blonde man by the name of Quattro Bajina, who has a thing for always wearing sunglasses and wearing red.

Hmm... I wonder if he could be someone else?

To provide Karaba and the AEUG the necessary military might to oppose the Titans, the lunar-based Anaheim Electronics offers to provide them their various Mobile Suits in exchange for protection from the Titans. Things sound great at first, and then we find out the Titans have a little secret weapon up their sleeves.

Gundams. Not one, but actually three.

Quattro gets sent on both a mission to seize the Gundams to make sure that the Titans don't get them and also a trip down memory lane as he returns to Side 7. There, due to another sequence of cooky events, a young man named Camille Bidan ends up joining him and joining the AEUG, using one of the stolen Gundam Mk. IIs, and the battles begin anew. In the meantime, Kai sends the Argamma a nice little letter, explaining in utterly STELLAR English that...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v172/OptimalMegatron/quattroisachar9nq.jpg

Zeta Gundam featured most of the old Gundam cast in supporting roles excluding Sayla Mass, although with the exception of Bright, and older yet brattier Katz, and Mr. Sunglasses the main focus was mainly on the new cast. Camille had some of the trappings of Amuro in him, including being introverted and gradually learning to become a better Gundam pilot as he battled the Titans, but his true strength on the battlefield was Newtype powers surpassing any other Newtype before him. He also was already famous for being a very gifted Mobile Suit designer and had submitted a certain design to Anaheim which ended up becoming the Zeta Gundam, which he got near the end of season one. This would set the hallmark in Gundam series to come, wherein the hero would ALWAYS get a new Mobile Suit sooner or later.

Things take a turn for the worse, however, when the Titans recruit a young but very influential man from Jupiter named Paptimus Scirroco, possessing piloting powers surpassing that of even Char and Camille combined, along with Newtype powers to bend many people to his will. Scirroco seizes control of the Titans for his own gains, and our heroes know they need some help.

Which is when Char admits "Hey... I had this one girlfriend this one time..."

Said ex-girlfriend is Haman Karn, now in charge of the remnants of the Principality of Zeon. After striking a few bargains with her, some of which Char quickly regrets, the new Axis Zeon allies itself with the AEUG. This is followed with Axis joining up with the Titans, sharing a few ha-has, before screwing them over too. In the end, the situation boils down to a vicious three-way struggle culminating with the death of nearly the entire protagonist group, all but one of the Titans, and Haman essentially on top. Camille's fateful duel with Scirroco ends with a victory for him, but Scirroco's tremendous Newtype power proves enough to mentally shred Camille, with the series ending with Camille's main love interest Fa taking him back to the Argamma, screaming at Bright that something was wrong with Camille.

Zeta Gundam was much more serious and brooding in comparison to the only semi-serious tone of the original Gundam, which can be attributed to Tomino suffering from a depression at the time.. Some look on this and think it was a change for the better, whilst others think it went too far, Tomino included. A lot of characters went through a great deal of turmoil, including two other love interests for Camille on the enemy side, Four and Rosamia, and *many* characters lost themselves through the struggles. Camille's initial rival Jerid and AEUG ace Reccoa are two of the biggest examples. Char himself also went through a lot of development too, striving to protect the colonies he cared so greatly for, only to fail miserably when Haman trounced him in their climactic duel thanks to her superior Qubeley machine.

But thanks to building on the reputation of the original Gundam, Zeta Gundam's tremendous popularity caused it to get an immediate sequel, a feat no other Gundam series has ever managed to repeat. It was an attempt to contrast with Zeta's tragedy and bloodshed, as was Tomino's habit of following up a depressing story with a happy one.

The result was Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (pronounced Double Zeta)

Oh, and incidentally there was also the Zeta compliation movies produced a few years ago, which changed a few things around due to Tomino's brighter outlook on life. One of them was Camille *not* getting mentally screwed up by Scirroco. But they're non-canon, so they don't count. On to ZZ!



At the end of Zeta Gundam, the Titans were annhilated, the AEUG lost nearly all its seasoned officers and aces, and the fledgling Axis Zeon was the top dog. The Argamma, fleeing to Side 1 for repairs and medical attention for Camille, cannot handle another battle so soon and things look bad.

Enter a young salvage team in the Side 1 colony Shangri-La, featuring bright and cheerful, if a little bit of a rebel, Judau Ashta. Judau was meant to be a direct contrast to Amuro and especially Camille's introverted personalities, instead being outgoing, a bit of a loudmouth, and in fact being a much weaker Newtype in comparison. Again, through a series of contrived coincedences, Judau ends up in the piloting seat of the Zeta Gundam, at first defending Shangri-La, his sister and friends, and the Argamma from a group of Axis Zeon soldiers led by Mashimar Cero, himself not necessarily a bad guy. Unfortunately, repeated defeats at the hands of Judau ticks off his higher-ups, and he's quickly sent away. What follows is the even quirkier Chara Soon, who... yeah.

It was actually amusing how Tomino threw us a curveball with Judau at first. Whereas Amuro and Camille were a bit clunky at the controls but quickly got the hang of their respective Gundams, Judau stumbled his way through many of his initial fights... literally. I think he fumbled and dropped his beam saber at least three times, and he won a lot of his fights thanks to nothing more than sheer dumb luck. Eventually, however, he gets the hang of Zeta Gundam and quickly upgrades up to the larger and tougher Gundam ZZ. To go along with this, Judau's experience with piloting smaller-scale Mobile Suits while salvaging wrecks lets him work around his Newtype handicap.

The main driving factor at first with Judau was his desire to protect his little sister Leina, which eventually grew into an attempt to rescue her after she got kidnapped. In the meantime, he grew to respect Bright Noah as a commander, and his friends matured as well as they became the "Gundam Team", referring to the fact that the group was using three Gundams (one of the Mk. IIs, Zeta, and ZZ) and the Gundam-esque Hyaku Shiki in their battles.

The series, at least at first, had some comedy elements in it, possibly too much and too soon after Zeta Gundam's conclusion, and Tomino returned the series to its serious roots at the halfway point when the team reached Earth. With the Earth Federation exhausted, Axis Zeon -now called Neo Zeon- had a stranglehold over the planet and used that as leverage to get their independence. Haman, during this time, also sparks a unique relationship with Judau, kinda a romance, kinda a "You're an idiot for opposing me". Judau, however, seemingly loses Leina during these battles on Earth, and struggles for a while to get over her death before finally resolving that she wasn't dead. A cutaway scene when they return to space, with Leina in the care of a woman with blonde hair, confirms this.

Finally taking the fight to Neo Zeon, a fortunate coup helps Judau and the Gundam team turn the tables on Haman's forces, culminating in their final duel. Judau eventually defeats Haman, thanks to the support from characters that died during the course of the original Gundam, Zeta Gundam, and ZZ. After being reunited with Leina, who had been saved by an older Sayla Mass, he goes off to Jupiter to help out there. Camille also recovers from his trauma and manages to spend the rest of his days as a doctor along with Fa.

ZZ's underappreciated. I've watched it and I liked it. Unlike Tomino's previous Gundam works, the effective female pilot on the protagonists side doesn't die for pointless reasons and the cast is colorful as always. Bright also gets punched in the end for revenge on all the times he slapped someone around, which is also appealing to viewers, and the second season is pretty serious as far as a Gundam series will go without losing its light. Another Colony Drop happens, something they managed to *avert* in Zeta, Hayato Kobayashi from the original Gundam series dies, a lot of noble sacrifices are made, and it does give the whole series closure. Well... sorta.

Tomino's original plan was to have Char be the focus of ZZ. Some of Judau's characteristics echo Char's, such as the red jacket, relying more on natural piloting skill than Newtype powers, and appeal for little girls to follow him around. In Char's case, the reasons were mainly romantic. In Judau's, it was more they looked up to him like a big brother. After changing his mind, he planned on Char to appear during the last arc of the series since he was hinted at surviving after Haman defeated him, mainly to let him and Amuro have a final, decisive battle. But then he got an offer he couldn't refuse.

That offer was a full-length Gundam movie; Char's Counterattack.

Char's Counterattack takes place in UC 0093. The Earth Federation's gotten over the crap that's screwed it up since the original series and finally the good guys again. Char makes a glorious return, creating the second Neo Zeon movement, and having since given up on his ideals. Humanity must escape from the vice-like grip of the Earth's gravity, and he naturally believes the best way to solve this is to crash the new Axis base into it. The movie was originally a novel Tomino wrote, but it changes a few things, like the final machines that Amuro and Char use.

The Earth Federation has an anti-colonial force designed to make sure problems like the old Neo Zeon never resurface again, the Londo Bell. In charge and given complete authority over it is Bright Noah, with Amuro Ray back in action as its chief piloting ace. Char himself has a nice little attack team all lined up with the intent of forcing all of humanity to flee to the colonies and become an entirely space-based civilization, and Amuro is determined to stop him. Rounding out the cast includes Amuro's second "true" girlfriend, Chien, a few more Londo Bell pilots and the unofficial one Hathaway Noah, Bright's son first mentioned in Zeta and shown briefly in ZZ.

Char himself has his own little horde of goons too, including a young girl named Quess that has somewhat of a past with Hathaway. Naturally, this creates a *lot* of friction and difficulties.

After struggling and fighting his rival for much of the movie, along with getting his hands on the now-famous and iconic Nu Gundam (Unfinished in the movie, finished in the novel), Amuro succeeds in defeating Char who had been using either the Nightingale in the book or the Sazabi in the movie. To stop the asteroid, Amuro bravely tries to push it back, his courage moving the remaining Federation and Zeon grunts to the point they all pitch in and save the day via a miracle, although at the cost of presumably Amuro and Char's lives.

... Well, Char MIGHT be alive, but we have to wait until Unicorn Gundam explains the things with Full Frontal, and that could take a while.

Nevertheless, again most of the cast dies off save for Bright and his family, and that's the end of that.

These three series and Char's Counterattack set the standard for Gundam, and stand out as some of Tomino's best works. Even detractors of ZZ admit it got much better during its second season, although being the person I am I see nothing wrong with it. These are not necessarily the *best* Gundam series out there, that's an issue open to debate, but they are certainly responsible for all the others.

And now... SRW time! I'm only doing the iconic Gundams of the protagonists in each of the four series... four is enough.

First, the original Gundam in Super Robot Wars Advance


Next, Zeta Gundam in Super Robot Wars Z

Check out the Shining Newtype Sword at 3:14. Domon Kasshu is not pleased.

Next, the Full-Armored Gundam ZZ (a further-armored ZZ that's been sold as a toy and appeared in the manga) in Super Robot Wars Alpha 2. Since SRW Z uses the Zeta Gundam movies, the odds of Judau and company showing up is VERY slim. V_V


And lastly, Amuro's Nu Gundam from Char's Counterattack.


WHEW! Much easier than if I had also done Stardust Memory, War in the Pocket, 08th MS team, F91, Unicorn, Crossbone, and Victory. MUCH easier.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 22 2008, 9:31 PM

ah, makes sense now. "That's no death note boy, No Death Note!"

and now for the perfect picture for this post.

http://imageshack.us

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 22 2008, 9:36 PM

Ah. I presume that's New York City, which got destroyed in the Gundam novels?

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 22 2008, 9:38 PM

No clue, I just stumbled upon it one day. so it might as well be.

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 22 2008, 10:37 PM

(Still reading Gundam post)

Pretty sure that's NYC and I'm visiting there this January....but I don't want to get smashed by a space colony! @_@ *hides in box?*

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 23 2008, 5:09 AM

Mobile Suit Gundam:

Admittedly, the idea of Gundam suits is pretty cool.

(You stumped me with Lagrange Points. Stupid physics *grumble*. Had to look that up, haha. So basically they are positions around the earth (or sun) where something can remain in place due to equal pulls of gravity from two bodies? Instead of being pulled down to the Earth's surface?)

There's that Zaku again. I don't even know the full joke, but I still see that darn youtube vid in my head when someone says that word.

Colony Drop. Australia. Ahh! Non-Gundam Fa!

Okay, wow. All of the reoccuring jokes I have been hearing are clicking one by one into place.

Mobile Suit Gundam Zeta:

Gah...

Well, I should say something nice about the show so...as always, I love the 80s animation style. That should do it ^_^.

Mobil Suit Gundam ZZ:

I like the change in main character personality. Always good to get off the linear path of reoccurring protagonist characteristics.

Judau: looking at his early battle skills, I'd say he's probably alive by sheer dumb luck. Somehow natural selection didn't get to him.

Char's Counterattack:

"...the intent of forcing all of humanity to flee to the colonies and become an entirely space-based civilization..."

Darn, if only Char succeeded. Then I'd sneak back onto Earth and live happily on a planet without any stupid humans trying to destroy the environment. (And if he had succeeded, how stupid does that sound to put billions of people on relatively small colonies when there is a huge planet down below with muuuuuch more room. Not to mention natural resources...I'm just saying...)

Yay, slap-happy Bright survives. But not any of the nicer people? Bleh. lol


Thanks for wrapping that up so nicely. The story definitely interests me, but can't promise I'll ever get around to watching any of them =(. However, if I'm ever at an anime party or convention I can pretend to know what I'm talking about ^_^.

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 24 2008, 1:02 AM

well since Morrigan knows that I'm watching Gundam (the Original) over, and I remember the Black tri-stars having accents but when I finally get to them, they have heavy southern accents. and I'm talking (with no offense to those that live in the south) Hicks. like full blown redneck hicks. it doesn't work! I can't get my mind to wrap around this horrible travesty.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 24 2008, 1:23 AM

Well, they were kinda Gonkish anyways.

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 24 2008, 2:36 AM

Blech. *gag* Sorry you have to go through the horrible hillbilly accents Asher.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 29 2008, 10:51 PM

Whew! Today's belated update is for Tomino's pre-Gundam works. First up is the first Super Robot anime that decided to focus on more than just action and explore character-driven stories, Brave Raideen.

The year was 1975, and young and sensational director Yoshiyuki Tomino, fated to create the Real Robot genre, found himself directing his first Super Robot anime, Brave Raideen. Raideen set itself apart from Go Nagai's Getter Robo and Mazinger Z by, as stated before, look much deeper into the characters. Not by much, but it did set the standard other stories of the genre would follow.

Anyways, our hero this time is Akira Hibiki, upstanding soccer player (like Ryoma from Getter Robo) and friends with a girl in the soccer club, Mari Sakurano, that happens to be the daughter of a prominent scientist. Incidentally, Akira was voiced by the same guy that did Ryoma in Getter Robo. And the villainous Demon Empire, much like the Hundred-Demon Clan of Getter Robo, has emerged after 12 millenia to crush civilization again. However, this is where the faint similarities to Getter Robo end.

Akira, rather than piloting some amazing technological machine made at his friend's father's lab, is guided by a mysterious voice and discovers a strange golden pyramid. Inside of it is the last remaining artifact of the Mu Civilization, which had been destroyed by the Demon Empire all those centuries ago, the giant robot Raideen. Akira soon discovers he is in fact the only person in the world that can merge with and pilot Raideen, and vows to oppose the Demon Empire to the best of his abilities.

Sakurano Labs decide to house and take care of upkeep for Raideen, in the meantime developing support crafts known as Bluegars to help out Raideen to the best of their abilities. Akira's friends and Mari help take care of piloting them.

What separated Raideen the machine apart from Getter and Mazinger was, for one thing, it was technically self-aware. It was guided by a mysterious spirit and had a mind of its own, a first in the franchise. It also relied much more on long-ranged combat with its bow and various projectiles, although its trademark finishing move, the God Bird, involved transforming into an eagle and dive-bombing the enemy. There was also a *very* powerful attack known as the God Voice, involving Raideen releasing sonic waves powerful enough to destroy *anything*, but Akira used them rarely because of the tremendous stress they put on his body. In fact, even during the nigh-hopeless battle against the final enemy in the series, Akira never considered using the God Voice because of its risky nature.

Raideen proved successful, spawning two sequels related to it in name only, and solidified Tomino's stance as a director in the genre. However, for whatever reason he left after completing the first half of the series, leaving Tadao Nagahama to direct the second season. Raideen ran for 50 episodes, but still remains influential today. RahXephon, a series often derided as a rip-off of Evangelion, actually has much more in common with Raideen. Nagahama's experiences, picking up the torch for Tomino, helped inspire him to work on his own more-serious and character-driven Super Robot anime a few years down the road. I will be covering those next week.

Anyways, while working on Raideen, Tomino found his niche in Sunrise Productions, and would stay there for a very long time. It was there he made the various Gundams, but this isn't a post about them, it's about his pre-Gundam works. And his next one was the one where justice was in the shape of a giant robot. And it's name was Zambot 3.



Zambot 3, it's full name being The Invincible Superman Zambot 3, takes place in the not-too-distant future, wherein a group of surprisingly human-looking aliens, which would become a Tomino staple, flee to Earth seeking asylum. These aliens, the sole survivors of the planet Bael, are fleeing from a terrifying military force led by the mysterious and malevolent entity known as Gaizok. At Gaizok's disposal are dozens of automated robots known as Mecha Boosts, and Earth is quickly sent into a panic at the fear of being attacked.

The aliens, taking responsibility for what they've set upon the Earth, quickly retrofit three of their spacecraft into parts of a robot known as Zambot 3. Three young Bael children, the boys Kappei and Uchuta and the girl Keiko, take over piloting. Kappei handles most of Zambot 3's primary functions when the vehicles combine, and serves as the main focus for the story.

Gaizok, setting a nice precedence, is not shown until very, *very* late into the story. Read that as "not until the final battle is nearly over and done with." Instead, Gaizok uses the fatass named Killer the Butcher as a proxy to lead his forces. Killer seems bumbling, oftentimes fawning over jewelry, eating like there's no tomorrow, and trying to suntan on his ships, but he genuinely lives up to his named and is responsible for a *lot* of people dying, which is what Zambot 3 is all about.

You see, humanity quickly discovers that Gaizok has absolutely NO interest in Earth at all. He just wants to kill the rest of the Bael survivors. This, combined with the shockingly high civilian body-count as Zambot battles the Mecha Boosts, causes public outcry against the aliens and more than one assassination attempt on them. Kappei even gets a lot of flack from kids at school who beat him up more than once, and his only real support outside of the other Bael aliens are two girls that compose his fanclub. Eventually though, Gaizok changes his mind and begins to view Earth as a wonderful place to conquer for its resources, and by story's end humanity is thankful that Zambot 3 has defeated him. Of course, not without lots of sacrifices...

Zambot 3's weapons were pretty cool too. It had a pair of sais that could be combined to make a spear or a sword, and it could also do the really cool Moon Attack. Unfortunately, since Tomino wanted to make a more edgy Super Robot show to make it stand out from his and Go Nagai's previous works, all those attacks added up to lots of collateral damage. Because, hey, that kinda makes sense. Zambot 3 also received support from Bael spaceships, including being provided with an Ion Cannon from Kappei's father's vessel that would be the start of Tomino's habit of having a robot get its best/biggest weapon from a ship, fire it, and then be done with it.

Anyways, Tomino *really* didn't like making sequels, and did what he could to ensure sequels wouldn't be possible. This often involved killing off copious amounts of the cast, which is what happened during the final battle against Gaizok. In short, all the Bael spaceships get destroyed, Zambot 3 is forced to do a suicide crash into Gaizok's vessel after its arms and legs are destroyed, and Kappei barely survives the battles and ends up being the last Bael alive. This was the beginning of Tomino's habit of evoking a Kill 'em All ending, which would become his nickname in just a few years.

*EDIT*: As I have found out a few days ago, it turns out not all of the Bael race had been wiped out. Before the final battle, all the non-combatants fled to Earth... so at least a number of the women and other children survived.

Zambot 3 had a very short run, only 23 episdoes starting in 1977, and has since been fansubbed in its entirety. This was the start of all those "depressing" Super Robot anime like Evangelion. If you want to know where those kind of stories came from, look no further.

Anyways, Tomino also had another habit. After making a *really* depressing anime, he would always try to follow it up with a comedy, or at least something a little more light-hearted. Immediately after wrapping up Zambot 3, Tomino wished to make another anime immediately afterwards and managed to get some of the Zambot 3 staff to stay around. And they got two really cool ideas in mind.

1. Let's make a spiritual sequel to Zambot 3, something absurdly similar in so many ways, yet entirely different.
2. What would happen if James Bond had a giant robot of his own?

The result was Daitarn 3.



The Invincible Steelman Daitarn 3, officially known as the Unchallengeable Daitarn 3, came on four months after Zambot 3 and its first episode was in June of 1978. Daitarn 3's name and design obviously seems akin to Zambot 3's, complete with a "Sun Attack" similar to Zambot's "Moon Attack", but they really couldn't be further apart. Daitarn 3 was not three machines that combined into one, it was one that could change to become a tank, Super Robot 120 meters in height, or a really big jet. It was also explicitly stated to be solar-powered, giving it theoretically unlimited running time in outer space.

As for James Bond getting his giant robot, we must look at the guy with the crazy hair in that opening, a man by the name of Banjou Haran. Banjou's father was yet another brilliant scientist, studying robotics on a specialized and isolated lab on Mars with his family. He successfully created the first free-thinking robots, known as the Meganoids. Unfortunately, the Meganoids quickly unite under the militaristic ideals of the robot Don Zauser, and kill Professor Haran and nearly his entire family. The only survivor is an allegedly sixteen year old Banjou, who escapes with the titular Daitarn to Earth.

Two years go by, and Banjou is now ridiculously rich, lives in a mansion with a butler named Garrison, and famous amongst Interpol and often works with female agents Reika and Beauty. He is also an accomplished student at a university. These facts, along with his mannerisms more akin with a man in at least his mid-twenties, often consider people to disregard Banjou's "official" age of 18 for the series since it was never stated in the anime.

Banjou has also been training in Daitarn 3 for the time when the Meganoids would finally launch their assault on Earth, studying firearms and the like as well. This gave the story an intended Secret Agent-ish spirit to it, including having Banjou have colorful gadgets like the transforming car and the ring that could summon Daitarn. The overall effect was quite impressive, along with giving the faceless grunts serving the Meganoids some depth by letting them often discuss things with each other.

Banjou was also, interestingly enough, pretty much the only instance in all of Tomino's career of making a hero that was "Lawful Good." If Banjou gives you his word, he will keep it. He saved enemy Meganoids from outside threats that were victimizing them, and generally was a pretty nice guy about it. These more favorable and arguably mainstream elements let Daitarn 3 be more universally accepted than Zambot 3 and it ran for forty episodes, culminating with Banjou's final duel with Don Zauser.

These three series have been staples in Super Robot Wars for a long time, Raideen and Daitarn first appearing in Super Robot Wars 3 and Zambot in Super Robot Wars 4. Raideen has been noticably absent on most of the portables, including the entire GBA lineup, but Daitarn and Zambot have appeared in a few more. It's interesting to note that unlike most Super Robots that are meant to be tanks, Raideen is meant to fight from a distance off, at least until it gets a few upgrades and gets new melee weapons. Zambot is decidedly a close-range fighter, but Daitarn can play both roles quite well, and often has team-attacks with Zambot. Raideen's also had some team-attacks with RahXephon when they met in Super Robot Wars MX.

Raideen's attacks, from Super Robot Wars Alpha 3:


Zambot's from Super Robot Wars Z


Daitarn's from Super Robot Wars Z

Posted by: Asher Omega Dec 29 2008, 11:08 PM

and now for the picture:

http://imageshack.us

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 29 2008, 11:10 PM

LOLZ!

Posted by: Zhanneel Dec 30 2008, 9:30 PM

I uh, think I'm better off not understanding that picture.

Okay, homework time.

Brave Raideen:

The mysterious calling and hidden sentient robot are really interesting traits for the show, a nice jump away from war-bots and typical flying machines. I think the fantasy of that appeals to me more as well, since it brings an unknown element into the plot. Not cut and clear technology that anyone can take apart and determine how it ticks. (This reminds me a little from what I've seen of Eureka 7, but then I'm sure many animes have borrowed the sentient robot plot. Oh, also Zoids New Century.)

A fighting move that resembles an eagle. Yay ^_^.

Zambot 3:

@Video: Oh my gosh! They are chanting my name. lolz

Wowies, check out all the different weapons. And for some reason I am drawn to the crescent moon on its forehead. A pair of sai (wielded by a robot that looks pretty cool), a double-sided lance (sweet, reminds me of Cye from Ronin Warriors), a sword, flying discs, and a rifle. Ooo, lots of accessories for a potential model kit. *whaps self* Shut up Sarah, no one wants to hear you prattle about model kits!

Kids piloting a giant robot. That's pretty unconventional, especially if they could do it well. It's different, I like that.

Okay, just looking at the premise but, wth?? The remaining Bael survivors on Earth, bringing a psychotic killer along with them, leading to countless numbers of innocents being killed, all because they thought they'd hang out on Earth and doom another race of people by accident? And oh my gawd...after ALL that trouble, only 1 measly Bael survivor stands! W-w-wha... @_@ That's it! Give me a flipping robot! I'm going after the Bael people myself! *And with that, Zhanneel is dragged away to a mental hospital where she is lobotomized.* (Okay, Morri already knows my views on this, so I'll stop attacking Tomino like the vindictive girl I can be ^_^.)

Daitarn 3:

Seriously, that is James Bond, and there are the extra females to tag along and give the show sex appeal, lolz. The whole father dying, being rich, having a butler also makes me think Batman.

Wow! Environmentally friendly too! Solar powered. *hugs Daitarn 3*

I do like the less somber mood of this series too. Thank you Tomino.

SRW game videos:

Raideen: @2:34, and @3:42 (eagle attack!)

Zambot 3: @2:12 (all three weapon attacks, cool)

Daitarn 3: @3:03 (solo sun attack, also spiffy)

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 30 2008, 9:51 PM

Tomino's less-tragic shows are, without a shadow of a doubt, Daitarn, L-Gaim, Xabungle, Gundam ZZ, and most anything he made starting with Turn A up to today. The guy's had a lot of problems, and working through them took a lot of time. Even Brain Powerd, which is farily serious, doesn't have too many deaths on the side of the protagonists.

Overman King Gainer and Xabungle are the ones much more focused on comedy than any of the others. Only two regular cast members in Gainer die, both of them villains. And Xabungle's got enough slapstick humor that during the famous ICBM toss, *nobody* dies or suffers from radiation poisoning in the aftermath.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 5 2009, 9:14 PM

Our subjects for today is the famous Romance Robot Trilogy directed by Tadao Nagahama, a trilogy not in terms of taking place in the same continuity, but building on certain themes from story to story. Now, Nagahama's first breakthrough work was directing the latter half of Brave Raideen after Tomino left the director's chair, and he did a fairly good job at it, building on Tomino's emphasis of character-driven plots. With his taste for directing Super Robot anime whetted, he signed up to direct Combattler V one year later in 1976.

Choudenji Robo Combattler V, translated as Super Electromagnetic Robo Combattler V, was created by Suburo Yatsudo, an anime development team at TOEI. Nagahama picked up the reins and oversaw the anime's production, although his difficulty with overseeing art development meant a subordinate director needed to be hired to help create Nagahama's visions.

Anyways, Combattler V took place in a reality where thousands of years ago, a group of explorers from Planet Campbell left their home to explore and find new worlds to settle and conquer. A group led by the Campbellian scientist Oreana, discovers Earth but tragedy strikes and causes her and her explorers to fall into suspended animation. They reawaken in the 21st century, discovering humanity has since flourished but decide to conquer Earth for their own gain.

However, world-renowned and brilliant scientist Professor Nanbara has been researching the power of electromagnetism and created a set of five vehicles that, when combined together form the powerful Combattler V, capable of using the likes of yo-yos, missiles fired from its abdomen and fingers, and a twirly-spinny attack called the Choudenji Spin to defeat its enemies. Its pilots fulfill the requirements of being a "Five man band". The Hero and main pilot of the machine is motocycle fanatic Hyoma Aoi. The Lancer and Hyoma's friendly rival is Juzo Naniwa... incidentally voiced by the same guy that did the laid-back and intellectual Hayato in Getter Robo. The Big Guy is Daisaku Nishikawa, judo expert. The Chick/love interest for both Juzo and Hyoma is Chizuru Nanbara, daughter of the good Professor. Lastly, is the brainy yet tiny Smart Guy Kosuke Kita.

Rounding out the cast for the protagonists is Ropet, a small robot that tags along with the Combattler V team and gives the okay for combining, the quirky kids of the lab's cook who eventually pilot a small robot of their own called Kerot, and Nanbara's friend Professor Yotsuya who takes over leading the lab after Professor Nanbara dies early in the series to hold off an enemy attack.

The villians initially are Oreana and her son Garuda, who in turn has a number of subordinates tasked with various operations and duties. Hyoma sparks a rivalry with Garuda, made even more bitter when Hyoma loses his arms due to a machine Garuda personally piloted, forcing Hyoma to get cybernetic replacements. Nevertheless, they all eventually are defeated, however the exploration force has long since let the Campbellian homeworld know of Earth, and Combattler V suddenly has a new threat on their hands.

During this second season, we discover that one reason why the Campbellians were hesitant to invade the Earth was because it went against the wishes of the current Emperor Deus. However, by the time of the second season, he has been ousted by the utterly monsterous and amoral Empress Janera and her own horde of goons. One of Janera's most reviled and evil moments involved having one of her more bumbling subordinates have a bomb implanted in his body and then discussing with the others how stupid and incompetent the poor guy was right before the bomb went off.

Anyways, through great struggles and the sacrifice of Professor Yotsuya near the end of the series, Combattler V forces Janera to spearhead one last invasion, only to be warned that Emperor Deus has found the support and manpower to retake his empire. Janera follows through anyways, nearly succeeding until being defeated by Combattler V and her last-ditch effort of using a thermonuclear bomb to destroy the Earth thwarted by Deus's intervention. With Earth at last saved from those Campbellians that were evil, Deus decides to lend support to rebuild Earth.

Combattler V, in comparison to the second and third parts of the trilogy, was not as ground breaking. Not to say it wasn't good, far from it, but it was really the springboard. Nagahama was still getting the hang of being in charge of a story and not just carrying the torch for someone else. However, the next part in the trilogy truly established him as a great Super Robot director.



The second part of the trilogy was Choudenji Machine Voltes V (pronounced "five" instead of Combattler's "Vee"), literally Super Electromagnetic Machine Voltes V, which came out in 1977. The series seems like a rehash of Combattler, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Voltes was one of the first Super Robot anime to explore a lot of human values and tendencies, and also explored issues dealing with family members.

In fact, the Hero Kenichi, Smart Guy Hiyoshi, and Big Guy Daijiro, are all brothers. Their father, Kentaro Gou, has been missing ever since the birth of the youngest boy, Hiyoshi, but worked with his wife Mitsuyo to create Voltes V. Rounding out the Five Man Band is Ippei Mine for the Lancer position and Megumi Oka for the purposes of being the Chick. Rounding out the protagonists are a few more professors and military generals that are trying to overcome the tyrannical rule of Zu Zambijil.

Zambijil is the ruler of the Boazan aliens, humanoid individuals who usually have horns, although there are a few exceptions. Zambujil usurped rulership from the rightful heir, and in turn branded him and his son Prince Heinel as traitors. Heinel himself, in an effort to redeem his family name, spearheads many of the operations to defeat Voltes V and finish the Boazan's domination of the galaxy, but finds it more and more difficult as he clashes with Kenichi.

Unlike Garuda beforehands, Heinel survives until the final episode, which ends with a swordfight between him and Kenichi on foot rather than a duel in giant robots. He also was the first and one of the most iconic times a villain would have greater depth than simply cackle all the time and desire the defeat of his opponents. Heinel was a man of honor and decency, and died not by Kenichi's blade but in a moment of self-sacrifice and able to look back with pride at his accomplishments. Many other Boazans were shown to be genuinely good people as well, including Heinel's love interest Katherine and the honorable soldier Jangal who opted to die a warrior's death against Voltes than surrender.

The overall effect of Voltes V was phenominal and silenced critics that thought it would just go through the same motions of Combattler V. Combattler V, in spite of its sometimes serious tone, had a great deal of comedy and humor in it whilst Voltes had a much more somber tone throughout. Its emphasis on character depth, and with such a large cast as well, was arguably a first in the genre of Super Robots since the original Gundam wouldn't be made for two whole years afterwards, and raised the struggles of both humans and Boazans to defeat Zambijil to heroic proportions... enough that Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos banned the show after realizing that Zambijil reminded him too much of himself. Voltes V quickly became the symbol of the Philippine rebels after that, where it enjoys a large fanbase even to this day.

Anyways, after having two healthy runs with Five Man Band shows, Nagahama had finally gotten himself warmed up. He had hit his stride with making a serious Super Robot show, one where the story had just as much focus on the characters as the titular robots. But now he needed to do something new, something different.

Something involving karate and motion-capture technology.



Tosho Daimos, meaning Fighting General Daimos, was the last of the three series part of the trilogy. Unlike the previous two, the robot in question was piloted by a single individual, did not have any kind of Electromagnetic theme going on, and the story is as much a tale of love and loss as it is a story of a karate expert piloting a giant robot. It began airing in 1978.

The story again features humanoid aliens, this time the winged Baamians. After their planet became inhospitable due to natural disasters, the Baamians migrated and found Earth, where they managed to convince world governments to give them the opportunity to purchase land for settling. After debate and compromises, a date is set for the negotiations. However, a hardline group in the remnants of the Baamian military uses the summit to kill their leader Leon, frame the Earth delegates, and create an excuse for letting them take over the planet. During the ensuing chaos and gunfire, renowned scientist Doctor Issamu Ryuzaki is killed.

Leon's son, Ricther, in the dark about the truth of his father's death like nearly all Baamians, jumps at the chance to spearhead the campaigns on Earth. Things look like they will be easy enough until he discovers a strange machine that battles whilst emulating the fighting style of a karate expert. This machine is Daimos.

And piloting it is Kazuya Ryuzaki, world-renowned karate master and son of the murdered doctor. Daimos's greatest advantage is the motion-capture technology that lets it mimic Kazuya's actions, resulting in the first Super Robot to be able to use genuine martial arts moves. Although Grendizer did make a minor sub-plot out of the fact damage to it also hurt Duke Fleid, this was the first time a synchronization went the other way and this feature would be mimicked quite often in later works. G Gundam is one of the most prominent examples of "Motion Capture mechs", along with the Western movie Robot Jox.

Helping out Kazuya is Kyoshiro Yuzuki, the afro-clad modern Samurai that pilots Daimos's support jet Galva FX-II; Shinichiro Izumi, Kazuya's karate teacher and the new man in charge of Doctor Ryuzaki's Daimobic Labs; and Shinichiro's granddaughter Nana who helps Kyoshiro in the Galva and harbors a crush on Kazuya. Another prominent human is General Sakamori Miwa, a racist who hates all Baamins and had demanded them to be killed long before Leon's death.

On the side of the Baamians is a colorful cast as well and further proving just as there were good and bad humans, so too were there good and bad Baamians. The leader of the people after Leon's death was Leon's military adviser and the man in charge of the military hardliners Olban. Richter features prominently as well, along with his sister Erika who eventually sparks a romance with Kazuya, along with a few other Baamians who were genuinely good people that did believe that Leon had been killed by humans. This results in Kazuya often engaging in loyal soldiers who fought with utmost honor and respected him and died deaths befitting heroes, saving both Baamian and human lives from dangers and superweapons developed from individuals on both sides of the conflict.

Daimos also received numerous upgrades over the course of the series. Being the first of the "Martial arts in giant robots" anime, Daimos typically used its weapons to simply immobilize its enemies at the end of battles before defeating them with karate chops, diving kicks, or punches that destroyed the machines. In fact, all of Daimos's more powerful techniques relied much more on Kazuya's skill as a karate master than any kind of advanced weapon. Then, after the Baamian scientists introduces machines with upgraded armor, Daimos responds by upgrading its wind-based Double Blizzard into the heated Fire Blizzard along with getting equipped with chilling Freezer Beams. Daimos would then freeze enemies, use the Fire Blizzard to rapidly heat and compromise the enemies defenses, before delivering one final blow. However, there were plenty of times Daimos skipped all that and just beat the enemies up with conventional attacks.

Anyways, starting from Combattler V and moving on, one can see the overall development the series had. Nagahama grew a lot during those years in charge of Hyoma, Kenichi, and Kazuya's struggles, and the results were for the best. He died in 1980 due to hepatitis, but left his mark on the genre and managed to complete one more series afterwards, Future Robo Daltanius which would be a considerable influence as well, bringing the symbolism of lions to the genre. But that's for another time.

Anyways, Combattler V, Voltes V, and Daimos have all been staples in Super Robot Wars. Combattler V appeared first in Super Robot Wars 3, where its introductory level featured events from the last episode of season one. It was a good unit, albeit with a few too many weapons where most were utter crap. After getting an upgrade near the end of the game though, it became much more effective, with a few attacks stronger than even Great Mazinger or Grendizer's with no energy cost. Voltes and Daimos then appeared one game later in Super Robot Wars 4. They all appeared together over the course of the Alpha series and standalone titles Advance and MX. Daimos was usually an early acquisition due to only having one pilot and hence one set of Spirit commands, whilst Combattler and Voltes appeared later on.

Combattler V's attacks in Alpha 3


Voltes V's attacks from Alpha 1


Daimos's from Alpha 2


The three machines have occasionally had a team attack known as the Choudenji Reppu Seikenzaki, combining three of their iconic Grandasher, Choudenji Ball, and Hissatsu Reppu Seikenzaki attacks. The video is from Alpha 3.



This attack is sometimes called the "Final Nagahama Special", in reference to the frequency of the "Final Dynamic Special", a team-attack between Getter Robo and Mazinger Z units inspired by one of their crossover movies where Grendizer, Great Mazinger, and Getter Robo G fought an ancient and terrifying entity known as the Dragonsaurus. Since I didn't post it before and it wouldn't be nice to make you backtrack, here's the most recent Final Dynamic Special from Super Robot Wars Z, considered by most fans to be the most unique and awesome.



I chose the ground version of it due to the fact the first "round" of attacks is nearly identical to the ones from the original movie's Final Dynamic Special, except for the fact Kouji was piloting one of Grendizer's Spazers instead of Mazinger Z.

And yes, the guy that did Kazuya also did Ryoma from Getter Robo. AND Akira from Brave Raideen. AND the guy from Gaiking. AND Suguru from Kinnikuman. AND Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star. AND Perseus and Siegfried in Saint Seiya. AND, in a twist, the intellectual Dr. Tomeo in Sailor Moon. The guy's name is Akira Kamiya, and he's very iconic in Japan. Just looking at him, however, you wouldn't believe it.

Posted by: Zhanneel Jan 12 2009, 5:05 PM

Combattler V:

(Just a little rant) but what's up with all the evil women? x_x Evil scientist woman...just when I was about to go "yay! woman genius!" Blargh. How about a nice Nausicaa-like character? =)

The part about Hyoma losing his arms--intense. But I like the thoroughness of the plot, it's all very interesting.

Voltes V:

(I think I saw a figure of this guy in an anime shop about a day ago ^^).

The thing that really struck me about this show was the real life impact it had on current events at the time--that it literally changed a nation is well, it's amazing. I love shows that give a social message and even more so one that is used to call people to action. You rock Phillipino fans!

Tosho Daimos:

Woot! Karate-themed robot! I was also thinking G Gundam when you wrote about the pilot/robot synchronization. Then I started thinking about the abridged version episode 1 you showed me a while back...and I couldn't get the scene out of my mind where the body suit clings to him and what he says of girls liking that...xP. Back to important things now ^^.

Once again I love how this show has a lot of depth and what appears to be lots of mutli-dimensional characters.

It seems like they are getting more advanced with using science in their fighting techniques. The example you gave using fire and ice was pretty smart.

And youtube crapped up on me, so I couldn't watch the last couple of vids unfortunately. *grumble*

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 12 2009, 9:20 PM

There are plenty of those in Super Robot-dom. Like Noriko from Gunbuster. You'll just have to be patient. Besides, Evil is known for being an equal-opportunity-advancement kind of career choice.

Anyways, it's Monday, and you know what that means! This next show is one very near and dear to my heart, considering it was the first Super Robot anime I ever watched. Granted, it was its watered-down version... but...

The King of Beasts Golion, called Golion for short, was a story made by TOEI was a bit of an amalgamation of aspects from three separate anime before it: Space Emperor Godsigma for the robot design, Voltes/Combattler V for the Five Man Band dynamic, and Future Robo Daltanius for the inclusion of lions. I'll get to Daltanius and Godsigma eventually though, so don't worry too much about it. It came out in 1981.

Anyways, Golion starts in the far-off year of 1999 (LOLZ!!!!), where a group of space explorers from Earth return home to discover that their planet has been ravaged by nuclear war. They are quickly swept up by slavers of the alien Galra Empire and forced to be gladiators. We also discover that the alien planet Altea has been conquered by the Galra Empire as well.

After escaping and fleeing to Altea, the explorers find themselves entrusted with the might robotic lions that form Golion. Ages ago, Golion had been a brash and haughty-yet-powerful soldier that was taught humility by a goddess that split him into five mechanical lions. With no other choices, the explorers decide to take charge and pilot the lions. The Hero and general good guy Akira Kogane pilots Black Lion and most of Golions functions while at the same time being a strategic thinker, Lancer Isamu Kurogane pilots Red Lion and is a bit of a show-off and ladies man, Hiroshi Suzushi is the glasses-wearing Smart Guy and is surprisingly vocal for a twelve-year-old, Tsuyoshi Seido is the gentle giant of a Big Guy and pilots Yellow Lion, and Takashi Shirogane is the ill-fated Odd Man Out that pilots Blue Lion.

It is interesting to note that Kogane, Kurogane, Suzushi, Seido, and Shirogane are all Japanese names for the metals Gold, Iron, Tin, Copper, and Silver.

Anyways, Takashi gets the shaft quickly and dies early on. Princess Fala, heir apparent to the Altea throne picks up the slack and pilots Blue Lion afterwards. Fan outcry for Takashi's death eventually caused the inclusion of a new character near the end of the series, Takashi's identical looking brother Ryou. Incidentally, he *also* dies.

The supporting cast for the heroes included a couple of surprisingly intelligent mice, Fala's caretaker, an advisor for the Golion team, and Altea's dead father that appears as a ghost occasionally to lend advice to people.

On the bad guy side of things, the ultimate villain is the monstrous-looking villain Daibazaal who had quite a short fuse and would kill his messengers and stuff like that. Daibazaal first tasked his top general Sadak to bring about Golion's defeat, but repeated failures cause him to dismiss Sadak. Afterwards, Daibazaal's equally evil son Sincline steps in to oversee attacks on Golion. Being half-Altean, his appearance looks somewhat more humanish than others and in fact harbors somewhat of a crush on Princess Fala. Sincline would soon discover Akira Kogane shares an intrest in her and they become severe rivals.

Following in the habits of the Romance Robot princes, Sincline was a great deal more direct and honorable in comparison to his father, yet just as corrupt in his heart of hearts. His plan was to win favor with his father to get into a position to kill him, which tragically never came to fruition due to his repeated defeats. He was finally killed when Ryou sacrificed himself to kill Sincline in a duel.

The last big villain was the witch/sorceress Honerva, who often created the monsters as a mix of magic and technology. In the end of the series, she turned traitor and tried to help Voltron, but Sincline killed her due to her lack of loyalty.

Well, that was the Japanese version. Decent and popular enough to eventually get in a Super Robot Wars game, but nothing to write home about.

Well, then World Events Productions got the idea of doing a three-act anime epic, and originally planned to have Future Robo Daltanius be the first part. When they approached TOEI and were asked which anime they wanted to use, they said "The one with the lion", meaning Daltanius. Instead they got Golion and decided it was better.

Voltron first aired in 1984 in America.



Due to the relative lack of Super Robot anime available in America, Voltron, or "Voltron III" as it was officially known became phenominally successful. A lot of names were changed around and most deaths were edited out. In most cases, it was instances of the individuals being very hurt and going away for medical treatment, never to be seen again. With Ryou's character, however, it was simply stated that Takasi -or Sven as he was known in Voltron- had finally recovered from his injuries. Sven would go on to pilot Blue Lion one more time before the end of Voltron.

I remember watching Voltron all the time when I was a little kid and was overjoyed when they made a CGI sequel that brought back most of the original American cast. I also recall one particular story arc that World Events Productions commissioned dealing with this Queen Merla person who decided being selfless made her feel good and stuff. It was surprisingly well done. Then again, I was a little kid and we all know how Asher loves his Daimos.

Voltron is pretty much the Super Robot most Americans will remember the best if they watched cartoons in the 80s. It was planned in fact for two more Voltron series, with Lion Voltron defending the Far Universe, Vehicle Voltron (which did come about using Dairugger XV) defending the Near Universe, and Gladiator Voltron (planned to use Albegas but the company went bankrupt) defending the Middle Universe. The Lion one is most fondly remembered for its fitting music, violent and epic fights, and sci-fi battles with space ships shooting the crap out of each other.

Golion was included in the DS Super Robot Wars W, where crossover elements did ensue. Honerva worked with Dr. Hell and the Mycean Empire from Mazinger Z and the Galra Empire partnered up with the Eleven Masters of Sol from GaoGaiGar. Takashi/Sven's death also came about early on in the game and a few levels after that deal with Princess Fala's struggling to get used to piloting Blue Lion. Anyways... go, go Golion!

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 19 2009, 9:04 PM

Update time again. This time I'm covering two very serious and tragic Super Robot anime which came out at about the same time, Space Runaway Ideon and Space Warrior Baldios.

Space Runaway Ideon was another story made by Yoshiyuki Tomino, in fact made right after the end of the original Gundam anime. It takes place in the far-off year of 2300, and humanity has since developed faster-than-light travel (Known as the DS Drive) and colonized many planets. It is on one of them, the planet Solo, that we have discovered three ancient tank-like machines and a huge ship simply referred to as the "Solo Ship". For half a year, colonists and researchers have worked to restore their functionality, but in spite of their repairs neither the Solo Ship nor the machines work.

Things get shaken up with the appearance of the *extremely* humanoid race known as the Buff Clan when one of their ships arrive at Solo. And by "extremely" I mean they share many cultural similarities like the idea of Samurai, the Buff Clan calls their home planet Earth, and they look exactly the same as normal humans except for the absence of pupils. The daughter of one of the military commanders, Karala, goes down to the planet along with her advisor in search of the legendary Ideon, an invincible machine. Soldiers quickly follow, but cannot find her and instantly assume the humans have kidnapped Karala and declare war on the planet.

What follows is the frantic struggle of many inhabitants of Solo and an afro-clad hero named Cosmo Yuki, along with two of his friends, somehow activating the 100-meter tall Ideon and fending off the Buff Clan attacks. More Buff Clan soldiers, furious that Ideon is being used against them, destroy the human cities on Solo whilst survivors flee to the now-activated Solo Ship and plan to flee to the safety of Earth. Joining them is the Buff Clan member Karala, who in spite of tension with the humans, sparks a romance with the man Bes. It is then that she explains the nature of Ideon and the Buff Clan's interest in it.

Ideon is an interesting subversion of the "Sentient robot" idea first created in Raideen. Ideon itself has no will of its own, but the source that powers it, the Ide, does. The Ide is a force of infinite energy and adamant in the desire to defend any and all innocent life, granting Ideon more and more strength as the hopelessness of battles increase. The Buff Clan views the Ide as their savior due to past calamaties, believing if they can seize Ideon and the Solo Ship for themselves they will be able to reach the Ide. Over the course of the story, Ideon gradually shifts from fiction's largest Real Robot, only armed with punching and kicking and shooting some missiles at the enemy, to a terrifying machine nearly indestructible capable of shooting Black Holes, cutting planets at two, and destroying entire armadas of Buff Clan ships in scant seconds.

The story itself had a very slow and gradual rate in it, and is often considered the less screwy spiritual ancestor of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Most episodes involved the Buff Clan calling in a new specialist to try to defeat the Ideon with whatever scheme, be it "use ships", "use lasers" or whatever. Ideon's action was also less intense than Gundam's, simply because unlike Gundam with its hordes of Mobile Suits battling against each other, it was just the Solo Ship and Ideon. Like Gundam, it also suffered from low viewership ratings and was canceled four episodes before the end, at which point the situation had taken a turn for the worst.

Reaching Earth, things seemed okay at first, but things radically do downhill *fast*. Military hardliners wishing for nothing more than the destruction of all of humanity take control of the Buff Clan, Earth denounces the crew of the Solo Ship for their acceptance of the Buff Clan member Karala, and the Earth military also decides the infinite power of the Ide means it would be a wonderful weapon for them to seize for themselves.

Thankfully, like Gundam, Ideon got a movie deal and made a double-feature. The first of the two movies, Ideon: A Contact, is just a recap of the series while explaining a few things better as well. The second movie though... *whistle* Ideon: Be Invoked is notorious for its ending.

The storyline of Be Invoked takes the story to its bloody, bloody conclusion. The Buff Clan starts pulling out all the stops while also beginning work on the massive Ganda Rowa, a ship touted to surpass Ideon in power, and in the meantime the Solo Ship crew go through utter hell. Granted, Karala announces that she and the human Bes are having a baby and she is pregnant with a child everyone decides to name "Messiah", but it is not to last. Karala's sister Harulu, a recurring character, comes to the decision the Ide is being summoned somehow by her sister and the unborn child, and through a sequence of events, kills her. Harulu is killed a short while later due to the Ideon Gun.

The death of Messiah and Karala is the final straw, pushing Cosmo too far and summoning the full strength of Ideon, inadvertently summoning meteor storms that destroy all human and Buff Clan settlements in the Universe. The attack on the Ganda Rowa devolves into a struggle of attrition, members of the cast dropping like flies even faster than before until only Cosmo is left, Ideon battling the Ganda Rowa until they are both destroyed, taking the entire Universe and *all* life in existence with them.

The movie ends with the spirits of those that died being led to a possible "new" Universe by none other than Messiah. The ending also solidified Tomino's nickname since Zambot 3, "Kill 'Em All Tomino", a title he maintains to this day. The ideals of Ideon are those Tomino still looks fondly on, and he often says that of all the series he has directed, Ideon was his favorite. That being said, he still admits wondering how he could think up and *allow* an ending such as Ideon has.

There were also a few shout-outs to Gundam over the course of the series, including a few minor cameos from the her from the original Gundam, Amuro Ray. There was also a poster of Char Aznable. It is actually ironic, since a certain manga taking place a few years after Gundam ZZ explains that the Universal Century Universe was in fact the result of Ideon restarting the Universe, creating Newtypes in the hopes that they would end war. It is also revealed Judau Ashta, hero from Gundam ZZ, is actually the reincarnation of Cosmo Yuki.

Anyways, Ideon is very iconic in Japan, in spite of never having phenomenal ratings. Even today, it is regarded as an important milestone in Super Robot anime but not exceptionally popular in Japan. Oh well. Can't win them all. Ideon ran from May of 1980 to 1981, with the movies being aired in 1982.

My other Super Robot show for today was a spiritual cousin, Space Warrior Baldios.



Baldios, as you can see, shares some similarities to Ideon in terms of having a giant robot combined from three separate vehicles. Whether TOEI was moved by Ideon's story and wanted a sibling tale to impart strong messages or just be competition, I haven't a clue. Anyways...

The year is unknown... far, far into the future of the planet S-1, where we again get humanoid aliens. It happens *A LOT*. Anyways, S-1 is a planet with great civil instability due to a nearly destroyed ecosystem. The only hope is world-renowned scientists developing an experimental terraform procedure... only to be stopped at the point of success by insane military general Zeo Gattler eager to get his hands on other machines of theirs, including an experimental jet capable of warping the fabric of time and space to a certain degree.

The son of one of the scientists, Marin, is entrusted with the jet, who gets caught in a time warp and is sent hurtling back into the past to the planet known as Earth in the year 2100. Things look bad when Gattler and much of his military follows Marin, destroying a human colony on Mars. Gattler has convinced those of S-1 that Earth can be their new home, refusing any attempt at negotiation and wishing for the extinction of humanity along the way. Marin quickly sides with the military group known as Blue Fixer, and they together develop a pair of vehicles capable of docking with Marin's jet to form the 120-meter tall machine Baldios, a Super Robot that like Ideon held tremendously over-the-top powers.

Baldios, unlike the semi-spiritualism of Ideon, opted more for stressing environmentalism and having parallels to the Cold War and nuclear stockpiles. The sober nature of the story, devoid of any kind of plucky little kid hanging around for comic relief (a first in the genre if I recall correctly), became much more serious as the story dragged on. Unfortunately, poor toy sales caused Baldios to be canceled early. The shock that the writers experienced was reason enough for them to have a nerve-wracking ending, wherein Gattler melts the polar ice caps and triggers gigantic Tsunamis that destroy civilization on Earth, the anime ending with Marin looking on in utter helplessness.

Fans naturally were outraged, and managed to get a movie to wrap up the story. Enough of humanity is revealed to have survived under cryogenic stasis induced by Gattler that the population *could* be revived... but the odds of that are slim. In the end of the struggle, which includes further devastating Earth with nuclear bombs, Marin finally retires back to his home with the woman he loves, knowing they have absolutely nothing anyways. In some foreign localizations, it is revealed S-1 is actually Earth of the future, pinning the ecological damage as the result of the battles in the past, although this plot element is not present in the original Japanese version. Similar to the depressingly true representation of genuine nuclear war present in the movie The Day After, which would come out in a few years after Baldios's run, the lesson is simple.

War is abhorrent. The escalation of war is even worse. And in the end, nobody wins.

Baldios was also one of the rare instances of a Super Robot show getting a shot in America, in this case in the form of a compilation movie called "Space Warriors Battle for S/1". The Super Robot element of the story was toned down, but the downer ending remained as did the names, violence, and language. It is available, last I checked, on youtube.

Baldios ran for 32 episodes of an intended 34. The remaining two are available on order, but were never aired during TOEI's television run of it. As said before, it was the first time a story discarded even the most basic and fundamental elements of comic relief, choosing to be a bitter and somber story of adults from beginning to end. It, along with Ideon, were the first times that a Super Robot was shown to be, well, *super*. Mazinkaiser, Shin Getter Robo, and many of the more powerful Super Robots of today such as Gunbuster and Gurren Lagann were results of Ideon and Baldios's tales of monstrous steel golems, one with power proportional to the level of danger of innocent life and the other nearly unbeatable if one just tried conventional tactics.

They both have appeared in Super Robot Wars, in each case their "bad" endings have been available to watch although they are intended to be averted. Ideon has appeared in two games, Super Robot Wars F/Final and Super Robot Wars Alpha 3. In each case, its Ide power increases more and more as it takes damage, to the point it unlocks attacks that amount to game breakers which can be done indefinitely with no drop in performance. In F/Final, if Ideon was damaged too much, however, it would go berserk and destroy the Universe, although this weakness was removed in Alpha 3. In Alpha 3, instead, taking certain options after your first playthrough can trigger the events of Be Invoked, which are infamous in the fan community for having the various brave and noble heroes like Kouji from Mazinger Z and Ryoma from Getter Robo admitting they are helpless to stop the coming apocalypse and giving up all hope.

Baldios was one of the new series included in Super Robot Wars Z, and losing on the 44th stage of the game (around the 3/4th mark) triggers the Baldios TV show's ending with the Tsunami wave.

But enough of this tragedy! Time to marvel at the awesomeness of the robots in action!

First, Ideon's three "big" moves, the All-Range Missiles, Ideon Sword, and Ideon Gun. There are others, but for some reason nobody did an Ideon attack exhibition, and besides, once Ideon maxes out its Ide gauge these are the main breadwinners. These clips are from Alpha 3.







And now Baldios! Note it making the laws of reality its *****.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 25 2009, 3:42 AM

Well, I'm watching Gundam X and I just want to post this.

Jamil Neate. He is AN AMURO.

Posted by: Zhanneel Jan 25 2009, 4:44 PM

*crawls into thread* Holy flapjacks...I'm back...and sooooo far behind on everything. I think I need a mini vacation to take me away from this horror known as "post" vacation. *hops on steamroller and plunges ahead*

My little comments:

Golion:

For some reason I love the name of the show, and the lion-theme was so unconventional who couldn't like that? And again, I loved how they chose elemental metal last names for the main characters. Seriously, I wish I had an elemental last name...like Sarah Cadmium, has a nice ring.

Poor Shirogane--being the odd man out I come to think of Billy from Power Rangers. *sniffs* Not only does he die and give the fanbase one non-lethal heart attack, they kill off his brother and probably send everyone back to the hospital for round two of heart failure.

I do however think the change over to the name Voltron was silly. Even though "Golion" was just a combination of two words, it has a more mystical feel to it.

Ideon:

I hate it when corporations cancel shows before they finish...rat b*******! *calms down* Yay, a movie deal though. That always makes things better, as long as they tidy it all up by the end of the movie too.

My personal victory: Yay! Harulu is killed! ...psycho crazy sister...

The ending was so ironic. Ideon was supposed to be used to protect innocents, and instead everyone gets blown up. But in a way ending all human-life could be good, especially if humanity breeds too much evil along. I actually like the ending a little too since it doesn't really end there (like you said, Gundam ZZ is the future of those souls that were saved, very interesting).

Baldios:

Regarding the whole "humanoid-alien" idea: since it reoccurs so much I just get the impression that animators are purposely lazy, lol. They could make a creative, interesting new race of aliens (since not every life form will evolve to have two awkward legs to stand on), but I think it's so much easier for them to just make more human aliens, that think mostly like Earthlings, move like us, and therefore are easy to animate. However, slug-like aliens, those might be easy to animate. =p

Zeo Gattler! How dare you give people who's name starts with "Z" a...bad name? *pummels Zeo*

THANK YOU, my prayers have been answered!

Now I know the ending is bad, but I just thought it was ironically funny that the fans were so sad that the anime ended on such a terrible note. So what do the writers do? Bring on tons of more destruction =). (This shouldn't be this funny to me and yet...)


*rocks back and forth waving my small torch of a lighter* You said a mouthful.

Sooo...I was reading this while waiting for my dang plane to even taxi out to the runway yesterday. Apparently some fool of an idiot passenger was found on the runway!? And somehow that added to the delay I was already experiencing for several stupid reasons. Anyway...thinking about Super Robots...and more importantly weapons that blew things up, was making me imagine some naughty things ^_^.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 25 2009, 4:55 PM

Nice to know you enjoyed them. ^_^

And granted, that Ideon/Gundam ZZ manga is supposedly *not* canon, but then there's Personal Canon, and in my case I say it *is* canon.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 27 2009, 1:03 AM

Argh. *shakes fist at Metal Gear Solid and its sweet boxes* YOU DELAY THIS!!!

Anyways, update for today is two of Tomino's three works between Ideon and Zeta Gundam, which share a few similarities to each other. First off is the swords-and-sorcery tale of Aura Battler Dunbine... a series notorious for goofy-sounding names in English. I mean... *really* notorious.

Dunbine was originally envisioned to be a sequel to Tomino's novel "The Wings of Rean", set in the fantasty world of Byston Well in a parallel dimension to Earth. His sponsors, however, pressured him to introduce a mecha element to the series, and Tomino decided to revise it into his third take on the Real Robot genre. Hence, Aura Battlers are created, small, insect-like suits of Powered Armor only a few meters high. Rather than have some kind of conventional power source, Aura Battlers are powered by the pilot's "Aura", effectively giving them unlimited running time as long as their pilot is still alive and has strength.

Our hero is the Japanese young man Show Zama, amateur motocross competitor and living in a dysfunctional family. All seems well until one night when he is dragged into Byston Well, conscripted to serve under the lord Drake Luft against a rebel faction led by a man named Nie Given. Bearing witness to Luft's barbaric practices, Show defects along with the powerful Aura Battler Dunbine, and proves to be a phenomenally good fighter due to his extremely strong Aura. He also sparks a tense and gradual relationship with Marvel Frozen, the daughter of Texan ranchers that had joined Given and fought with him several times in the first episodes until Show changed sides.

Rounding out the cast is the tiny fairy and Show's cheerleader Cham, the dastardly Drake who desires to unite Byston Well, his wife Louser and subordinate Bitshot Hate who in fact stringing him along and planning to seize power for themselves, Drake's daughter Riml who at least cares for Drake in her own way while seeing Louser for the horrible woman she is, Todd Guinness the American dork who grows to loathe and desire to defeat Show to give himself a purpose in life, and Burn Bunnings, who is initially Show's superior and mentor until Show changes sides and becomes his chief rival.

The story is also very melodramatic, with Show returning to Earth twice over the course of the series, one of which occurring during the invasion of Earth by Drake's forces at the end of the story. In both instances, his parents refuse to believe he is not an impostor and display nothing but hatred towards him. Show, during his battles, discovers his Aura Power is growing larger and larger and yet his control over it slips away just as much. This was also marked the second time in Real Robot history that there was a plain to see Mid Season Upgrade, where the protagonist would replace his old machine, for whatever reason, with a much more powerful model. In this case, Dunbine is severely damaged partway through the series, at which point he is supplied with the superior Billbine machine to replace it.

Anyways, the story is a noticeable return to Tomino's habit of killing copious parts of the cast near the end of the series. In fact, with the sole exception of Cham, *every* character is apparently killed off. However, it can be argued the cast merely returned to Byston Well after the day was saved at the cost of everyone's lives and the ending is generally considered more optimistic than that of Ideon.

It has also spawned two spin-off OVA series, a three-part sequel called Tale of Neo Byston Well released in 1988, and a reimagining of The Wings of Reas created by Tomino only a few years ago which included the element of Aura Battlers and proved much more optimistic due to Tomino having gotten over his depressions.

Dunbine helped mix two story elements together; Giant Robots and Fantasy, giving a unique spin that has only been rarely replicated. One of these instances was Escaflowne, popular more for its shoujo elements than anything else.

Anyways, after Dunbine, Tomino decided to create another Real Robot series, called Heavy Metal L-Gaim.



L-Gaim, in contrast to *many* Super and Real Robot stories, does not take place on Earth or in fact is even *connected* to Earth, instead located in the fictional Petagona System, fittingly with five planets.

In the backstory of L-Gaim, the planets were conquered by the evil Emperor Poseidall. Howver, he had since gone missing after defeating the king Kamon Wallha V, leaving one of his 24 generals in charge of his empire. The story picks up fifteen years later, focusing on the young man Daba Myroad and his friend Kyao Mirao who stumble upon a group of thieves searching for the exceptionally powerful Real Robot known as L-Gaim, only to get the machine for themselves. A battle rages and Doba wins, but due to his noble actions, Daba manages to inspire one of the thieves, the woman Amu Fanneria who decides to follow him.

Respecting the dying wishes of another thieve, Daba travels with Kyao and Amu proceed to then go on an adventure and then proceed to meet the Cham look-alike Lilith, believed to be a holdover from Dunbine due to Tomino and the staff having a soft spot for her. They also team up with the former Imperial soldier Gaw Ha Leccee, who ends up in a love triangle with Amu over Daba, and help spark a new resistance movement against the tyranny of the empire.

The story has a lot of twists and turns, and its noticeable portrayal that some of Daba's higher-ups in the resitance are not so noble, which would be carried over to Zeta Gundam's tone for corruption in the federation. The series also was the first time a Real Robot series had a robot with an internal "frame", with armor placed outside of, leading to a slightly more realistic portrayal which would later carry over to many more Super and Real Robot series like Evangelion. The series is also notable for its bittersweet ending, wherein the villain dies and all the protagonists survive in the end, but they sacrifice a lot in the struggles, especially Daba himself.

Nevertheless, these two lesser known series helped shape Tomino's later works, and the Real Robot genre as a whole and are perfectly respectable series in their own right.

Now, they haven't been in many SRW games, but there *is* another Banpresto series out there that features them on average many more times. This is Another Century's Episode, a series of three games with help by the same people that made Armored Core, which intended to stay true to the size and performance capabilities of the various series included. Dunbine and L-Gaim are featured in them, and so rather than supply choppy videos from old SRW games, enjoy Billbine and the L-Gaim Mk. II's vids from ACE!

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 29 2009, 2:31 AM

Sideburns's old girlfriend looks a lot like Relena from Gundam Wing.

Posted by: Asher Omega Jan 29 2009, 2:35 AM

wow she does. only the fact is Relena looks like a guy. and only once did she ever look feminine.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 29 2009, 2:39 AM

That's a better track record than Sailor Uranus.

Ooh! Burn!

Posted by: Zhanneel Jan 29 2009, 2:59 AM

Done reading everything I'm supposed to be reading! I think. *pant* *collapse*

The insect mechs in Dunbine are a really interesting spin on super robot animes. I applaud ^^. The way they fight in the opening seems pretty reminiscent of Gundam suits too.

(I don't know why my brain did this to me, but it had the misfortune of remembering another insect mech anime I had noticed on tv a few years back...awful, just epically awful. Does anyone else remember Spider Riders? It's only loosely paralleled to Dunbine it seems, but it had the main boy fighting with his spider bot on a distant world/place he was pulled into where he fights for some virtuous cause, blah blah blah.... I don't know why I'm linking this. Maybe because I really just need to share the pain of this opening theme song with someone.)

L-Gaim is probably more on par with endings I'm used to. I often read novels that still have a slightly upbeat ending (people live!) but through the travels they end up changing and sacrificing much. However, I like how some people have turned Tomino's endings on their heads and theorized the possibility that not all was lost (ie: The souls that were taken in Ideon was actually a pretty nice ending, one that can be argued as a good ending in fact). But just so everyone knows I hold no bad feelings toward Tomino, I think I can respect his endings if only because they really dig it in that war is BAD. And that's a nice message I think.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 29 2009, 3:26 AM

Well, Yoshiyuki Tomino had two series between the original Gundam and Dunbine. One of them was Ideon, and the other was Xabungle.

And yes, that pain is great. I understand why you would feel the need to share it to lessen its agony on you. As for understanding Tomino's habits, he only rarely kills people because he genuinely hates them. In most cases, he just feels he's writing a war story and wants to tell it *as* a war story. And his modern works (starting at Turn A Gundam), are all genuinely optimistic.

Posted by: Asher Omega Jan 29 2009, 3:28 AM

and after watching Overman King Gainer (quite a while ago) I can say that there wasn't a lot of depression with it.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 29 2009, 3:31 AM

Same goes for Xabungle. The various villains who are less than evil get to live in the end and most of them make peace with the heroes.

I'm pretty sure the only two villains that *do* die are Kashim and Timp. In both cases they deserve it.

Posted by: Asher Omega Jan 29 2009, 7:06 PM

oh I was watching Zeta with my bro yesterday and then this popped up on screen.

http://imageshack.us
By http://profile.imageshack.us/user/tlyskae

so Bandai is filled with Zeonic sympathizers. I knew it!

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 29 2009, 8:06 PM

Yes, but Banpresto has Federation and AEUG sympathizers. So it balances out.

That also explains why the villains from Victory Gundam were not connected with Zeon, Bandai had bought Sunrise and wanted their beloved Side 3 to get a break.

Posted by: Asher Omega Jan 30 2009, 7:51 PM

and while I finally got to a point where I actually was a little shocked in Zeta (NO MOUAR!) the episode before had this litte thing.

http://imageshack.us
By http://profile.imageshack.us/user/tlyskae

and http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vlcsnap466814vf8.png. but that image is a little risque.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 30 2009, 7:59 PM

That pervert Camille.

Nerve toxin... for your health it is A DANGAR.

Posted by: Asher Omega Jan 30 2009, 10:45 PM

I can see it now. in the future everyone will be speaking LOLCat.

but also he gets slapped for not paying attention to Gundam Fa's eyes.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Feb 2 2009, 5:41 PM

Update time. And this time, it's the big doozy. It was the third Super Robot anime I watched after Voltron and Escaflowne, fourth if you count Tekkaman Blade.

It was conceived as a Super Robot series made by Studio Gainax. Young director Hideki Anno, already famous for making Aim of the Top! Gunbuster decided to create a new series, with lots and lots of Chrisitian imagery thrown in just for ha-has since fanboys would debate about it for years to come. This series, created in 1995, would cast a shadow on the Super Robot genre, darkening it until the combined efforts of G Gundam, GaoGaiGar, and Gurren Lagann together would show the world the light again.

This series is Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Evangelion takes place in the year 2015, fifteen years after "Second Impact", where allegedly a comet crashed into the South Pole and destroyed the polar ice caps and threw nature out of balance. Much of the population was lost, and it's taken quite a while for humanity to get back up on its feet.

And then a giant monster called an "Angel", even though it looks nothing like one, comes and attacks Tokyo-3, laughing off the best efforts of the Japanese Self-Defense Force. A young boy, named Shinji Ikari, is present in the city, and after a weird and creepy encounter with a blue-haired, red-eyed girl that would grow to become the idol of fanboys for years to come, finds himself in the underground base known as the Geo Front.

Shinji's cold and detached father, Gendo, runs the special organization NERV, dedicated to fighting the Angels with giant robots called Evas. Pressuring weak-willed Shinji into piloting the production model known as Eva Unit 01, the tone is set. Our hero is not a hot-blooded hero like Mazinger's Kouji or Getter Robo's Ryoma, nor a mature and disciplined pilot like Baldios's Marin or Daitarn's Banjou. He is a boy, nervous, bumbling, unsure of himself, and struggling with his own cowardice and often thinking to himself "I mustn't run away." The other two, seemingly more capable pilots, are hot-headed German/American/Japanese prodigy Asuka Soryu Langly and the previously mentioned blue-haired, soft-spoken girl Rei Ayunami. They pilot Eva Units 02 and Unit 00 respectively.

There is also Shinji's classmates, the most important of which are nerdy military fanboy Kensuke, tough guy Touji, and the class rep Hikari. After initial misgivings and animosity upon learning Shinji is an Eva pilot, Touji and Kensuke befriend Shinji while the latter fantasizes about one day becoming an Eva pilot himself. Hikari also grows to be good friends with Asuka, and they are often shown playing Sega video games.

Becuase, you know, in 2015, Sega has completely annihilated competition in the Console Wars and is the sole remaining game-producing Superpower in the world. Yeah.

NERV ends up appointing the role of caretaker of Shinji and Asuka to the oft-flirty and alcoholic Captain Misato Katsuragi, her quirks initially played for laughs. Her best friend, Ritsuko Akagi, helped oversee construction of the Evas. Helping Ritsuko out during combat operations are three technicians, laid-back cool guy Shigeru, more uptight smart guy Makoto, and the chick Maya. In charge of it all, however, is Gendou Ikari, the jerk himself, who abstains from displaying any more than minimal affection for Shinji and embodying the Colbert ideal of a father must be distant and unpleasable. His old college professor Kozou Fuyutski is his second in command. When Asuka and Unit 02 arrive from Germany, Misato's old college boyfriend Kaji arrive with it as well.

The first half of the 26-episode series is noticably darker but still by the books. After his first two wins, the first by Unit 01 going berserk when all seemed lost and the second by Shinji himself refusing to retreat, and also a few problems with Misato, Shinji's house life becomes a bit quirky but still relatively normal. Even when Asuka moves in, it simply adds a comical "will they or won't they" element to their relationship.

However, over the course of these episodes, darker events begin gradually growing. It becomes clear early on that NERV and its parent organization SEELE have their own intentions. We learn about the twisted pasts of Misato and Ritsuko bit by bit, along with the fact of how messed up *everyone* is. The Angels are dispatched fairly easy thanks to military tactics designed to counter and outfox them, such using a powerful sniper rifle to dispose of the long-range themed 5th Angel, a tag-team dance routine between Shinji and Asuka to defeat the 7th, and a focused albeit improvised attack on the 9th.

Then things start... going downhill. Evangelion is often accused of taking this dark turn due to Anno undergoing a depression, but this is in fact a misconception. Anno had a depression during the *first* half of the series and was in fact going through extensive therapy during the second half. Asuka and Shinji's mothers, rarely discussed, are finally revealed to be dead or close enough due to being de facto casualties of the Eva project. Asuka suffers defeat after defeat and quickly becomes worse than useless in battle. Touji is appointed to be the pilot for the Eva Unit 03 only for it to be taken over by an Angel, forcing Shinji to nearly kill him. The berserker nature of Eva Unit 01 becomes more and more as dangerous to Shinji as it is the enemy Angels. Rei's twisted origin, intertwined with the death of both Shinji and Ritsuko's mother is revealed. Tokyo 3 is also subject to a lot of wear and tear over the series, culminating in most of the civilian population leaving for greener pastures. And then... Kaoru.

The final Angel takes the form of a human named Kaoru Nagisa, initially planned to replace the now catatonic Asuka who was found in a miraculously intact bathtub in a demolished building. He sparks a unique kind of relationship with Shinji, one fangirls continue writing dirty fics about to this day, arguably becoming the most sane individual in the series at that point and the only person capable of displaying genuine, unconditional love for Shinji thanks to nearly everyone else having a severe breakdown. Everyone that hasn't is essentially twirling their mustaches and waiting for their own evil schemes to be unveiled. So when Kaoru reveals his true identity and gets close to wiping out humanity, it falls on Shinji to put him down... an emotionally crippling event for the boy.

The last two episodes are surreal looks at the human psyche, becoming more and more confusing with each passing moment, although ending somewhat optimistically with Shinji finally capable of respecting and being proud of himself. Nevertheless, death threats were filed and people were in an uproar. The screwy conclusion can be attributed to a lost of sponsors, limiting Gainax's budget for these episodes. A similar fate befell Anno's previous work Gunbuster, forcing them to use stylized and black-and-white still images for parts of the final two episodes of that as well.

But for the fanboys wanting their fulfilling ending, all was not lost. Like Ideon before it, Evangelion got a pair of movies. One, similar to Ideon, recapped the series, adding a few new scenes in and helping explain things a little better. The other was...

The End of Evangelion. Literally. That was the name of the movie. The two are often billed together as "Death and Rebirth".

The movie, picking up after the end of the Shinji vs. Kaoru fight, shows mostly everybody is in a rut. Shinji's opening scene involves him over Asuka's hospital bed, where he... does things... to himself. Ritsuko, now quite nihilistic, is planning to have it all go out in a bang. Misato gets her act together to finally look into the truth about humanity and the Angels, for all the good it does her. And Gendo and Fuyutski, having taken certain steps in the series that gradually let us know they have a motive entirely separate from SEELE, know that the world at large are going to now become their enemies.

Japanese forces quickly attack NERV, bringing out everything in their arsenal up to the powerful, non-nuclear N2 mines. Gendou enacts his plan, killing Ritsuko in the process. Asuka finally regains her courage and faces the Japanese military, managing to defeat them before being killed brutally by the mass-produced Evas created by SEELE. Misato dies after convincing Shinji to try to make a difference.

He doesn't.

SEELE's plan, Instrumentality, is to bring humanity together into one united entity, Unit 01 critical to the plan. Gendou was using them as a means to reunite with Shinji's dead mother, for all the good that does. The power of Eva Unit 01, now outside of Shinji's control and the Mass Produced Angels bring about Instrumentality, turning all surviving humans into nothing more than goop, a primordial sea if it were. The end of the movie is another weird, psychedelic adventure with Shinji that is nearly the pinnacle of Mind Screw material, before ending with Shinji and a miraculously alive (although horribly injured and hence bandaged) Asuka on a beach, the only humans left in existence. We are assured though, that humans could return if they willed it.

The final scene features Shinji over Asuka's body, strangling her for a moment before gradually stopping, Asuka calling him "Pathetic."

Naturally, more hate mail and death threats followed. The series has been both called brilliant and idiotic, taking conventions of the Super Robot genre and playing them so painfully straight that they can only end in tragedy. Like Zambot 3 before it, Evangelion devolves into nothing but tragedy, humanity doomed thanks to the cast's inability to simply go to a therapist once in a while. It is also prime fanfiction material for the exact same reason, a common subgenre being Shinji going back in time to the start of the series and trying to correct his mistakes.

One notable, and infamous twist, however, is Shinji and Warhammer 40,000... where Shinji instead is a tremendous fanboy of the Crapsack World tabletop game and much more assertive. Even I dabbled in a screwy AU fic where the world was populated by the Angels and being attacked by the mysterious Evas... and their only hope were the gigantic Humangelions.

Anyways, it influenced the genre for years to come, and Martian Successor Nadesico could be considered a spiritual cousin to it, with similar characters that managed to be a little less screwy. The fact the same English dubbing casts worked for them helps, complete with a few shout-outs to Evangelion along the way.

ANYWAYS, Evangelion, as iconic as it was, was bound to get the Super Robot Wars treatment sooner or later, and was planned to be included in Super Robot Wars F/Final. Some of Anno's subordinates thought appearing in a kiddie game in chibi form would hurt Evangelion's image, but Anno would have nothing of it and gave the go-ahead anyways. Naturally, the more optimistic tone of the games means people get the mental help they deserve. They have since appeared in Alpha 1, Alpha 3, and MX afterwards. Shinji also becomes a much less wimpy character due to Bright Noah beating the crap out of him, to the point that at one point in Alpha 3, it is Shinji who does the yelling and attacking of someone else's cowardice. Many consider it Shinji's defining moment.

Here are all their attacks from Alpha 3. The sound gets a little mangled during the "dance attack".


In Alpha 3, you could also unlock the powerful F-Type Equipment for Eva Unit 01, based on one of the show's models, by following a number of steps. Here's the video for it as well. The volume's a bit loud, so turn down your speakers.

Posted by: Asher Omega Feb 2 2009, 6:57 PM

I don't want to be come tang.

Posted by: P-girl Feb 2 2009, 7:03 PM

Ah, the (in)famous series called Neon Genesis Evangelion.... I'm always torn. I really, really liked the light-hearted, action packed episodes (Asuka and Shinji's synchrome battle episode is one of the funniest/coolest things ever, as was the first battle with EVA 02) however, the gradually darkening tone.... can't say it's good or bad, however, it was bad for my psyche. I won't lie, I'm very suspectible for a mood in tv-series, movies or books, and the final episodes of Evangelion really messed me up for a good couple of weeks. (I don't even WANT to know what happens if I watch End of Evangelion, and I've been avoiding it like the plague, I admit, I'm scared.)

Posted by: MorriganAensland Feb 2 2009, 8:41 PM

Rofl.

End of Evangelion is screwy. Like, really screwy. That's why in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, during Instrumentality, your guys say "screw this!" and beat some sense into Shinji.

But if Evangelion messed you up, I suggest you go and watch SoulTaker. It is screwy in a way that causes Evangelion to actually make sense. Not too shabby a series either, and it is very nice in terms of aesthetics.

But you should watch GaoGaiGar, P-Girl. It is everything Evangelion isn't, AND it's got guys that are essentially Transformers in it.

Posted by: Asher Omega Feb 2 2009, 9:19 PM

Piece of advice for you P-Girl, avoid these series: Naru Taru (or Shadow Star to americans), Bokurano, and Now and Then; Here and There. you'd probably want to find a hole to crawl into and never leave. they are That depressing.

I'm just glad we haven't gotten into some of the side stories or re-tellings, and some of them get rather screwy.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Feb 9 2009, 6:36 PM

Well, I made a promise a ways off that I would be more than an anime fanboy and just cover Japanese mecha shows. Today is the day I back up that promise.

The year was 1983. For a long years, Japanese toy firm Bandai had a stranglehold grip on the market of small vehicles that turned into giant robots with their Machine Robo lineup. American toy company Hasbro wished to get in on the craze and during a visit to a Japanese toy show and decided that perhaps Japanese toy company Takara's own transforming robot lines might have a chance in the States. Buying the rights to distribute the toys in America, Hasbro decided to integrate the various lines into one to avoid confusion amongst buyers. Thanks to having good relations with Marvel Comics, they commissioned the comic company to draft up a story and names for the characters.

To help spread the word, a television series and comics were made, along with other tie-in materials. The result was Transformers, which came out in 1984.

Now although the Transformers are self-aware, but they're still giant robots. I dare anyone to dispute this fact with me. And even though I'm wholly relying on Wikipedia, I better make this a good one, or P-Girl is going to kill me. And just so this doesn't kill me, I'm only tackling Generation 1 and Beast Wars and also covering a little bit about Animated. I am *not* getting into the Japanese continuity as a whole, http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Japaneseflowchart.jpg.

Anyways, the premise initially was pretty basic. Four million years ago, the planet Cybertron was home to the cybernetic individuals called Transformers. They ended up getting caught in bitter war between the more peaceful Autobots that wished for coexistence with other worlds, and the more militaristic and evil Decepticons. Their leaders are the still-iconic Optimus Prime and Megatron, who played the role of primary hero and villain respectively, or at least at first.

The Autobots attempted to search for another world with a power source on board the Ark, however the Decepticons ambushed them in hopes of getting a decisive victory. The result was anything but. Both craft crash-landed on Earth, the Ark in a volcano, and lay dormant for all those hundreds of thousands of years. A chance volcano eruption awoke the Ark's computer in the year 1984, at which point it scanned for organisms so that the Autobots could go around without arousing attention. Catch is, it was not familiar with the notion of Carbon-based life and based these "disguises" off of machines. The Decepticons also awoke at about this time.

Both sides ended up allying with humans as well, the Autobots becoming friends with the young Spike Witwicky and his father after Optimus Prime saved them and the Decepticons allying with the old Super Robot staple of the mad scientist, this time named Dr. Arkeville. Naturally the Witcky family were genuine friends with the Autobots, whilst Arkeville was planning on using the Decepticons for his own gains and to further his ambitions, eventually betraying them when Megatron's plans ran counter to his own. Because, you know, friendship and loyalty can't go with being evil. Blame Megatron and his evil ambitions.

Anyways, the stories were usually episodic and the Autobots were nearly always victorious. To keep things interesting however, the Autobots and the Decepticons were always escalating the conflict (read that as introducing more characters for pushing merchandise) but the Decepticons also managed to score victories off-screen or through indirect battles, eventually seizing control of Cybertron.

A movie was also launched in 1986, which took place in the distant future of 2005 where the Decepticons clearly had the advantage. In a brave charge, the Autobots attacked the planet and managed to retake it, Optimus Prime defeating Megatron in a duel at the cost of his life. This "Death of Optimus Prime" thing would be repeated a lot in many other continuities. It was also meant to be permanent, but parents were screaming Bloody Murder and their children were going to hang themselves, so he was eventually revived... LATER. Along with Optimus Prime, more than a few Autobots and Decepticons also bit the bullet, something that the writers couldn't get away with in the cartoon due to censorship rules.

Anyways, that was not really the whole point of the movie, since there was also the revelation of the Quintessons, those that made the Transformers and Cybertron in the first place, and the villainous Unicron. Who was like Galactus, except a robot. And his name is an anagram of "Unicorn", and hence one of my friends can't take him seriously for that reason alone. How anyone cannot take someone seriously if they were ever voiced by Orson Welles (the man's last role, incidentally) is beyond me. Megatron is also revived by Unicron into the even more powerful Galvatron, and the Autobot Hot Rod eventually takes up the mantel (and Matrix) of Leadership to become the new Rodimus Prime and lead the Autobots.

Season 3 picked up where the movie left off, complete with more space travel and visiting more planets than just Earth, which would be repeated in future series not related to the G1 timeline. It was also meant to have an entirely new cast until the designers realized doing so would mean discontinuing a LOT of models, so they decided that not all the main characters necessarily *had* to die. Optimus Prime eventually returned too to reclaim the "main character" chair from Rodimus. After that, in various stories you could count on the Optmius Prime character to die once, or at least get really injured and be put out of commission.

Anyways, my memories of G1 are sparse because I rarely was able to watch it, and I was young. Now Transformers Beast Wars was a different thing altogether. And I can't find a good vid for its opening on youtube.

Anyways, Beast Wars takes place in a bit of a weird time thing. The Autobots and the Decepticons have long since "upgraded" into being Maximals and Predacons, with another Megatron at the helm of the bad guys. Having information on a mysterious golden disc, Megatron plans to use this for evil on his ship. A group of Maximals are sent after him, let by the much more aggressive and not as upright successor to Optimus Prime, Optimus Primal.

During a battle, the two ships get sent back in time, the Maximal ship deploying a bunch of Stasis Pods before crashing which contained underdeveloped Transformers. Over the course of the series, Stasis Pods would come down to Earth along with developed Maximals (or occasionally Predacons if the bad guys got to them first) and were used to introduce new characters. The transformation element was incorporated by explaining "raw" energon would cause the Transformers to short out if they were in their robot form for extended periods of time, so they adopted new "disguises" more for the sake of being able to function rather than having to hide. Since there were no machines, they based themselves off of nearby animals or at least the fossilized remains of them.

Plot developments and interactions with the mysterious aliens known as the Vokk also helped change things up enough for Hasbro to be able to introduce new toy line ideas.

Beast Wars was entirely in CG, which kinda worked since it was *entirely* in CG, rather than having the stupid idea of incorporating conspicuous CG with live-action or animated materials... something I curse Sci-Fi's b-movies and modern cartoons on both sides of the Pacific for. It also had Dinobot, someone I thought was really cool, and I curse myself for having missed the opportunity to watch the episode where he heroically sacrifices himself.

Oh, speaking of that. Beast Wars had the guts to include genuine death in a kid's show and treated it with a great level of maturity. In some cases, it was merely to get boring or uninteresting characters out of the way (like Terrasaur and Scorpinok at the start of season 2) while other times it just came with the territory of making a war story. Nevertheless, at story's end, things were all patched up nicely and justice prevailed.

And there was no Beast Machines. Ever. And even if it did somehow get to the drawing board, it would've been immediately canceled because people would realize its head writer deliberately disregarded the canon of Beast Wars and the character personalities because "He wanted to write his own story" and didn't want anything to get in the way. So yeah. Never happened.

It did, however, have a number of Japanese sequels, which may or may not be worth your time watching. I don't know, because I haven't really looked into them.

There was also the Transformers movie of 2007, which retooled some events and was generally considered a success thanks to making the transformations look believable and not campy. It included the return of a Witwhicky, called Sam because naming someone called "Spike" now seems kinda weird unless the guy reeks of awesomeness and kicking everyone's butt, along with the idea that Megatron crashed here more than a century ago and pretty much all technology in existence nowadays is thanks to reverse engineering him. They also got the original Optimus Prime and Megatron guys to reprise their roles, IIRC, which is a great homage to the original series. The military was also not completely useless and responsible enough to realize the Autobots were our allies eventually and helped them out.

I saw it and I liked it. P-Girl also liked it, and my one friend gushed over it like a rabid fangirl before making a fanfiction idea of "Handlers" and "Frames", IIRC, that is currently spreading like a virus on fanfiction.net. She also went into Uber-Fangirl mode during the Superbowl commercial for the sequel movie.

ANYWAYS, there's also Transformers Animated, which has a bit of a unique... animation style...



Naturally there was a bit of an outcry from the fan community due to this style, but the show has since redeemed itself due to intelligent writing. Well, that and having the awesomely large ham David Kaye who did Megatron in Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and the Unicron trilogy anime voice Optimus. This Optimus is also much younger... and wields an axe, no less.

The axe is also a bit of an interesting thing. Most of the protagonists were not meant to be for combat, finding the fabled MacGuffin called the Allspark by pure accident and only then getting embroiled in the war against the Decepticons. Optimus Prime himself is a bit of a rookie leader and learning as he goes along as well and his axe is literally the only weapon amongst the protagonist arsenal initially intended for combat. His "subordinates" are all wash-ups that were just cleaning space bridges... and now they're suddenly up against the battle-seasoned and frighteningly capable Decepticon soldiers. The result is the quite reasonable and expected idea that in an all-out exchange, logic dictates the Decepticons would wipe out our heroes, so they usually only have to worry about one or two at a time instead. Even then, the fights are all uphill.

Another thing that keeps the Decepticons as genuine threats is the inclusion of lots of human villains. This gives the show a bit of a superhero element to it, but when is that necessarily a bad thing? It seems to be doing well, and that's the important thing.

Tragically, Transformers will probably never end up in a SRW game, or anything by Banpresto. This is mainly due to the fact that Takara and Bandai are still rivals to this day and the only Takara-related product that got in a SRW game was GaoGaiGar, which was made in collaboration with Sunrise, which in turn is owned by Bandai, which in turn owns Banpresto.

But a man can dream though. And besides, the King of Braves GaoGaiGar has more than a few Transformers trappings in the designs of some of its robots.

Oh, and Machine Robo? The series that was selling like hotcakes? Well, it's got its niche in history and a semi-decent first anime, but the rest of it is totally ignorable. Oh, how the mighty fell.

Posted by: P-girl Feb 9 2009, 7:04 PM

This was a truly nice piece, Morrigan, so I'm not going to kill you. (That, and I'm probably one of the more mellow ones, who knew a fanbase based on toys could be so scary?)

The best part of Transformers, in my eyes, is that it keeps renewing itself, while keeping the key part (Autobots vs. Decepticons) intact. They keep changing the balance of power (In G1 and Beast Wars, the stakes were equal. In the 2007 movieverse it was quite equal, but the Decepticons were obviously top tier (With the gleaming heap of pure death that was Megatron on top). And then came Animated, where the Autobots are basically screwed if you just look at sheer power. (Ultra Magnus, the highest Autobot leader seen up to date (And modelled after Thor, a freakin' GOD, was taken down by Starscream in one blow)

That's what I like; it keeps evolving into new things, leading in new fans while being quite nice to the older ones. (Transformers Animated is filled to the brim with shoutouts and homages to G1, Beast Wars and the Movie.)

And of course, you can't go wrong with Starscream, one of the best known animated traitors ever, if one of the lesser effective. (4 continuities and STILL not the big boss, that's gotta take special talent.)

But I'm ranting. Good job, and luckily you kept away from the 'RUINED FOREVER'! Trope. I hate that one.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Feb 9 2009, 7:09 PM

Oh, Transformers is much to expansive for someone to not find a part of it not to like. Same goes with Gundam.

Posted by: P-girl Feb 9 2009, 7:14 PM

That's true, altough most of us are trying our very best to make sure 'Kiss Players' is erased from history. Because..... yeah.....

Oh, one more thing; While Peter Cullen DID reprise his voice as Optimus Prime (And for once made every fan agree on the awesomeness.), Megatron was voiced by Hugo Weaving, because they didn't think the old voice would fit with the new Megatron. They did get the original voice in the game, tough.

Posted by: Zhanneel Feb 12 2009, 7:18 PM

Hey....I'm late ^^.

I enjoyed this last topic immensely. Go figure because it's namely a western style cartoon. But I recall most of the franchise just as you put it and I agree with you on pretty much everything.

CG mixed with animation is vomitrocious. I'm particularly thinking of Dinosaur King, that lame mix of generic anime kids and a bunch of dinosaurs that appear in a grotesque CG style.

Also, Beast Machines? I don't know what you're talking about. *lobotomized that part of my brain* And if there ever was one it was a massacre of what the Beast Wars developers had worked so hard to achieve.

As for any other Japanese sequels I don't think you're missing much. The 80s cartoon and Beast Wars were by far the best anyway. *flashback* I remember watching Beast Wars every morning before school. I think I even got up extra early (6am it came on?), grabbed a bowl of cereal, and sat on the couch telling everyone in the house to be quiet (if they were up yet) xD.

Transformers (The Movie 2007): I did like this movie. The CG and action were phenomenal. But...and yes there's a "but". Personally, I could have used a lot less of the Sam character (and the eye candy =p) and more of the Transformers themselves. Like maybe they could have talked more? (and refrained from using horrible pop-culture slang...poor Jazz) I guess I was hoping they'd make it more reminiscent of the old cartoon. But like with the new G.I. Joe movie coming out, that's not going to happen.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Feb 12 2009, 8:29 PM

Yeah, the movie did focus too much on Sam. Other than that though, it was still great.

And I fondly remember watching Beast Wars when I was in elementary school. Voltron would be on at 8:00 on Saturday and Beast Wars would be on at 8:30, and I'd always watch both of them. My cousin also managed to get his hands on a few Voltron toys when he was younger and the series was having its initial run in America and gave them to me. Those were good times.

And since I'm fairly certain it had some effect in inspiring G Gundam, I'm also doing the American live-action movie Robot Jox, which as the name implies, involves Robots and Jocks. In that order.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Feb 17 2009, 12:28 AM

Following up with my Transformers summary last week, focus will now be turned to the aftermath of the end of Transformers Generation 1. Takara's own anime shows tying into the Transformers continuity struggled to capture an audience and interest in the toys was slipping. Eager to prove they were not a one-trick pony (granted, that pony's one trick lasted for almost eight years), they contacted Sunrise Productions, creators of Gundam, and discussed making a new series.

The result was the Braves metaseries, each show taking place in a separate continuity yet all possessing a few similar themes. The last of them was the genuine runaway hit, but I will at least briefly discuss the others.

The first in the series aired in 1990, and was called Brave Exkaiser. It is easily the most "Transformers-esque" of the franchise, which is a perfectly valid point. Takara literally took a number of Transformers toys that weren't selling well, revised and renamed them, and used them for this show. The premise involved the villainous robots known as the Geisters coming to Earth in search of various "treasures", with the Kaisers, a group of space policemen, following them.

Unlike the Transformers, however, they were not designed to change in and out of two modes and had to instead possess vehicles. Exkaiser himself ended up possessing a family car, and his identity was quickly discovered. The young boy in the family grew to develop a strong bond with Exkaiser, creating a dynamic between the two that had been missing in Transformers. This would set a precedence in the Brave metaseries, wherein there would be focus put both on the giant robot hero and also a young boy, the two having a relationship which would vary from series to series, be it a brotherly, paternal, or just friendly connection. Exkaiser also drew inspiration from the old 1979 anime Future Robo Daltanius, having a lion's head jutting out of the chest of Exkaiser. This convention would carry over throughout the Braves metaseries.

The next series, which aired immediately after Exkaiser with Fighbird.



Brave Sunfighter Fighbird took some of the conventions of Exkaiser and refined them. Once again, there was a space police force -although it was not in the same continuity as Exkaiser-, and once again, bad guys had come to Earth. This time, our hero ends up possessing a remarkably humanoid android who then combined with the airplane called the Fire Jet to become Fighbird. Fighbird and most of his friends also are supplied with combat machines to possess by a brilliant scientist, the nephew of which serves as the kid hero for the series this time. Fighbird was also less serious and had a great deal of humor at times, mainly dealing with Fighbird coping with interacting with humans.

After which came Da-garn.



In stark contrast to Exkaiser and Fighbird, Da-garn put a *tremendous* amount of stress on its heroic boy Seiji, who instead was a bit older and was at home for extended periods of time without parental supervision. The robots were also not aliens this time, but in fact guardian spirits of the Earth summoned to oppose the powerful alien invaders. Seiji would actually lead them into battle and oversee their actions, essentially becoming more than a Witwhicky expy and required to pull his own weight. The alien generals themselves all took a page from Starscream's book as well, each plotting and having their own agendas meaning that although they might ally with their comrades for the sake of conquering Earth, they would do it only for the sake of their own agenda.

Da-gar helped create the arc-driven Super Robot genre, meaning the stories weren't episodic and the villains weren't beat down every week. Battles could last several episodes on end, and were much more serious than those in Exkaiser or Fighbird by a wide margin. This would be inspiration for later installments of the metaseries.

The series ended on a grimmer note, allowing a number of the protagonists to die a-la Gundam, but Da-garn was still well received and another Brave series was made, Gaine.



Brave Express Might Gaine, as you can see, includes lots of trains. Like its preceding series, Gaine built on ideas presented previously while bringing something new to the table; specifically character-driven plotlines. The machines themselves are advanced AI systems developed by yet another brilliant scientist, meant to oppose criminal networks that desire world domination. Like in Da-garn, the villains all have their own agendas and the stories include infighting amongst them. The little kid this time is Senpuuji Maito, the scientist's son, amateur crime-fighter, and railroad magnate... like Batman, in some ways. Like Seiji before him, he leads the robots into battle and does more than just stand around and cheer.

However, Sunrise and Takara were getting into a bit of a bitter point in their relations, Sunrise finding new love for plots that didn't hinge entirely on stuff blowing up and big battles, and Takara wanting to sell more toys. Takara forced many characters to be introduced for no reason, and have pointless transformations as well. Sunrise got fed up with this all and lashed out, although they had also been bought by Bandai this time and it is possible that the demands from two toy companies at the same time pushed a few too many people too far. This culminated in an ending where Senpuuji discovers he and everyone he knows are fictional creations of an evil toy company using them to push merchandise, the final battles resulting in Senpuuji defeating his creators and defining his own existence.

In spite of this... jarring criticism of Takara, the two still joined up to continue the franchise, this time with J-Decker.



Brave Police J-Decker was a step back towards less-dramatic storytelling yet still kept hold of some of Gaine's conventions, like the AI programs meant to defend humanity. Grade-schooler Yuuta Tominaga ends up meeting the police robot Decker and decides to be his friend. The informal interactions inspire Decker to take on human characteristics and develop a personality of his own. Yuuta soon joins the Brave Police force, helping out the other robots too as the battled the forces of evil.

After that came the most popular Brave series up till that point, Goldran.



The Brave of Gold Goldran was... well, a *huge* step back in terms of seriousness, instead just being a very comical story with little plot but with a big sense of fun and adventure. The basic premise is three boys traveling around and awakening giant robots in crystals, known as Braves. Their principle enemy wasn't that dangerous or really evil, and the same went for his subordinates. This lack of a general plot helped kids keep track of everything, leading it to having the best television ratings among its young viewership.

Anyways, after that came a radical divergence from the usual formula, Dagwon.



The year is 1996, and Ronin Warrior's popularity persuades Sunrise's developers to make a Braves series where there's a bunch of kids and they end up becoming the giant robots. A bunch of kids, recruited by the space police, are empowered to be able to turn into Dogwan to fight against intergalactic criminals that escaped to Earth. Though there were robots that would combine with them, they didn't really have much intelligence and there was no "bonding" motif like in the previous Braves.

Anyways, by this time Evangelion was raping the premises of the Super Robot genre... and we needed a hero to remind us things weren't always dark and horrible... we needed...

GAOGAIGAR!!!!!!!



The King of Braves GaoGaiGar was a return, after Evangelion's hellish portrayal of the battles against evil, to old-school dynamics. The heroes were courageous and good people, the villains were nefarious, and victory went to those with the willpower to claim it.

It's the future! And a childless couple, on a winter night, run into a giant mechanical lion called Galeon and presented a young baby they name Mamoru. Mamoru grows up to be an ordinary kid, until one day during a field trip to a landfill, a mechanical monster known as a "Zonder", only to be saved by a red-haired cyborg named Gai Shishioh. Gai combines with the newly awakend Galeon before combining with a giant drill, a stealth bomber, and a bullet train, collectively known as the Gao machines, to become GaoGaiGar! Soldier of the Gutsy Geoid Guard, Gai is determined to defeat the Zonders who desire to take over the world.

Mamoru is quickly shown to have powers of his own, freeing the "cores" of Zonders that are in fact human, and also supplying Gai with additional strength when his cybernetics went through a great deal of stress in the first few episodes. The GGG forces oversee actions from the sidelines, commanding and offering advice the the robots that do battle... and the robots are all pretty cool. There's the fire and ice duo EnRyu and HyoRyu, who combine together and serve a support and rescue role in the battles, the more intellectual and quiet Volfogg who serves as Mamoru's bodyguard, the powerful Goldymarg who transforms into a hand for GaoGaiGar so he can safely wield his hammer, the Engrish-spouting Mic Sounds 13th who attacks with sound, and the Chinese successors to the Ryus, FuuRyu and RaiRyu.

The series had a large cast, as you can see, and that's just the robots. Mamoru also had a whole host of friends and school and there were plenty of people working at GGG as well. The plot and the characters ended up quickly going over the heads of little kids and resulted in low television ratings, but older viewers began in and the writers found their audience. The first 24-ish episodes are standard-fair, but after that point things improve greatly in terms of quality, returning to Da-garn's multi-episode battles. The series has some great battles, requiring a lot of strategy and everyone working together, and nobody ever seems to be really just "there".

GaoGaiGar's DVD sales were phenomenal, enough to spawn several games, an inclusion into SRW in Alpha 2, side-story mangas, audio dramas, and a side-story. A de-facto sequel, Betterman, takes place in the same continuity and includes one character from GaoGaiGar (the older brother of one of Mamoru's friends), although is much more horror-themed. After that came an 8-part sequel OVA, GaoGaiGar FINAL, finishing off the story once and for all with a bittersweet yet still fulfilling conclusion.

I've watched GaoGaiGar, and it is truly great. If you want something to cheer you up if you've seen Evangelion, go with GaoGaiGar. The story might start a little weak, but the writing *will* improve.

And now, to finish this off, the attack exhibition of Genesic GaoGaiGar from SRW Alpha 3! WHOO!!!!

Posted by: MorriganAensland Feb 23 2009, 4:35 PM

With this installment, I return to the world of Western works that include giant robots... and considering how close I am to covering G Gundam, I thought it would be appropriate to cover one of the stories that probably helped inspire it. It was a movie made in 1990. A movie called...

Robot Jox.



Fifty years prior to the start of the movie, the world engages in a brutal nuclear war. The resulting destruction was so crippling that all-out war was hence forbidden by the world at large to provide the Earth a means of recovering its strength, no matter how gradually. The problems of the Cold War still exist, however, with the US-esque Western Market and the communist state known as the Russian Confederation. To avert the possibility of another nuclear war, all conflicts are declared to be resolved in one-on-one gladatorial battles.

In giant robots.

Giant robots, with motion-capture technology. Used to settle political disputes. So humanity doesn't resort to war again. Call me crazy, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to believe that someone at Sunrise had seen it and thought "We could make a Gundam story like this!"

What's even more scary is that the two writers in charge had drastically differing views on how it should go. The main writer wanted a more serious story that would appeal to adults, the director wanting something trite and almost childlike. Thankfully, the producers stepped in and sided with the writer. G Gundam had a similar quirk, with the director wanting to tell a serious story with the producers wanting something trie and childlike, and the writers stepping in and (mostly) siding with the director.

Anyways, those that pilot the robots are known as Jox, and their life is a dangerous one. To make sure they don't back down or run away if scared, each Jox's contract requires they participate in ten fights. However, this along with the tough life on the de-facto battlefield, makes many just want to get through those ten fights alive and get on with their lives. Our hero, a man named Achilles, is one of them. To date, the only jox that has survived his entire run is the now middle-aged Tex Conway, one of the people on Achilles's support team. Oddly enough, spectators still come to watch it like a form of entertainment.

Achilles is considered the best pilot ever in the Western Market, but he just wants to end his career. He's gotten through nine matches, painfully watching from the sidelines as the other members of his team have been killed in battle against the Confederation pilot Alexander. There has been mentioning of a spy in the Western Market, leaking technical details for their machines to Alexander's support team and the Confederation in general, which the repeated defeats of the Market jox is attributed to. The Confederation's next target is reaquiring Alaska, with Achilles's final fight in his career being against Alexander. The battle initially starts off at a distance, the machines approaching each other and using projectile weapons before they are disabled for melee battle. The fight is fairly even at first, but during the close-range battle, Alexander uses a projectile attack, a Rocket Punch, which is an illegal move. The attack misses its mark and moves to hit a bunch of bleachers, Achilles using his machine to try to stop it only to get knocked back and fall on the bleachers. Lots of people die.

This causes an uproar, the match being declared a draw and a rematch scheduled. Achilles, fed up with the lifestyle, still stand by the fact his match with Alexander was his tenth and he's entitled to retirement. This gets him a lot of negative publicity, but it also gives a Market scientist the opportunity to push his own line of "Gen Jox", robot pilots that have been augmented by genetic engineering. Athena, the star Gen Jox and the first female jox ever, his scheduled to fight in his place against Alexander. This news hits him kinda hard, and he worries she might die. Achilles returns, agreeing to one more fight, which infuriates Athena to no end due.

Achilles meets up with his support team again, only to discover (along with Conway) that his new robot's deisgns are being kept under lock and key. Conway is furious about this, and we find out not too much later that he is the spy for the Confederation. Killing the robot's designer and claiming HE was the spy, Conway thinks he's home free.

The day of the fight, Athena drugs Achilles and goes off to face Alexander instead. Against his new machine, she struggles badly and is eventually defeated, but Achilles steps in, first revealing that the designer recorder Conway killing him secretly, and also taking her place in the machine. Conway commits suicide and Alexander is disqualified, but the Russian jox refuses to stand down and continues dueling Achilles. Using a damaged machine, Achilles is at a disadvantage as he still tries to keep up with Alexander, managing to land some blows but unable to do serious damage. Eventually Achilles is forced to abandon his machine after it gets disabled, getting an idea when he spots Alexander's machine's severed arm (the only damage Athena did to him) on the battlefield. Hotwiring it, Achilles successfully fires it and destroys Alexander's machine with a well-placed Rocket Punch, but Alexander survives. The two of them then engage in an weary and undignified fistfight, each one injuring the other badly until Achilles finally gets Alexander on the ground, finally convincing him they don't have to fight to the death.

I have to admit, the robot movements in 1990 are very well done for that time. Granted, not on par with the likes of Jurassic Park, but the machines moved around a lot and were not outlandish in their occasional transformation sequences. The story itself, like many around its time, was meant to humanize the Soviets and their communist beliefs; capable of being horrible people, but still people we should still try to reach out to and help. Alexander is the only member of the Russian Confederation we actually see on screen, and the only other villain was a member of the Western Market adhering to the capitalist idea of working with the highest bidder. I've seen some of the movie, but not all of it, and relied entirely on its wikipedia page for this entry.

Special mention goes to Brian Clevenger of Nuklearpower fame for letting me know this movie exists, even if he doesn't know I exist. ^_^

Obviously, this has yet to appear in a SRW game, and probably never will. Boo-hoo.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 2 2009, 10:13 PM

Well, having been focused on American-inspired works for the past three weeks (The Braves metaseries was inspired by Transformers, after all) I think it's time to wrap it up with, without a doubt, the most recent and most amazing Western Super Robot show made in recent years, a show I was lucky enough to actually catch the pilot of when it was fighting for the right to get approved and picked up by Cartoon Network. A show that held nothing sacred on either side of the Pacific...

MEGAS XLR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Megas XLR, drafted up by the creators of MTV's cartoon show Downtown after it got canceled, is an out and out comedy. The entire plot itself is fairly screwy, and granted it USUALLY sticks to a formula, it doesn't let things like that get in the way of laughs.

The year is 3037, and humanity is waging a desperate war against the military might of the highly advanced Glorft. With the possibility of turning around the war in the present growing dimmer and dimmer with each battle, humanity decides to send the machine back into the future... only to send it TOO far back, into the year 1936. This machine, called the Mecha Earth Guard Attack System, or MEGAS, is left in a refuse pile until current-day slob and slacker Coop finds it and buys it for two dollars after being told "Everything in that pile is two bucks." Except he never actually PAYS those two bucks. Ever.

Loving the idea of having a robot, Coop fixes it back up using lots of old video game controllers and replacing its missing head with an entire *car*... and just in time for one of the resistance members from the future, Kiva to arrive and demand it back. Unfortunately, the Glorft have since located its position in time and attack it, only for Kiva to realize due to Coop's RAMPANT modifications, he's the only one that can pilot it. After Coop uses MEGAS, or as he calls it, "XLR" (Extra Large Robot) to demolish the Glorft attack force, Kiva decides to at least try to get the materials to return to the future while Coop uses his machine for whatever, along with having fun with his best friend and fellow-slacker Jamie.

The stories were episodic, but loved taking cheap shots at sci-fi culture of both Japan and America, often mocking various genres of anime and even specific shows, such as including look-alies for Brave Raideen and Sailor Moon along with a parody of one of the America-localized versions of the Ninja Science Team Gatchaman called the S-Force. They even managed to get Optimus Prime and Megatron's original voice actors to pitch in for one episode.

MEGAS itself was, well... absurd, loaded with dozens and dozens of weapons such as the entire bow of the Yamato from Space Cruiser Yamato (Wave Motion Cannon included), an *inverted* version of Voltron's Blazing Sword (whacking the enemy with the "hilt" rather than the "blade"), and lots and lots of missiles. A running gag actually involved Coop having a button that would do whatever he wanted it to, and the show deliberately acknowledging it once with the button's label reading "The same button Coop pressed five minutes ago."

The series tragically was canceled after two measly seasons and not even thirty episodes, but it is nonetheless well-remembered and loved, and is currently having a third season being told via comics thanks to DC picking up the license. Give the series a look if you ever want to watch something utterly silly... you won't be disappointed. And for those well-versed in giant robots and anime, it becomes all the sweeter. Unfortunately, it will probably never get a SRW appearance.

Posted by: P-girl Mar 2 2009, 11:02 PM

This is one of those series that tragically never even makes it to Holland because they're cancelled before you know it. (Or luckily, considering we have some VERY bad voice acting talent and a 'We dub everything!'-policy.)

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 2 2009, 11:25 PM

Ouch. I've heard some horror stories on TV Tropes about bad European dubs.

This one website I did find, however, does have the original MEGAS raws intact, though, if you want to take a look at them.

Posted by: P-girl Mar 3 2009, 6:33 AM

Oooh! Can I have the adress, please? *Is really curious.*

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 3 2009, 1:24 PM

Well, I WAS going to suggest one video website... but they've got a lot of... stuff... there that wouldn't be appropriate and it looks like they only have a few episodes anyways.

Go to google and punch in "site:Megaupload.com MEGAS XLR", you should find episodes in the search result.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 9 2009, 6:04 PM

Update for some of Go Nagai's works are coming up. That being said...



This week, I'm covering a few of Go Nagai's lesser works... really the ones that there are wiki entries for. The first one I'm going over is Kotetsu Jeeg.

Kotetsu Jeeg, literally Steel Jeeg, came out in 1975 a few months after Getter Robo G started. It was the third Super Robot anime that Go Nagai had a hand in, and just like Mazinger Z and Getter Robo before it, it helped break new ground for the genre.

Our hero is the young adult and ace car racer Hiroshi Shiba, son of a world-famous professor and archeologist. While his father is away on a trip, Hiroshi ends up nearly getting killed in an accident. On his deathbed, Hiroshi's father comes to his rescue after returning from a dig, working to rebuild Hiroshi into a cyborg. He then reveals to Hiroshi that when he was investigating some ruins of Japan's Yamata Kingdom (based on the real-life Japanese kingdom that started the process of uniting the country), he discovered a small bronze bell which held amazing powers in it, along with the fact mankind would soon be under attack.

Queen Himika of the Yamata Kingdom (based off the real-life Queen Himiko and resembling Sister Jill from Go Nagai's previous work Cutie Honey), has since become a demon, waiting for a time to reclaim the Earth in her name. Supported by three generals and legions of Clay Phantoms, it falls on Hiroshi to save the day. Not by piloting a giant robot, but technically *becoming* one. Inside of Hiroshi's body, Professor Shiba has placed the bronze bell, enabling Hiroshi to turn into the head of a gigantic (well, compared to other giant robots not really) robot, which would then combine with various parts held together with strong magnets. This machine is called Kotetsu Jeeg. Professor Shiba's lab assistent and Hiroshi's love interest Miwa "Micchi" Uzuki pilots his support craft, the Big Shooter, which launches the other parts of Jeeg so that Hiroshi can combine with them.

This gave Jeeg an interesting nature. Whereas if Getter Robo or Mazinger Z got trashed badly, it might mean game over for the battle, Hiroshi could continue fighting as long as Jeeg's head wasn't destroyed. Jeeg's body got totaled lots of times, but thanks to the fact replacement parts were always stored in the Big Shooter, that wasn't much of a loss. Jeeg also had specific parts to deal with certain situations, like the iconic Mach Drills that were Jeeg's primary means of flight.

Anyways, Himika planned on summoning her master, which she accomplished about halfway through the series... only to be cast aside and defeated whilst Emperor Ryuma took over as the primary villain in the series. Jeeg still took him down in the end.

I guess you could say Jeeg was the start of a new idea in Super Robot shows. Hiroshi was older and had to juggle his gig as the head of a giant robot with driving racecars, and a few of his friends from the track would pitch in on the battles as well... if only for comic relief roles a-la Boss and Boss Borot from Mazinger Z. The series, though not as well received as Mazinger Z and Getter Robo, still ran for 46 episodes and helped kick start the Real Robot genre by having a smaller robot (only ten meters... almost half that of Mazinger Z and the original Gundam) that relied heavily on support craft to match situations. It also started the convention of having Super Robots have an electromagnetic theme, which would carry over to the previously mentioned Combattler V and Voltes V, along with the lesser known Gakeen.

Anyways, with the success Go Nagai was having with making Super Robot anime, TOEI commissioned him to make one for them that wasn't originally based on one of his manga (the case that had been with Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and Kotetsu Jeeg). Go Nagai complied, and drafted up Daiku Maryu Gaiking. And no, Gaiking and Gakeen are too radically different series. Just wanted to throw that out there.



The title, literally "Great Demonic Sky Dragon Gaiking" is a bit of a misnomer. The Sky Dragon is not Gaiking, but the massive, skull-faced ship that the heroes operate from. This idea of having a mobile base everyone operated and traveled around on would also help inspire the idea of Real Robots, essentially the prototype version of the White Base from the original Gundam.

Anyways, in Gaiking, aliens from the planet Zela are facing extinction as a black hole is gradually drawing their planet in. Desperate to continue the preservation of their species so they can continue military conquests, they set their eyes on Earth and decide to take it over, sending out the Dark Horror Army to do the job. The Dark Horror Army, however, is hesitant to attack when they realize that there are a number of people on Earth possessing strong psychic powers that could make all-out war difficult and costly for them. Instead, the Army sends out assassins to kill the psychics via subtle means. A number of them quickly realize what is happening, and begin work on a machine that can provide them the means of battling the Army. This becomes the Sky Dragon. However, there is also the issue of who to pilot the prime defender of the Sky Dragon, the machine Gaiking. Due to various mumbo jumbo issues, only people with a certain psychic trait can pilot them, and they're dropping like flies.

The last one, a star baseball player named Sanshiro Tsuwabuki, is saved from the Dark Horror Empire's assassination attempt at the last minute, although a wrist injury he gets also ruins his pitching career. Deciding to pilot Gaiking, Sanshiro gradually develops his psychic powers, which are really quite similar to Gambit's from X-Men with charging things up with energy.

Gaiking continues Go Nagai's tradition of giving the protagonist a demonic-looking machine, and Gaiking can also remove its facial covering to provide it with more weapons underneath. It maintained the Super Robot staple of the Rocket punch as well, and the series ran for 44 episodes.

The thing about Gaiking that stands out the most, however, is that TOEI removed Go Nagai's names from the credits for the series. Naturally, Go Nagai was furious with this betrayal after he had been on such good terms with them, and got dragged down into a bloody, 10-year-long legal struggle to keep the right of Gaiking's creator. He won in the end though. The damage was done though, causing Go Nagai to close relations with TOEI for a long time and work with other studies, causing TOEI to look for new talent to take Nagai's place with making Super Robot anime, leading Tomino and Nagahama to pave the way with the likes of Zambot 3 and Combattler V.

The last of the three 1970s works I'm covering is probably the least well known, Gloizer X.



Gloizer X was the first Super Robot series Go Nagai made for another studio, and it's really quite basic. It was just meant to be a simple story he'd throw ideas around while working on Mazinger and Getter Robo projects, since there were lots of crossover movies between them in the early 70s. That being said, it still got enough substance Nagai decided to make it into an anime in1976, and it fared decently.

With Gloizer, it turned out a bunch of the Gaira aliens were hiding in the Arctic, were planning to take over the Earth. It seems all those guys wanted to do that. Anyways, they captured the brilliant Dr. Yan and his daughter Rita and forced Yan to make a machine they could use to spearhead the invasion and also counter any retaliatory strikes. Yan construted Gloizer, a giant robot in the shape of a jet that http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Groizerx.jpg when the need arose.

Nearing completion, Yan managed to provide Rita a means to escape, at which she stole Gloizer and fled to Japan where she met Joe Kaisaka. Together, they decided to use Gloizer o battle the Gaira aliens. This effectively became the first time in Super Robot history that I know of that a woman had an equal standing with the hero, working together and sharing the piloting duties fifty-fifty. Magne Robo Gakeen, created by another director for TOEI later that year, took the idea and expanded it a little further.

Gloizer never really stood out in Japan, which by now had become oversaturated with Super Robots and was gradually nearing the gritty end of the spectrum with Zambot 3, the original Gundam, and Ideon. However, it has a massive fanbase in Brazil to this day due to the fact it is the only Super Robot anime that aired there in its entirety. Voltes V also got a shot there, but tanked after five episodes.

My other two series I am covering today are in fact remakes. In 2005, someone got the idea to do a reimagining of Gaiking, taking some ideas from it but taking the series in a different direction. This might sound very, very stupid, but remember that Giant Robo's OVA was a tremendous revision of the original story, and Dancougar also got a revised remake that bore little in common with the original but still was a success.



This remake, called Gaiking: Legend of the Daiku Maryu or sometimes just Neo Gaiking, replaces Sanshiro with a young boy named Daiya Tsuwabaki. Humorously, his voice actor also voices Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece due to the habit of having women voice young boys... but she also did Icy in the Japanese dub of Winx.

Funny, eh?

This remake also ditches the idea of psychic powers, at least as far as I can tell (I've only watched one episode since Nanoha's much more pressing). Five years prior to the start of the series, Daiya and his father were fishing on the ocean when a storm kicked up and monsters attacked them. The Daiku Maryu arrived and saved them, but Daiya's father went missing and many believe him dead. Daiya, however, refuses to believe that and has been training furiously so he can take his revenge on the monsters. His loudmouth nature causes him some trouble, many people thinking him an idiot for talking about monsters the way he does. Nonetheless, Daiya has put himself in phenomenal shape, capable of outrunning skilled sprinters at least twice his age *while* running uphill *without* warming up and *with* a heavy backpack.

In contrast to the original, Neo Gaiking includes more than one Sky Dragon machine, each capable of making their own giant robots as well. Three ships in total, Daiku Maryu, Daichi Maryu, and Tenku Maryu, all are used by the protagonists (the latter two after defeating the villains for them), which adds an element of teamwork to the story. Anyways, it ran for 39 episodes, and once I get through Nanoha, I'll probably pick it back up again.

And last and CERTAINLY not least is one of the most recent Go Nagai productions... a Jeeg sequel.



Kotetsushin Jeeg, or New Steel Jeeg OR Steel God Jeeg, is a bit of an AU sequel to the original Jeeg that changes a few things up but still works out well in the end. The story begins during one of Jeeg's final battles against Queen Himika during an all-out hellfest in the Kyushu region of Japan. The Japanese Self-Defense Force is called in to assist, but even then things look hopeless. During the battle, Miwa and the Big Shooter are shot down and then... a "miracle" happens, with a thick, impenetrable fog forming around Kyushu that somehow seals off the region, Jeeg, the remaining JSDF forces, and the Yamada Kingdom from the rest of Japan.

Fifty years later, our story begins anew, focusing on hot-blooded Kenji Kusanagi, one of the star motorcycle racers of Shiba Industries along with his rival and classmate Kyo Misume. They are also good friends with a shrine maiden/cheerleader for their team, Tsubaki Tamashiro...

Who just so happens to be a much older and mature Miwa's adoptive granddaughter. Hiroshi's very old but still living father taking a backseat for R&D, Miwa decides to take charge of the new Build Base, along with recruiting a new female JSDF ace and two other female pilots who narrowly escaped from the barrier only to find themselves thrown into the future. They all suspect that the Yamada Kingdom is not entirely gone, and their suspicions are correct. Another Clay Phantom attacks, with Kenji finding himself face to face with Miwa at the shrine, only to discover a motorcycle entrusted to him empowered with another of the bronze bells. With this, and Tsubaki and Kyo piloting a new Big Shooter, Kenji is able to have the motorcycle become the head for the new Jeeg which he can pilot.

However, during his first battle, crazy stuff happens and causes the radius of the barrier to expand, drawing the Build Base and Kenji into the now hellish Kyushu. Very little time has passed for them, causing Professor Shiba to discover his long-lost wife and young daughter were in Kyushu during the battle... and whereas he's aged fifty years, barely a day's gone by for them. They also find a number of the parts and materials of the first Jeeg, and set about restoring them.

Oddly, Hiroshi Shiba, the first Jeeg, is nowhere to be seen.

The thirteen-part OVA chronicles Kenji's struggles to defeat the Yamata Kingdom once and for all, taking a number of steps that are a far cry from the nature of the original series, such as the revelation that Himika was in fact an alien and the bronze bells were in fact the power source of the vessel she was held captive on. This is arguably a case of doing in the wizard, but there's still a great deal of mysticism and awesomeness in the series, especially when Hiroshi does at long last return near the end of the series so we can get a double Jeeg smackdown. The series overall was pretty good, and my only complaint is the inclusion of CONSPICUOUS CG!!!! Oh, how I hate it. At any rate, it wasn't too bad.

The OVA series was perfectly fine otherwise, including in it the old school Go Nagai perverse humor, some good fights, and top-notch songs by JAM Project. The story's presented in a way you can know next to nothing about the original Jeeg and still understand what's happening in this one, which is also good.

Now, currently only the original Jeeg and Gaiking have been in Super Robot Wars games, although the upcoming SRW K will have the remakes of both included as well. Jeeg and Gaiking debuted in Super Robot Wars Alpha 2 and were also in Alpha 3. It is funny to note that Hiroshi and Gai sorta had a bit of a rivalry in the SRW little gag comics, with Hiroshi being sorta a loser since his cyborg form (although cool and demonic looking) seemed less impressive than Gai's shiny nature.

Anyways... Jeeg's attacks in Alpha 3. Note he's voiced by the same guy that did Amuro Ray from Gundam. The Mach Drill thing gets done three times, just to let you know.


And here's Gaiking. Tragically, the only exhibition I could find had it as an AMV using the full length version of the Neo Gaiking song instead of the actual audio track from the game. Oh well, the sequence is still awesome.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 16 2009, 7:25 PM

Update time. Today's series is Super Machine Beast God Dancougar.

Dancougar came out in April 4, 1985 and ran for 38 episodes. It was considered a very successful and groundbreaking Super Robot show that received a number of follow-up OVAs that served as an epilogue, sequel, and also an image song episode. The series also broke traditional Super Robot rules and conventions that had gotten their start a few years later with Braiger; specifically the idea of a four-man team. Due to Japan's negative stigma and unlucky feeling towards the number, Braiger broke the mold of the usual five man teams (like Golion, Voltes, and Combattler) or three man teams (Zambot, Baldios, Ideon, or Godsigma), but it still just had one giant robot. Dancougar took it one step further and had four separate machines, first that resembled vehicles, which changed to become large mechanical animals, which changed into humanoid robots, and finally combined to form Dancougar.

The premise was pretty basic: the alien Muge Zorbados Empire has taken over a great part of the Earth and is seemingly unstoppable. Allying with a still-standing Russian army led by General Ross Igor called the Jyunsenki Tai or "Cyber Beast Force" in English, the brilliant scientist Kotaru Hazuki constructs for machines, the Eagle Fighter, Land Cougar, Land Liger, and Big Moth (actually a mammoth) that can fight agaisnt the Empire's monsters. Piloting them are accomplished and prodigy soldiers, restructuring the Five Man band to be something else.

Hot-blooded even more than Ryoma Nagare from Getter Robo, the chief hero is Shinobu Fujiwara, who is supported by the equally hot-headed redhead Sara Yuki, young but determined Masako Shikibu, and the quiet and laid-back Ryo Shiba. Helping them out is a former Austrialian military commander Shapiro Keats -who is engaged in a romance with Sara-, a young girl named Laura who is Masako's best friend and in the care of the Jyunsenki Tai, and Ross Igor's young and impulsive son Alan, who quickly finds him at odds with his father's strategies in the war against the Empire.

Ross himself seems very harsh and unyielding in his orders, but in reality he simply understood the dire nature of the situation at hand and wanted to keep the Muge Zorbados Empire at bay long enough for humanity to recover from being conquered. During this time, Igor hopes to locate the Empire's headquarters (the moon), and launch a full scale attack to beat them back.

Dancougar had a great deal of spiritualism to it, partly due to Ryo's mannerisms and beliefs. However, there was also a lot of Christian symbology included, the Emperor practically a villainous equivalent of God. In fact, Dancougar's name is made up of Kanji that, literally translated, would me "Suppressing emotions", a Taoist belief.

Dancougar also broke ground in another way; the titular robot didn't even show up until nearly halfway through the series! Until that point, Shinobu and his friends had to fight in their individual machines and use teamwork to defeat their larger and more dangerous threats, and even then, it wasn't uncommon for Dancougar to break apart for an elaborate but effective group beatdown that was pretty fun to use in Super Robot Wars. Alan also eventually develops an eagle-based machine known as the Black Wing which just fought on is own in the series, but in various SRW games could attach to Dancougar to make it the even stronger Final Dancougar , although this was absent in the original series as Alan died and the Black Wing was destroyed four episodes from the end.

The story reflects the grittier nature that the Super Robot series was going in after the various Real Robot series of the early 80s, with a few of the main characters dying and Shapiro Keats becoming a villain a short ways into the series. Shapiro also broke conventions because rather than being the scheming and utterly ineffectual human villain, he was one of the most dangerous threats to Dancougar and grew more and more ruthless with each battle against the heroes, causing Sara no small amount of distress. In the end, however, Shapiro was just a man and was anticlimactically killed by Sara with a mundane handgun.

Emperor Muge Zorbados, however, was a much, MUCH greater challenge and required the combined effort of everyone to defeat, and even then it was an uphill battle all the way through. But the day was saved, the series was a great success, and spawned several OVAs that continued the franchise.

Two years ago, however, a "sequel" to Dancougar was made although it had much more in common with the previously made Overweight God Gravion, another successful Super Robot series of the 21st century. This series, Dancougar Nova, ran for twelve episodes and changed a few things up.



First of all, yes, the main protagonist this time is a woman, Aoi Hidaka. She is obviously physically based off of Sara from the original Dancougar, but instead of being a soldier is instead an racecar driver and a part-time model. However, she quits being a racer a few episodes into this new series, Dancougar Nova, so she can focus on her piloting and modeling duties. Rounding out the team for this new Dancougar is the also female Kurara Tachibana, accomplished policewoman with an unshakeable belief in justice, homeless bum and laid-back drifter Sakuya Kamon, and straight-man Johnny Burnette who is in fact very intelligent and well-versed about dozens of subjects.

The year is 2104, and small scale wars had sprung up all over the globe. A new Dancougar, stated to be built based on designs of an ancient guardian of mankind that defeated an extraterrestrial force (possibly this is the original Dancougar), is made to help bring about peace. This new series ran for 12 episodes, similar to the first two seasons of Gravion, and had an adventurous flair to it in contrast to the more serious and military feel of the original. Dancougar's support team consisted of a number of women as well, including a prodigy psychiatrist that was based off of Nadesico's Ruri, meaning a young, smart mouthed girl that was often times the most intelligent person in the room. Thankfully, her ability did not get blown to Mary Sue proportions like Ruri's did.

The series does include, however, a machine similar to the Black Wing called the R-Daigun, in fact an enemy vessel at first, that helps unlock Dancougar's full power, similar to the creation of Final Dancougar in the Super Robot Wars games. Dancougar Nova was not as well received as the original Dancougar, but it still got positive marks from much of the anime community.

Anyways, the series has certainly left its mark, appearing many times in Super Robot Wars games, particularly the Alpha series where it was present in all but Alpha 2, where it was explained that Dancougar had been assigned to a different military front. It also appeared in the Compact 2 trilogy, which was large and in depth enough to include the various OVAs of the original series, along with the prototype version of the original Alpha called Shin Super Robot Wars, the N64 SRW game, and the Game Cube game. Shapiro is often shown to be one of the most dangerous individuals in these games, succeeding in being one of the final villains if not THE final villain in Super Robot Wars F/Final depending on which route you take along with giving you utter hell in other routes. In both Shin Super Robot Wars and Super Robot Wars J, he strikes an alliance with the villains from Layzner, and in both cases this proves to be a soul-crushingly difficult tag team to overcome. Dancougar is also often considered a risky unit to use without properly upgrading it first, due to the fact its offensive capabilities are very impressive... once you beef up its morale. Its defense is also rather lacking at first, and it is nearly useless in terms of tanking.

That being said, having access to four (later five once Alan joins up to make Final Dancougar) sets of Spirit commands makes Dancougar a very worthwhile machine to use as long as you work on reducing the problems its weaknesses cause. The long range of its best attacks arguably make it more useful than other "five man machines" like Voltes or Combattler V which are nearly useless at long range.

Unfortunately, Super Robot Wars has yet to include Dancougar Nova in any of their games, but it is likely they will include it soon, considering they added Gravion into Super Robot Wars Z.

This video mainly shows attacks of Dancougar and Final Dancougar, which means you'll pretty much be seeing all the same attacks shown twice. Note that Shinobu's voice actor is the same as the guy that did Judau Ashta from Gundam ZZ. Funny how things work out, eh?

Posted by: Asher Omega Mar 17 2009, 7:43 AM

*a gong is sounded somewhere unknown* It is finished. *Asher emerges from a room, Gaunt and lifeless.* It Is Finished. *his eyes focusing on nothing but looking at everything. as if he's lost his will to live* IT IS FINISHED!


All joking aside, I've finally (ARGH STUPID ENDING! I HATE YOU!) finished Gundam Seed. its late right now for me so sometime tomorrow (Saint Patrick's by the way) I'll write up the whole synopses and opinion (HEAVY OPINION) on Seed. and from the looks of how it ended, its getting a ramshank of a review.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 17 2009, 2:41 PM

You're a good man, Asher. A better, braver man than me.

Let's just be thankful there's no SEED Destiny anime.

Posted by: Asher Omega Mar 18 2009, 12:00 AM

alright. time for me to get to work. Be warned this post is going to ruin everything about seed, and If I was to put stuff in spoiler tags/boxes, I'd probably have to put the entire post in one, so no go.

Gundam Seed. I'm going to be splitting the entire thing into sections so that its easier for me to *ahem* 'express' my opinions.

First up, Setting.

okay, this is probably the only resemblance to the original Gundam is. the Earth Forces (aka the Feddies) and ZAFT (aka Zeon) have been at each other since the "Bloody Valentine" incident. What that incident is that the Blue Cosmos faction (think like the Titans from Zeta only more fanatical instead of cunning) nuked a PLANT. (PLANTs are hourglass shaped space colonies, which I think are stupid but I'll explain that later). the Reasoning behind the bombing of a colony? the difference between a Coordinator and a Natural. (which I'll get to later) This caused ZAFT to retaliate by slamming the Earth full of Neutron Jammers (Which I Utterly Hate, discussed later) which cause a world wide power shortage, blah blah blah. But there's a Third Party in this global war, Orb which is kinda like the Switzerland of "Cosmic Era" (Gundam term for this time line). the anime actually starts out like the original gundam (very slightly) having us watch the ZAFT soldiers infiltrate an Orb colony to do something or other. and while that starts it of it does a switch with the actual main character (should have been a small secondary character that dies a few episodes after his introduction) Kira Yamato going to help with some research into mobile suit movement. it basically plays out to ending with Kira facing his childhood friend (the leader of the ZAFT infiltration unit) Athrun Zala on top of one of the Five gundams developed by Orb. it basically ends with Kira being commandeered to pilot the Strike Gundam while the other four were stolen by ZAFT. from then on, its nothing but battles and crazy (not) fun times on the Archangel (the poor stand-in for White Base).

Alright, now on to Technology.

I have some serious BEEF with Seed's technology. first off I'll start with the Phase Shift armor (aka Plot armor!). its somewhat explained (HA!) as imparting an electric current through the armor of the MS thus lessening the impact of BOTH physical and beam attacks. Okay I can see it dampening the effects of beam weaponry, but physical? no way in hell is that ever going to happen. and plus if it lessens the damage taken then why don't we see the damage actually incurred in the fight? makes no SENSE! (probably going to be saying that a lot). its basically a plot device to make things interesting, only it fails because its not done properly.

On to my favorite subject, the Neutron Jammers (and the things that negate them). Urgh, the N-Jammers are a wonder piece of technology that Negate (not subdue, there's a major difference) of the Nuclear reactions on the atomic level. while yes that makes things interesting, except if you've taken any science course involving chemistry and physics that is. something that could negate the energetic reaction of nuclear fission/fusion would probably also negate every other type of reaction as well. meaning that the oxygen wouldn't get to your brain, you couldn't digest food, and most of all it would stop every chemical reaction from taking place. meaning that such a technology would be really really deadly to anyone turning it on. the N-Jammer Cancelor (real original there, real original) basically negates the negator via ol' TV Tropes Standard http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWizardDidIt. also it somewhat (not even close) explains the Zero system-esk (read as blatant rip-off) targeting and console set up. they don't even attempt to explain it other than it only effects a small amount of area.

okay now that those two things are out of the time for the minor infractions upon my beloved genre of Science fiction (sub catagory Giant (real) Mecha). I hate that the only the colonies by Orb are the only ones that actually make sense. the entire PLANTs don't make sense because there's no artificial gravity so how can there be gravity in something stationary. On to the mobile suits, they are powered by BATTERIES! I don't care how advanced it is, there's no way a battery can sustain a mobile suit for the lengths that are (estimated) used for the battles. nothing can do that! nor can batteries power a beam rifle (that's what I'm calling it), to take out a (rough estimate) a 100 yard diameter chunk of a space colony wall and vaporize it. and when they finally give the damn things actual reactors (fission, and not Fusion) it just pisses me off!

and possibly the final thing in the technology is the Super weapons. first up is the Cyclops system, employed by the Earth forces to wipe out a good part of the ZAFT forces a la Titans method of blowing up the base. only they leave good troops there instead of deserting the entire thing. its actually based on really hard science (Microwaves! w00t hot dogs anyone?) only they take it to a bit to the unrealistic side having people explode in a rather flashy manner as well as the mobile suits (the suits would probably just short out, not explode because of the BATTERIES!) I have nothing wrong with the actual weapon itself just how it was depicted and deployed. and now to GENESIS, a huge nuclear cannon (for those who've watched the Original Gundam, its kinda like the Solar Ray Cannon only nuclear powered instead of solar), and while in theory the idea of it is pretty sound, the actuality of its use is not quite right. GENESIS is supposedly a Gamma ray cannon, but acts more like the Charged Particle Cannon only a bit more larger area.

finished with Technology, on to Naturals and Coordinators.

basically some time ago in CE some guy revealed that he was a genetically altered human. he eventually termed what the genetically altered humans would be called Coordinators. as a hard core science fiction fan, there are somethings I can let slide, gene modification isn't new, but the way its shown is that Coordinators are like some kind of demi-humans compared to Naturals (and that explains that.). I can see modifying genes so that the heart, skeletal structure, and organ tissue don't degenerate in space, but It stops once people say the can use it to create the perfect singing voice, or enhanced reaction speeds past that of normal. (its really hard to mess with those things!) and having a Coordinator reprogram an entire Operating System for a giant mecha in under 10 seconds really beyond my suspension of disbelief. although later in the series the actually address that even the genes still get modified by being born in a natural way (aka from a mother's womb). however, this is not the case with two people who will be known when I get to them, because they are the only two to have been born in an artificial womb. anyways because after the initial thing of finding out of genetically modified humans there rose (as usual) a group of people who were opposed to the idea. this is basically the first faction of the Blue Cosmos (Titans, only less on suppression and more on outright killing). then there are the ZAFT equivalent (which are never given a name) that thinks all Naturals should be erased so that Humanity can move on. the only world power that doesn't subscribe to either of these screwed up philosophies is Orb.

and now to Characters (and so much pain!)

There are a bunch of characters that really shouldn't be in the series 'cause it just clutters it up and sometimes makes it hard to know who's doing what. and the fact that most of them are 2D personalities. so I'll only focus on those that really either stuck in my mind (mostly by how F***ing stupid they were or if they actually got some character development.) the rest are mostly just there to make it seem like there's a lot going on but it really isn't.

first two up are the (Non)CHAR and his counter part the QUATTRO. Rau le Creuset and Mu La Flaga. Le Crumpet (my nickname for him since he just sits there like a crumpet, cause no one really eats crumpets) is supposed to be the Char of the series and fails horribly for most of the series. he doesn't have the respect of his subordinates, he rarely pilots his custom mecha (painted WHITE, such atrocities to the name of CHAR!), even his ambitions of world domination are quite apparent (Char was actually more subtle and actually quite good at keeping it a secret). Hell we don't even get to see his face at all during the series! every Char has had their face shown ONCE during their series with the exception of this guy. over all he's not really filling the slot as a Char but more of a cardboard stand in that falls at the most inappropriate moment. he only has one Char trait though, he's a Newtype. (its the Newtype Flash! how'd that get in the series? Newtypes don't exist in CE.) However there is only draw back, it only appears with his counter part Mu La Flaga, who is also a Newtype. (but he's okay because he's not a genetic horror modified human) La Flaga however is either supposed to be the Ryu (nope, not big and neither Hispanic) or the Quattro (not that either, wears purple, and is stuck in a support role and isn't a very good pilot) but to me he comes very close to Roy Fokker from Macross. he's mostly piloting aircraft (plains and stuff) for most of the series until about the end when Yamato gets his upgrade. (I refuse to call him Kira, for there's only one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Yagami) and even then he's not that great. there's more to talk about but I'm going to leave that to a different section.

next up the Crew of the Archangel. they really suck and don't deserve this.

okay now for the actual version. they Really do suck. mostly because its a bunch of people who really don't want to fight in the war, then they do, and then they just don't know what the hell goes on. the Captain ( Murrue Ramius ) is no Bright, not even close. she's very afraid of fighting and very reluctant to be a captain. her first mate (can't remember what her actual station was) is more of a battle maiden then her (Natarle Badgiruel {looks like Badgirl to me}) but she has her own faults. there are others but they're just there for cast filler. basically the crew of the other two ships (with a couple of people excepted for different reason) are mostly not-entities.

now onto the Love interests. Cagalli Lacus clyne is the one that owns the Pink Haro. (F***ing PINK HARO!) she's a pop-idol for ZAFT Colonies, and yet she's very naive, at least in the beginning. Yamato starts falling for her when they pick her up from the wreckage of the colony that got nuked in the 'Bloody Valentine' Incident. and honestly she fits him, completely useless and way too idealistic. and in the latter 15 episodes she goes form naive to freaking La Resistance master. and that just irks me, because its just not really good plot development, and the fact that it felt forced. now to Cagalli Flay Allster, who I've dubbed Psycho-B****. She's the daughter of the Peace talks diplomat and she her self is very conceited and not really good as a character (with exceptions of here Psycho moments, those are pure comedy gold.) she basically tries to manipulate Yamato (via a good boinking, not going to explain that) into killing off every Coordinator after her father is killed by one of the enemy Gundams early in the series. then during when the archangel finally got to the Earth forces HQ she gets kidnapped during the resulting explosions by Le Crumpet. she then spends most of the rest of the series (until about the last 5) watching the war from a ZAFT ship. and when she finally gets back, she's now in the hands of Azrael (never a good name, who shall be explained later) who is part of the Earth forces, and she's holding the design plans for the N-Jammer Cancelor. (that incident is going to be covered later, once again) and thankfully episode 50 (final one) SHE DIES!

Cagalli however isn't a love interest, at least thats not how she turns out to be, but I'm damn sure she was originally presented as one. he's head strong, tomboyish, a princess/daughter of Orb's leader, poor shot, cruddy at piloting any mobile suit (with one exception but that one is just NOT RIGHT.), oh and she's Yamato's long lost sister. born naturally, no gene modding. and for the life of me, I just can't get it out of my head that she's supposed to be a love interest, even if that is just wrong. it boils down to the fact that she shows up, has a very high interest in Yamato, and it just degrades from there.

on to the other side, ZAFT people of mention (most of which I kinda like).

Yzak and Dearka are two of the pilots of two of the stolen gundam units. I'll start with Yzak.

HE IS VOICED BY DOMON KASSHU! which means he gets points for being hot blooded, has a sense of revenge, and the fact that he has a great sense of honor. the actual character stays with ZAFT because he thinks they're doing the honorable thing. while the character mostly stays the same for the series, I like him because of his resolve to fight to the bitter end. except for the ending part where he switches sides. that I like for a different reason (he Killed a Druggie! its not as bad as it sounds). he actually refuses to fight when ZAFT disables the Earth Forces after their Titan-esk plan, because he finds no honor in killing defenseless people.

Dearka, I like him because out of the entire cast, he actually got a great amount of character development (something in this series that was lacking). he got captured before the Titan plan and basically got a couple of near death experiences from being at the wrong place at the wrong time. (tried to get killed by a knife and then immediately afterwords shot at by a gun). he learned that he wasn't just fighting some faceless enemy, but real people (unlike some people in this series). he did join the Archangel after they became traitors, but that's just part of his character development.

thankfully Dearka and Yzak survive the series. now onto the Ramba Ral character.

Andrew Waltfeld is introduced as a ZAFT specialist on ground based combat and actually thinks and plans things out. he's rather quite competent in his battle plans. and he does meet Yamato and tell him that in war you either kill or be killed to Yamato's face while pointing a gun at him. (should have fired right then and there.) he does have a wife (or lover, they didn't fully explain that.) and after a few tactical victories Yamato and Andrew have a showdown. Yamato wins (urgh still not happy about that.) and Andrew and his wife (I'll stick with that) die in the resulting explosion of their MS... at least for the better part of the series we think he's dead, like a good Ramba Ral character. he comes back, missing an eye and his left arm. and he's part of Lacus' rebel forces. ARGH, the Rals are not to be brought back from the dead! so he kinda lost some respect with me when he came back from the dead.

few more before I tackle the biggie character offenders, the Antagonists.

Muruta Azrael and Patrick Zala. for the better part of the series Patrick Zala (Leader of ZAFT's council) is considered the big bad because of his force of trying to continue the war with the Earth Forces. he's also considered the leader of the ZAFT elitist sect for erasing humanity. (especially during the ending.) he forces his son Athrun (cover him with Yamato) to continue to fight for the peace of the colonies until he finds out that his father is nothing more than an elitist bassard. (Bassard Gundam! sorry in joke). we rarely see him except when he's doing something to further his own goals. (aka the ending mostly) he's honestly still a 2D character, even for a villian.

Azrael is basically the same as Patrick, only he's the leader of Blue Cosmos, and he's a major player in the Earth Forces. He's Bats*** insane to boot. he's willing to do anything to achieve his goal, the eradication of all the Coordinators as well as those who stand in his way. he's introduced with three other characters who are a slightly bit less insane (but insane none the less) that are basically cybernetically enhanced humans who's only purpose is to pilot the Earth Forces reversed engineered Gundams. (aka the Druggies!) he treats his subordinates like tools and is constantly underestimating his opponent's strength. when he rescued Psycho-B****, and got the plans to the stupid magic device, he forced the Earth forces (the few times they're smart) from instead of fixing the energy problem that they should use it on nuclear warheads and finally end the war. it didn't end well, especially since he got vaporized. such a fitting ending.

The Druggies. best way to describe them are Berserkers with massive weapons. One is just a gundam made of guns, one is centered around beam control, and the final one is a transforming one (a bird) that has the ball and chain weapon. they honestly are just there to present a villain for the rest of the people. they don't actually have any good points about them and the only good thing that came from them is when they die karmic deaths.

now I'm finally going to get to Yamato and Athrun.

Kira Yamato is naive, idealistic (to an annoying degree), and rather cookie cutter when it comes to a protagonist. I mean he's just to generalized to ever be a good character. and no matter what happened to him, he just didn't change, EVER. even after his confrontation (face to face) with the Ramba Ral he didn't change. and the fact that he's just too damn perfect! (not in my view at least) there were so many times I just wanted to see Yamato fail and finally have to face the fact that he has to kill his opponents. (which never happened, sadly) he's shown to be very much to considerate to everyone. (NO!) he just comes off like to many villains I've read. which usually sets off klaxons in my head because no one can that considerate. and no matter what angle I look at he still comes off as someone who shouldn't be in a gundam story unless they're there to be broken.

Athrun? carbon copy of Yamato. 'nuff said.

I'll post the plot summery later because this is probably a boatload for most people to take in. the plot summery will hold most of the spoilers so you've been warned.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 18 2009, 2:44 AM

*whistles*

Damn. When you go in depth... you go IN DEPTH!

And I mean, this sounds like the absolute worst Gundam series ever made! I mean, even ZZ had Judau grow and mature, especially after Leina's "death". And Glemmy's personality switch might seem abrupt, but knowing what was going to happen with him, I could see him screaming every time he smiled early on... what with that line like "Everyone has to smile sometime." I mean, WHAT BETTER INSTANCE OF FRIDGE BRILLIANCE!

And... a Char that doesn't even treat his subordinates well? That's just sad. EVERY Char's greatest weapon is his charisma, and Rau apparantly has none.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 20 2009, 4:28 PM

Now, as some of you may have heard with the discussions Asher and I share, we both loathe Gundam SEED whilst pitying SEED Destiny for being badly mangled when SRW Z showed how good it could be.

So what way to redeem Shinn Asuka, the hero of Gundam SEED Destiny and sworn enemy of Cardboard Evil Heroes Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala then posting exhibition videos for HIM, where he beats those two jerks into the pavement?

Shinn going on a rampage and showing those SEED jerks that a good Gundam hero needs to mean well but at the same time have flaws and strong emotions as he tears up the court with the Impulse Gundam. Kira stops an attack using Plot Armor at 3:05, but at the very end Shinn finally kills the jerk at long last. This vid includes the attacks of all the various modes for Impulse Gundam.

And then Shinn goes after Athrun and the Infinite Justice Gundam using his Destiny Gundam.


I am SOOOOO gonna love using Shinn in SRW K. His attack animations in that are top-notch.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 21 2009, 3:10 PM

Okay, good news everybody.

Someone posted the attack exhibition for Gaiking's final form for SRW K, so I'm posting it now. I'll do the same when Jeeg gets an exhibition vid.

Gaiking... **** YEAH!

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 23 2009, 8:33 PM

Ack. Slight scheduling mishap. Dancougar was supposed to be this week and the Gundams I'm covering today were supposed to be last week. Oh well.

Anyways, Gundam was popular and had a few OVA series commissioned to serve as side-stories to the Universal Century timeline, explaining about things and filling out the rest of the story. The first one made in 1989, and is famous for a few reasons. It is Gundam 0080: Rocket War in the Pocket.

A tradition starting with the second Real Robot anime made, Xabungle, was the "Mid Season Upgrade". Some time during the series, often around the mid-point of the series, the hero would get a better machine to replace his old one. Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Dunbine, L-Gaim, Dragonar, most of the Macross series, and even Char's Counterattack managed one. However, this upgrading was absent from the original Gundam. One could argue the original plan of Amuro dying partway through the series and Char eventually becoming the protagonist, getting a replacement Gundam appropriately painted red, counts, but that was just a replacement Gundam that probably would be no better.

War in the Pocket addressed the issue, taking place in the final days of the One Year War. The original RX-78-2 Gundam, which early on was an unstoppable machine of death with armor and firepower leagues beyond that of any Zeon machine, grew more and more outmoded as the Principality of Zeon progressively made better machines. With the final battle of the war nearing, the Federation doesn't want to risk losing just as they have managed turning things around, and have begun top secret developments of an improved Gundam made specifically for Newtypes on the Side 6 colonies called Gundam Alex. Its test pilot is the young woman Christina MacKenzie, and the de facto protagonist of the series.

The official protagonist, however, is eleven year old colonist Alfred Izuruha, who thinks the Zakus that the Principality of Zeon uses are cool. Thanks to Side 6 officially being neutral, it has managed to stay out of the war. Things change, however, when a Zaku comes crashing down from the sky one day and Alfred meets the pilot, a young man named Bernard Wiseman who claims to be practically an ace and a prodigy pilot. In reality though, Bernard is the lowest ranking member of the Cyclops Team, a group set by a Colonel Killing to destroy the Gundam Alex. The story is told from Alfred's viewpoint and his interactions with Bernard and his next door neighbor, the previously mentioned Christina MacKenzie. Bernard and Chris get along very quickly and are practically a couple in a few days, each one oblivious as to the identity of the other.

The day of the attack on Alex comes, with the plan being that Bernard and two more members of the team will infiltrate the base while the remaining member of the Cyclops Team runs interference and distracts the Gundam. Bernard stumbles, however, claiming to have come from Australia and that it was Winter there, a mistake since War in the Pocket takes place in December and it would be Summer then. A gunfight ensues in the base, Bernard's friends and teammates all dying while Christina duels the remaining member of the Cyclops Team in the Alex, winning in the end in spite of taking damage and her own inexperience.

Killing is furious, and tells Bernard that if he doesn't destroy Alex by Christmas Day, then a Zeon fleet will attack Side 6 with nuclear weapons and snuff out all life in the area. Bernard is devastated, and resolves to run away. He confesses to Alfred he is nothing but a coward and an incapable soldier, but is eventually shamed into staying. Alfred, sympathizing with Bernard's intentions of trying to destroy Gundam Alex if only to save Side 6, helps him repair his Zaku so it can at least stand and fight, no matter how pathetically, and arranges booby traps to help give it a small advantage over Gundam Alex.

While Alfred and many of the civilians flee to the spaceports, Bernard and Christina duel, neither one knowing who's in the other machine. Alfred also finds out that a Federation task force has successfully intercepted the Zeon forces, meaning the crisis is averted. He attempts to get to the battlefield and tell Bernie to stop, but he's too late. In spite of his preparation and determination, Bernard is killed by Christina and the Gundam Alex is irreparably damaged due to Bernard's attacks and his machine exploding. Alfred is horrified to see that Christina piloted the machine, and when she decides to return to Earth and asks Alfred to tell Bernie that after the war, she'll find him and they can be happy together.

Alfred is unable to break the truth to her, the series ending with Alfred going to school, completely shell-shocked from the small and personal war that shook the foundations of his life.

War in the Pocket stands out as one of the most bleak Gundam series ever, right up there with Zeta Gundam and Victory Gundam. It is also the shortest non-movie story, only six episodes, and also had a novel version penned which ends with a slightly more positive ending since the author admitted he went too far with going for the sad ending. In that version, Bernard and Chris realize their opponents partway through the battle, end up in a bitter and hateful argument with each other, and eventually just walk away. The pilots themselves, in comparison to others in the series, are considered lack-luster. In the rare instances that Bernard can be "saved" in SRW games, he's usually nothing more than an unglorified benchwarmer using subpar machines and having stats that are utterly abysmal.

My next series, continuing with tales of tragic men and women who don't really accomplish much of anything is set three years after the end of War in the Pocket and the original Gundam. It is the tale of love, loss, lost loves... and a MAN OF DESTINY!



Mobile Suict Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory came out 1991, a thirteen part OVA meant to bridge the gap between the original Gundam where the Federation was the good guys and Zeta Gundam where the Federation was the bad guys. Our hero this time is the MAN OF DESTINY, young mobile suit test pilot Kou Uraki, who is the gruntiest of the grunts in Gundam. Things change one fateful day, however, when the Pegasus-class ship Albion arrives at his Australian base with two prototype Gundams, the successor to the original Gundam known as GP-01, and the larger GP-02 built specifically for delivering a nuclear payload to enemies.

Naturally, the bad guys have their eyes on GP-02, and before the end of the first episode, One Year War ace and a devoted believer in the ideals of Zeon, Mr. Anavel "The Nightmare of Solomon" Gato expertly steals GP-02. His subordinates work together to help take down the base, and only three members of the staff survive: Kou, his best friend Chuck Keith, and their mentor and the skilled albeit aged South Burning. Kou, comandeering GP-01, attempts to take down Gato and GP-02, but Gato's training for this "Operation Stardust", to say nothing about his actual wartime experience, make him more than a cut above Kou.

Gato escapes, Kou, Chuck, and South joining up with the Albion in pursuit. Kou, due to the insistence of South Burning to Captain Synapse, is kept on as GP-01's pilot and thus begins his journey to defeat Gato and also pursue a relationship with the developer of the new Gundams, miss Nina Purpleton.

Gato reunites with the Delaz fleet, led by his superior Aiguille Delaz, and they continue their scheming along with meeting up with a fleet led by Zeon supporter Cima Garahau. During Kou's first sortie in space, however, GP-01 is severely damaged due to being unequipped for space combat and Kou loses much of his confidence. It takes a trip to the moon where GP-01 is repaired and completed with its Full Vernian equipment for space combat, along with meeting an aged and retired Zeon ace, to rekindle Kou's determination. Just in time too, since that ace, having been promised a position in Cima's fleet if he repaired a powerful Mobile Armor, becomes furious when Cima screws him over. Kou steps in and has to tragically defeat him.

After another battle against Cima's fleet, South Burning manages to get his hands on information involving Operation Stardust, but damage to his GM catches up on him and the machine explodes, killing him. Kou and the others, however, suspect Gato's target is the upcoming navel review, which is indeed correct. In spite of moving heaven and hell to try to stop him, Kou reaches Gato mere seconds after he launches the nuke, wiping out much of the Federation's forces and Kou, in a fury, duels Gato. In spite of Gato's skill, Kou's determination and training with the late Burning, Chuck, and the other pilots of the Albion enable him to destroy GP-02 at the cost of GP-01, effectively earning Gato's anger and becoming mutual rivals.

However, Operation Stardust isn't over just yet, with the Delaz and Cima fleets capturing a pair of space colonies and damaging them so one will crash into the moon. However, this is all a ruse, for activating the colony's thrusters causes it to go BACKWARDS and shoot towards the Earth. Things look bad and time is running out, with most of the remaining Federation forces having been duped and now lacking the fuel and resources to double-back and stop the Colony Drop. The Albion, however, meets up with the La Vie en Rose, a vessel first seen in Gundam ZZ, and it is revealed a third Gundam was created, one meant for colony defense. In spite of members of the Federation refusing to provide it to Kou and the Albion, Kou's friends come through in the end and steal it as they begin a bloody struggle to try to stop the colony from crashing.

Gato, however, has gotten a better machine as well, the mobile armor known as the Neue Ziel, in fact giving him a slight edge over Kou. To throw fuel on the fire of hopelessness, Kou is again too late, the colony crossing the point of no return and incapable of being moved out of the way to not hit Earth and its target: the main production plants and resource centers of the Federation located in North America.

Just as things seem beyond hope, Cima reveals her true intent: to work with Bask Ohm (the founder of the Titans and the main antagonist of Zeta Gundam prior to Scirroco's introduction) and create a situation that would enable her to destroy the remains of Zeon due to personal reasons. She kills Delaz, which causes Gato to flip out and critically damage her ace int he hole: a Solar Array laser canon that would have destroyed the colony. Kou, struggling to stop it, is again too late and ends up in one final duel against Gato, technically losing in the end when the Solar Array fires in a last-ditch attempt to destroy the colony. It fails, although Gato again freaks out and does a suicidal charge against the remains of the Federation fleet, getting killed. Kou survives, although in a state of fury and shock.

The end of the series chronicles the founding of the Titans, showing the various members of the Albion now members of the group. Kou though resigns himself to a simple life of continuing to test mobile suits, reuniting with Nina and managing to live in peace.

Stardust Memory, due to the intent of the story, had to end in tragedy. The Titans, after all, had to get formed or else things would end up going crazy via Time Paradox. That being said, there were many points in the series that it could've changed a few minor details around to make it even more tragic, and at the very least Kou got the girl in the end and survived. He is also considered the best Non-Newtype pilot in the UC Gundam timeline, and essentially lost to Gato in the end for various reasons that, had Kou not been rushed for time, tired, and GP-03 had not been in a position it couldn't get repairs, he arguably could've won. He truly lives up to the claims of the theme song. He truly is a MAN OF DESTINY.

My third series today is another One Year War sidestory, taking place on Earth and dealing with a particular team that piloted mobile suits. The name of the series is, predictably, Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team



The 08th MS Team is the tale of 20 year old Shiro Amada, newly appointed leader of the five-man squad positioned in Southeast Asia known as the 08th MS Team. En route to Earth, Spacenoid Shiro sees a GM pilot having trouble with a prototype Zaku. So what's the man do? Comandeer the only mobile suit on the ship, a Mobile Ball (this is the equivalent to a Jedi Knight fighting a bad guy with a stick) After a bit of a struggle, Shiro miraculously succeeds, although he and the Zeon pilot, having critically damaged their machines, are forced to set aside their differences and seek refuge in a damaged space ship until they can get rescued.

Shiro, at this point, discovers his enemy was a woman named Aina. They leave on good terms, albeit Shiro is unable to return an antique pocketwatch she gave him to keep track of time since his watch was broken and resolves to one day return it to her.

Arriving on Earth, Shiro finds out the pilot he saved is actually one of his new subordinates as the head of the 08th MS Team. He, the man Sanders, and the woman Karen Joshua, will pilot three of the Federation's semi-aces in the hole: mass produced Gundams(?!?). In reality, these are just leftovers. Quality control for the Gundam project was so overblown that plenty of decent parts had to be ditched. Rather than going to waste, they were remade into the RX-79 Gundams. Though better than the mass-produced GMs, spare parts were not immediately available, leading to the heroes having to mix-and-match old GM parts into their machines when they get damaged.

The story chronicles the attempts of Shiro, Sanders, Karen, radar/support guy Eledore, and young and bumbling Michel to fend off the Zeon forces in an unnamed jungle region in Southeast Asia, merely a single cog in the Federation's war machine. At the same time, we find out that Aina's brother is in charge of a superweapon project to make a machine that can destroy the Federation's headquarters at Jaburo and she is the test pilot. Both sides are shown to have perfectly upstanding and moral people in their ranks, along with total monsters that deserve to die.

Early on, Shiro is enlisted to help free a village from Zeon occupation, and the young girl Kiki tags along with the cast as well.

Things come to a head a way through when during a battle with the superweapon, a gigantic machine called the Apsarus, Shiro and company find out that Aina is the test pilot. After being separated from the others, Shiro and Aina again set aside their differences to survive a harsh snowstorm and continue their romance, although they both get in hot water afterwards when both sides suspect their soldier is a spy for the other. Shiro gets a reprieve after he rescues Kiki's village from a group of Zeon soldiers, no matter how devastated he is when he tries to go the idealistic route and everyone he tries to save dies anyways, and Aina's brother Ginias vouches for her.

The final battleline gets drawn, however, as the Federation forces near Ginias's base and he's losing not only manpower, but his sanity. His superiors have decided the Apsarus project is too impractical and cutting his funding, causing him to snap and all but force Aina to take the reigns in trying to save a group escaping via medical shuttle. Attempted negotiations sink when Federation commanders break their promise to spare those fleeing, only to be killed by a potshot by the Apsarus. In the end, Shiro and Aina realize both of their sides are filled with nutjobs and leave the military, destroying their machines in the process and going into hiding.

The 08th MS Team is considered revolutionary because it hits the "Real Robot" ideal so closely. Mobile Suits can be fended off by sustained small arms fire in large enough quantities, troops discuss flanking and military strategies, and anyone that stands out and tries to fight like Amuro would with 20 to 1 odds would be killed quickly. Its semisweet ending is fulfilling and many consider it one of the great Gundam stories ever told because, well, one could argue it achieved Tomino's dream of making a Real Robot anime that was more than just a slave to the toy sponsors. Even losing a director and getting put on hiatus for THREE WHOLE YEARS didn't dampen its quality one bit.

And lastly, MS Igloo.

And no, MS Igloo does NOT take place in the Arctic. It takes place in space, focusing not only on the Zeon soldiers, but a technical officer named Oliver May. The backstory is simple: a civilian vessel is conscripted to be a support vessel and run tests on new weapons and mobile suits, and starts and the very beginning of the war and goes until the end. Various important instances we were only told about before, such as Operation British where Zeon performed the Colony Drop and destroyed much of Australia to the final point of the war with the battle of A Baoa Qu. It was also directed by the guy that did Stardust Memory.

Igloo is also notable for being entirely in CG, with the attempt to make people look realistic. They pulled the job off quite well, if I must say so myself. Zeon is also portrayed in a positive light, trying to win its independence from the Federation and struggling to retain their freedom. Oliver himself just wants to do a good job and help out. That being said, the story is also very bleak and approaching Victory Gundam levels of depressing events, with test pilots losing their lives again and again due to futile mishaps and overly pointless actions and the end of the war appearing to be a bright point in Oliver's life when he feels nobody has to die anymore, only to find out that neither Zeon OR the Federation is going to just let things slide like this, chronicling the events to come.

Gundams are not included in this, instead focusing on the various basic units and Oliver assisting in research and development. There is, however, one iconic sequences set during the battle of A Baoa Qu, wherein things were looking desperate and Oliver piloted a nearby mobile armor, fortunately painted red, and doing decent enough with it that Mobile Suit pilots freaked out, thought he was Char (which REALLY freaked them out since everyone thought he was in the Zeong) and surviving. Of course, like I said before, things are still not meant to be honky-dory during Igloo, and things usually stay bleak all the way through.

There are currently three series, one of which was only shown to a very small group of people at a Bandai museum while the other two were released on DVD. Each "series" has three episodes.

Igloo has yet to appear in a SRW, and the other three have not been present in a new SRW for quite some time. 08th MS Team's last appearance was in Advance Portable, a *remake*, War in the Pocket's last was in SRW XO, and Starudst Memory's was either Alpha 2 or Alpha 3. Their units and pilots are also treated as a cut below the other Gundam heroes, with the exception of Kou Uraki who is, well the MAN OF DESTINY.

Here's a clip of Gundam Alex taking on a Zaku from Super Robot Wars GC.


Here's Kou using both GP-01 and GP-03 in Super Robot Wars Alpha 2.


And lastly, Shiro using his Ez8 Gundam and Aina using the High Mobility Zaku in Super Robot Wars Advance.

Posted by: Asher Omega Mar 23 2009, 9:03 PM

yes the side stories are always a good watch. on that note Gundam 00 (season 2) is ending soon, and boy is it going to be very crazy. (especially since I finally caught up. Setsuna is definitely a new Amuro. and F***ing Ribbons needs to DIE!)

and just to freak people out.

I don't know if I should be really insulted and furious, or giggling like mad.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 23 2009, 9:29 PM

Its too twisted to hate. ^_^

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 29 2009, 5:14 PM

Jeeg attacks at long last.

Posted by: Asher Omega Mar 31 2009, 1:48 AM

Hey Morrigan guess what I just finished watching.

EPIC FINAL BATTLE!

and there's going to be a movie! next year! and its happening within the vicinity of Jupiter! I can't wait. (even if I am on a sub I'll tell one of my friends to download it for me!)

Posted by: Zhanneel Mar 31 2009, 2:09 AM

Yay whahoo! *throws confetti* I finally read EvErYtHiNg (and at work to boot), hehe. Asher, next time just let it alllllll out when you really hate something xD.

Megas XLR and the SEED rant were my faves.

And I think I'm getting used to the trauma that *IS* Gundam. All of those OVAs that were discussed, I was expecting them to end badly, and then it wasn't so much of a surprise when they did, lol.

And now I want to watch Gundam 00 too!

Posted by: Asher Omega Mar 31 2009, 2:14 AM

that reminds me, I haven't finished the Seed rant. I still need to do the plot summary.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Mar 31 2009, 3:43 AM

Argh. Late update. V_V I blame SRW K for this.

Anyways, this is the last part of the UC Gundam timeline I'm covering. And NOBODY better mention G-Savior, so help me. If Sunrise refuses to acknowledge it exists, neither should we.

Okay, first up is a serial novel story which came out in 2006; Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. The series takes place a few years after Char's Counterattack, and helps not only pick up and focus on the Federation after the events of the movie but also divulge information about how colonization began. The novel "starts" at UC 0001, claiming to eventually cover an event that changes the course of humanity forever. A boy shown at that time, the child soldier named Siam Vist. The story continues in UC 0095, two years after Char's Counterattack and the presumed death of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable.

The Federation is once again in danger, this time by the Zeon remnants known as "The Sleeved", led by the mysterious Full Frontal, a man touted to be the second coming of Char. Frontal appears, for the most part, exactly like Char, has the same voice, and is just a cunning individual, although it is not known for certain at this time, since Char's background involved him assuming someone else's identity prior to the start of the original Gundam series. Our hero this time is Barnage Lynx, a civilian dragged into this struggle when he meets a young noblewoman named Audrey Burn, in fact the sole remaining survivor of the Zabi family Minerva who was thought lost at the end of Gundam ZZ.

Barnage gets his hands on the mysterious, pure-white Unicorn Gundam, and using this he leads the crusade against them.

Currently, the series is ongoing and not everything has been divulged, such as Full Front's identity. But it appears to be considered a success, like many Gundam manga and novelizations. Naturally, it hasn't been in SRW just yet.

Now, *after* Char's Counterattack, Tomino began work on starting up a new Gundam saga. After doing some thinking and planning and beginning work on the episodes, things looked up. And then due to scheduling disputes at Sunrise and budget cuts, this new series was boiled down to a single, 2-hour movie which came out in 1991. It's name was Mobile Suit Gundam F91.

Predictably, F91 tanked, not due to a lack of quality, but just the challenge of being so watered down.

Anyways, the premise starts up similar to the original Gundam. The year is UC 0123 and the Crossbone Vanguard, an aristocratic group that rapidly mobilizes almost to the point of springing up overnight and taking over a colony. The Earth Federation, undermined and lacking the manpower to oppose this new Crossbone Vanguard, and it falls on mere civilians to do the fighting for them.

Our hero this time is the somewhat weaker Newtype Seabook Arno, who nevertheless claims the absurdly-agile and very powerful Gundam F91, only to find himself facing down the mastermind behind these events Meitzer Ronah and his ace-pilot son-in-law. Other conventions that were thought up to make parallels to the original Gundam series are included, such as a Princess (as usual) who serves as the main love interest. This woman, Cecily Fairchild, is in fact one of the few sane individauls in the Vanguard, and in spite of Meitzer's ambition, he is not necessarily an unforgivable person person. Also included is his son who goes by the code name Iron Mask, a Char Clone that wears, well, a large iron mask.

In spite of set-backs and not being a phenomenal movie, F91 still did decent and Tomino penned F91 manga AND a novel which really cleaned it up. The series also ends on a positive note, with Meitzer's death and Seabook finally defeating Iron Mask. He and Cecily then go off on adventures.

F91 was followed up almost immediately by one of the most popular and well-remembered Gundam manga, Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam. Taking place in UC 0133, a young boy named Tobia Arronax is on his way to Jupiter when he is accosted by Space Pirates claiming to be the Crossbone Vanguard and Tobia pilots a mobile suit to try to stop them. However, he is kidnapped by Vanguard piloting ace Kincaid Nau and brought before the Vanguard's new leader Berah Ronah... only to realize something very, very important.

Berah is in fact Cecily! And Kincaid is really Seabook!

It turns out that men and women on Jupiter have been consolidating their power for a long time and are planning to return to Earth, Cecily using the remains of her family's finances to redesign the Crossbone Vanguard as a resistance group. Realizing the dangers of the new Jupiter Empire, Tobia decides to help out.

Crossbone Gundam is fondly remembered for its pirate theme and a host of likeable characters, not to mention the fact it's a retool of presumably the last part F91, making many wonder how good F91 could have been if Tomino had been able to make the actual anime and Sunrise hadn't screwed him over. In spite of not appearing in an anime, Crossbone Vanguard has been included in the Alpha Timeline of Super Robot Wars, and is a fan favorite there as a result.

ALSO notable is the inclusion of an old man in his sixties going by the name "Gray Stroke", who in spite of piloting a worn out mobile suit, is able to keep up and defeat these modern enemy mobile suits. Hmm... I wonder who it might be?

Hey, remember how I mentioned that at the end of Gundam ZZ, Judau Ashta left for Jupiter with Roux? Yeah. So many years later, Judau can still kick copious amounts of bad guy butt.

And LASTLY for this rather brief review is the final story in the UC Timeline, one telling the final tale of love, loss, tragedy, pain, and... shotacon. So much shotacon.

This series in Mobile Suit Victory Gundam.



Mobile Suit Gundam takes place in UC 153, with yet another threat bearing down on the now-crumbling Earth Federation. Supporters and military providers for the original Crossbone Vanguard, aristocrats of similar mentality on the Side 2 colonies form the new Zanscare Empire. With ridiculous ease they overpower the Federation and conquer Earth, establishing a cruel dictatorship and killing civilians on a whim with public executions.

Our heroes this time is a similar resistance group, known as the League Militaire. The League, having the assistance of a brilliant Mobile Suit designer by the name of Muller Miguel, have mass-produced RIDICULOUSLY overpowered Victory-type Gundams, and the all-female Shrike Team take command of all save one, used by the thirteen-year-old boy Usso Evins, Muller's son. For humor (pretty much the only humor in Victory Gundam) stems from the interest the Shrike Team has in him... carrying on Char's bold tradition of possibly being in love with children below the age of consent. Speaking of Char, a plan early on was for Usso to really be Char's grandson, since one of Char's subordinates in Char's Counterattack had the last name "Muller" and she survived. However, the development team decided against it.

ANYWAYS, Victory Gundam is... bleak. One of the biggest reasons for this was that Sunrise had been bought up by Bandai, and Tomino's merchandise-pushing overlords were breathing down his neck more than ever, forcing him to change plot elements (The Victory Gundams weren't supposed to appear until a few episodes in) and add vehicles and stuff to the show for the sake of selling more toys. Tomino, already known for having trouble with depressions, hit rock bottom.

The struggle against the Zanscare Empire was brutal enough as it was, but Tomino decides *not* to humanize the Zanscare Empire, showing almost the entire lost as complete monsters. This is a stark contrast from almost all Gundam series that took place before it, which bothered to show at least a few members of Zeon or the Titans to be genuine human beings and with a sense of responsibility and compassion.

This leads to Tomino starting to kill people off. A lot. Even to the point of introducing people just for the sake of killing off even MORE people. The Shrike Team, colorful and well meaning, sequentially die pointless and meaningless deaths that didn't accomplish anything whatsoever. One of the League ace pilots, the woman Katejina Loos, also suffers a breakdown due to her objections about Usso piloting and bad stuff happens, culminating in a downward spiral, nearly getting raped, and only getting saved by Zanscare Ace Pilot and Char Clone by the name of Chronicle Asher.

And thus, Katejina starts becoming a complete and utter monster, giving up on hope or decency and becoming the pinnacle of Zanscare's de-facto policy of making people suffer. Usso goes through hell and it's a miracle he doesn't lose his humanity as a result, and even when he gets his hands on the V2 Gundam, a Mobile Suit with more firepower on it than on ALL THE MOBILE SUITS AND VESSELS IN THE ONE YEAR WAR PUT TOGETHER, he still tries to do what's right and one member of the Shrike Team does manage to survive in the end, along with her unborn child. In the end, the day is saved and the villains all have justice done to them...

Except for Katejina. For the first time in Tomino's life, he realized he had something on his hands that killing wouldn't truly defeat. No, in the final battles Katejina cracks and loses her sanity and her eyesight, reduced to living her remaining days on Earth as a pathetic mess. Tomino admitted that killing Katejina would have been too lenient a punishment for her, and she had to suffer for the crimes she had done.

Keep in mind, in comparison to all the other hateful men and women he had created, never before in his entire career had it come to the point that letting someone survive would be a greater punishment. That's how evil Katejina was at the end.

Victory Gundam was a nightmare for Tomino to work on as well, and he had to be hospitalized due to his depression after finishing the series. In hindsight, Tomino utterly *hates* Victory Gundam, but it was also the peak of Tomino's depression. Afterwards, he gradually managed to come back from the brink and give up on killing large chunks of the cast, along with having strong and capable women that *don't* die pointless deaths as well.

Oh, and Tomino made another short side-story for Victory Gundam, including another inclusion of the now even OLDER Judau Ashta, who still kicks everyone's butts in a machine that's falling apart.

Anyways, SRW vids time.

First, F91 in the partially translated Alpha. In my experience, F91's okay but it's a bit lacking in terms of raw power. Then again, it has Double Image (50% dodge rate when your morale's high enough) so that helps out quite a bit.


Next, the X-3 Gundam from Crossbone Gundam. Tobia's first appearance was in Alpha 2, as said before, and he kicked tail it it as well.


And lastly... the V2 Gundam from Super Robot Wars Destiny, which had the Zanscare Empire as one of the two main Real Robot enemy groups, and without a doubt the harder of the two to defeat.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 6 2009, 9:18 PM

Okay. Update time.

Now, remember a while back when I talked about the competition Transformers originally faced? Machine Robo? Well, it's about time I told its story.

The original Machine Robo came out in 1982 as a creation of Bandai. It's been known in Europe as Robo Machine and in Australia it was called Machine Men. Similar to the shonen series Kinnikuman at that time, children would send in ideas for robots they had thought up, and the quality ones would be made into new models.

Anyways, at this point in time, Machine Robo was the undisputed top dog. The toy lines destined to be merged into Transformers G1 were insignificant compared to the tale of Machine Robo, in which the machines lived on the planet Romulos. Their happiness was shattered when the planet was destroyed by the Devil Invaders from the Casmozone, and the machines fled to Earth for safety and to protect the Earth. However, the popularity of the Transformers cartoon show, once exported to Japan, meant Machine Robo was suddenly on the defensive.

In an attempt to revitalize the story, Bandai decided to make an anime to compete with Transformers, abandoning their original plot since it was so similar to Transformers' and drafting a new and unique one. This became Machine Robo: Revenge of Chronos. After a successful pilot movie, the series began in 1986.

The plot was pretty standard issue, but there's no problem with that. On the planet of Chronos, alien invaders called the Gylander have come in search of the mysterious force known as the Hyribead. Our hero is the humanoid Rom Stoll, an android with a strong sense of justice and courage that also has the habit of screaming out "WAIT!" whenever he makes a dramatic entry when fighting villains.

Rom, as you can see, has a younger sister named Leina, who cares a great deal about him and is a bit jealous when other women are around him, but she can actually pull her own weight in a fight. Rom himself possessed the wolf sword called Kenro, and was an expert in the martial arts style known as the Sky Space Heart Fist. They also get support from more traditional Transformers-esque characters and Rom himself has two larger bodies he can enter, that of the giant blue Kenryu, or the even larger and red Vaikingfu (sp?).

The series was, mainly for the fact it tried to take the series in a new direction, was considered a success. It ran for 47 episodes and got two spin-off OVAs, one with little to no connection to the plot, and another that focused on Leina in the aftermath of the series when she ended up on Earth and was changed into a human. Leina went on to meet human versions of her old friends and gradually recovers her memories.

Now, to be fair this wasn't technically the first Machine Robo story. Having been brought over to America as the Gobots, Machine Robo attempted at first to get a successful cartoon show in the states, Challenge of the Gobots, which ran in 1984.



...

...

...

...

... Yeah. As you can see, it didn't try hard enough to distance itself from Transformers and was considered a cheap rip-off. There's really not much to say about it, really. Only *real* difference between the two I can think of is that in Gobots, the good guys were actually brains in robot bodies while their enemies were actual robots. But that's not really groundbreaking. It was a decent success in France, however, and Machine Robo was imported and remade into Gobots' sequel.

Anyways, after Revenge of Chronos, a sequel series was made which was really a sequel in name only, like how some Transformers series are not connected to each other. This one was Machine Robo Battle Hackers.


In this case, another planet is under attack from the bad guys, this time B-1. And no, it's not related to S-1 from Baldios. Although that might be kinda cool. The enemies this time are the Grendos, sorta a caricature of Japanese gangs and delinquents, although they were still a genuine threat. In the meantime, a space ship with four humans on it end up crashing on the planet, deciding to help the heroes and defend B-1 in hopes that when the fighting dies down they can return home.

There's not\ anything exciting going on in the story from what I can tell. Rom Stoll was, well, one of the things that sold Machine Robo as an anime, and the new hero, R. JeTan, was no Rom Stoll. Sure, he could turn into a tank or a jet, but considering how many other groups and robots from the original Machine Robo that got revamped and reintroduced, it's a bit sad Rom and his sister weren't in that group. ;_;

Anyways, after the lukewarm success of Battle Hackers, Machine Robo went on the backburner for a while. Granted, Revenge of Chronos got in some SRW games, but that was it until 2003 when Machine Robo got another shot at the big times.



Machine Robo Rescue was the third series made, and the only one of the three to be created by Sunrise. The other two had been made by Ashi Productions, who had previously made Dancougar before this. The inclusion of CG was not exactly well-handled either, and the series was considered a sad and pathetic flop as a result. Sure, it got 53 episodes, but compare that to previous works by Sunrise when it came to giant robots like The Big O or GaoGaiGar and you wonder how such a travesty could have been made.

Anyways, the team of twelve kids were divided into three squads, one to handle aerial and fire-related accidents, one to handle roadwork and police duties, and one for rescue situations and water-related accidents. The children themselves are stated to be prodigies, living in a world where age and gender would not exclude you from a job if you are mentally capable. Why no adults are present is beyond me. Really.

The villain this time is Kaiser-G, who can create robots that create accidents. Instead of, you know, dropping nuclear bombs or something like that. Nevertheless, the robots are also present, some with interesting backgrounds, I'm sure... but I just can't get over the CG. I just can't.

Anyways, Machine Robo: Revenge of Chronos has since appeared in three Super Robot Wars games. It appeared in the SRW Compact 2 "trilogy" of three games on the Wonderswan, and appeared again in the remake, SRW Impact on the Playstation. Super Robot Wars MX was *planned* to be a direct sequel to Impact, and includes many of the same units, but the idea was scrapped. Machine Robo still made the conversion, however, where Rom Stoll gets to be the one that saves Asuka from a grisly death during the events of the End of Evangelion in that game, delivering a speech about "Divine Intervention" along the way. He then leads the charge against the Mass Produced Evas and effectively is the man responsible for not turning us all into tang.

That game also takes Rom's awesomeness factor and cranks it up to eleven, to the point he gets to shout "WAIT!" a lot, along with refraining from introducing himself to his enemies just so he can tell them "You don't deserve to know my name!" when he beats them. According to Asher, who is playing the PSP remake of MX, Rom is a solid character to use, so I'll take his word for it. Sound tragically gets out of synch.

Posted by: Tom273 Apr 6 2009, 9:26 PM

Asher that was funny and wacky lol sailor moon cosplay rofl

Posted by: Asher Omega Apr 7 2009, 12:59 AM

Okay for your Info Morrigan its the Vi Kung Fu. also Rom Stoll is a decent super. he's definitely got a good range and a nice selection of attacks, but the downside is that he does consume energy and when you first get him, his energy is not high. But! he does have a good Pilot skills (PS2/PSP remake added them in) and he does have some very well rounded stats.

much better than Dendoh in MX. stupid "I can't block that" Dendoh.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 7 2009, 1:06 AM

Ah.

And... and Dendoh can't defend against some attacks?!? What the heck?!?

Posted by: Asher Omega Apr 7 2009, 1:19 AM

MX was notoriously easy for Veteran SRW players because of its supports. but for some reason Dendoh really doesn't have any supports and no one is willing to support him other than other Dendoh characters. plus he doesn't have any shields and when he blocks its usually brought from an attack that would do 2000 down to 1000 while if I did it with Grendizer he would bring it down to about 200-500. yea Dendoh really sucks.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 7 2009, 1:25 AM

Dammit. And Japan keeps heralding Fukuda as revolutionary.

Thank god SEED Destiny showed people the truth about him.

Posted by: Zhanneel Apr 12 2009, 8:42 PM

Only as far as the Victory Gundam summary (I slow...I sorry...).

So first thing that hit me: the names @_@

1) Full Frontal: just "oh my god". Lots of "Oh. My. God."
2) Audrey (Hep)burn anyone? lolz

Other than that....space pirates! They always make things more interesting. Maybe it's the way you summarized it Morri, using some humor here and there, but I think I stomached Victory's plot/resolution better than I anticipated ^^. I just nodded and accepted it. I must be losing my softness... v_v.

Katejina is a pretty awesome name too. The fact that she became such a strong villain by the end of was interesting, but not unacceptable to my slightly feminist mind set, hehe. I rather liked the idea of her being powerful--even if she had to go crazy to do so. However the harem plot with the far too young Usso eh...I'll just pretend that never existed.

And overall, glad Tomino is good, and maybe it just took hitting rock bottom to clear him of his depression. Hopefully he got it all out with Victory Gundam.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 12 2009, 9:44 PM

Yes, Audrey Burn was deliberately meant to be a reference to Audrey Hepburn. Supposedly Will Game from Turn A Gundam was based off of Brad Pitt, IIRC, but I kinda find that funny since they look nothing alike.

In terms of humor, I guess I just do it because doing this without any kind of silliness would make these summaries too dull and boring. And I agree that yes, Tomino probably did get it all out of his system between Victory Gundam and its aftermath. His next series he made, an OVA series based in the Dunbine continuity called Garzey's Wing, was not that good, but it's a cult classic due to its hilariously bad English dub and then he worked on Brain Powerd which was a success.

And you like Katejina? Lolz. You might find it nice to know that in Super Robot Wars D, you can take steps to actually *recruit* Katejina, presumably because she and Chronicle finally get some sense beaten into them that things are bad enough they should be helping the protagonists. I kill her anyways, but hey... if you ever play D, the option's available for you.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 13 2009, 8:59 PM

Subject for this week is yet another Sunrise production, starting off in February of 1987 and a few weeks before Gundam ZZ finished up. Plans for the grand finale of Gundam's UC timeline, Char's Counterattack, was already in place, but Sunrise knew they had something golden on their hands and wanted to kick start a new franchise that could continue on the Real Robot genre.

The plan was simple. Create a scaled-down and altered version of the original Gundam series to hook people with. Similar to pre-season 2 Gundam ZZ, it would not get *too* serious or gritty, that way the writers could hopefully follow up with a sequel and invoke Zeta Gundam's twisted habit of killing off lots of people. Unfortunately, this series was not the runaway success hoped it would be, so it remains to this day a single story and not a franchise.

That being said, there's a lot of awesomeness in Metal Armor Dragonar.

Like Gundam before it, the story kick-starts with a villainous space-based group of humans challenging the Earth, in this case capturing the Moon, declaring themselves the Lunar Empire of Giganos. They have at their disposal not only the Mobile Suit-esque Metal Armors, but also mass driver cannons capable of firing meteorites at the Earth. Essentially, these are scaled-down colony drops; nearly impossible to stop or counter in any way. Things seem lost when a number of Giganos scientists, discovering the inhumanity that many high-ranking officers of the Empire display, defect to the Earth Alliance and plan to provide them with three powerful prototype machines known as Dragonars.

You can tell how things are going to go from there. The transport ship gets attacked, gets chased to a neutral colony, and three low-ranking Earth Alliance trainees end up finding the machines and all but falling into their cockpits, incidentally causing them to only be usable by the three. Our set of heroes is Kaine Wakaba, Japanese hot-blooded pilot similar to Judau Ashta in a few ways including physical appearance who pilots the offense-oriented Dragonar-1. His best friend, and one of the few accurately portrayed black men in anime (it's not a case of racism but just the Japanese animators not knowing any better due to lingering US influences), Tapp Oceano pilots the sniper-style Dragonar-2. Lastly, British member Light Newman uses the recon and espionage-themed Dragonar-3.

There are a number of other characters that serve the Earth Alliance, some of them meant to be clear homages to characters from the original Gundam. Tragically, there is no slap-dispensing captains anywhere to be seen. Then again, considering how Kaine, Tapp, and Light were all much more disciplined and mature and they helped keep each other in check, it's not like anyone actually needed a Brightslap.

On the bad guy's side, we naturally need the A CHAR, if only to harass the heroes, be a rival for the protagonist, and do his own scheming and plotting himself. In fact, this Char Clone in question, Meio Plato, is the first Char Clone in all of anime if one discards the possibility that Judau and Glemmy from Gundam ZZ split the expy duties. Meio's blonde, has the nickname "The Blue Hawk", is determined to destroy the Dragonars since he doesn't want to see his father's machines be used against Giganos -yes, another instance of someone being the son of a brilliant scientist- and actually has his own crack squad of subordinates that are almost as capable pilots as him. In fact, they are often showed to be better in battles when up against the Dragonars, the heroes winning only through teamwork and superior firepower.

The Dragonar guys, however, quickly overcome their handicaps and grow as pilots. Their machines are also eventually upgraded into the customized "Lifter" modes which let them fly in an atmosphere and also come equipped with additional firepower, and later on Dragonar-1 and 2 are replaced by new prototypes, Dragonar-3 doesn't get one since its purpose didn't put as much emphasis on battle anyways. That being said, they still all got Laser Bazookas. Yep. That's right. And they ROCK!

It's also interesting to note that, at least in one way, Dragonar helped manage to capture the original Tomino ideal that in a war, neither side was truly "wrong". Most of the Giganos officers we see are perfectly respectable men and women and Giganos's own leader begins to wonder if he's going too far later on in the series. He even realizes eventually warring against the Earth is only hurting humanity on a whole and resolves to stop it, only to get killed by one of the few genuine villains in the series, Marshal Guiltorre, who then takes over the Lunar Empire. Crazy stuff continues on, with Meio getting framed for the murder and determined to find out who framed him.

Eventually things boil down to Meio and his team fighting against Guiltorre, and all seeming hopeless until Kaine arrives and saves Meio, the two of them succeeding in killing Guiltorre and ensuring that peace can return.

Dragonar is, well, really unappreciated. It had some really cool machine designs, was not just a Gundam rehash (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, GUNDAM SEED!!!!), and had a successful run of 48 episodes. It made Real Robot anime try to come up with clever or sometimes just practical ways of fighting, such as once when the Dragonar guys just picked up a machine that couldn't fly and dropped it. Unexciting? Yes. Tactically sound? HELL YES! It also included what's essentially molotov cocktails, which worked great in a pinch for prematurely detonating a missile coming straight at you, and Meio's sole female member of his team uses it in the final battle against Guiltorre and is responsible for stalling long enough for Kaine to come and rescue them.

Dragonar's currently been present in a few Super Robot Wars, namely Advance, MX, and GC. In MX, it actually got center stage for the Real Robots, with the Lunar Empire being a greater threat than the bad guys from Gundam. Its popularity was no doubt helped by these appearances, which is why Sunrise finally released DVDs of the series in 2005 after cleaning up a few episodes for that dreaded QUALITY.

Here's a vid for all of Dragonar-1, 2, and 3's attacks after they're fully upgraded, along with Meio's Falguen's attacks and a brief appearance by some of his men. At the end there are the team attacks, ending with Meio and Kaine's famous team-attack move from the final battle against Guiltorre. Only thing missing is the three of them firing their machineguns all in unison, but hey... that's no major loss.

Posted by: Asher Omega Apr 13 2009, 11:05 PM

okay, back and ready to finish it off. now for the most largest of the sections because it contains a complete plot summary (with spoilers) of Gundam Seed.

back in the stated setting I started on this part, only I was summarizing the first couple of eps. now on to the rest.

okay back when the ZAFT soldiers were infiltating the colony (and actual O'neil Colony!) the were setting bombs along the way. basically it was setting it up for basically having Yamato pull the "falling into the cockpit" trope by having all the trained pilots and most of the upper ranks of trained military get wiped out in one go. which is why the crew of the archangel is so pitiful. after the bombing and such Ramius tries to pilot the Strike and ends up just being an embarrassment to all MS pilots, so Yamato buts in, reprograms an entire OS in ten seconds, does the normal gundam thing of kicking ass (really badly though) and in the process kills his own colony. and they pick up survivors because Yamato begged the captain. the four stolen gundam units get into the hands of Le Crumpet. he in response starts to chase after the Legged Ship (aka the Archangel, stupid stupid stupid!). we find out that out of the four units the Strike was supposed to be the mass production model gundam with addons while the four stolen were specialized models. the Blitz which had cloaking (and nothing much else), the Buster which was long range and heavy artillery, the Duel, a different general pupose model, which can use short to mid range combat, and finally the Aegis a transforming gundam that turned into a giant Claw. I don't know why, but it just did. anyway Yamato gets the strike (blah), Dearka gets the Buster, Yzak gets the Duel, somebody (they die, thank god) unimportant gets the Blitz, and Athrun gets the Aegis.

basically after a few episodes of laying down the Strengths (HA!) and weaknesses of the CE universe we finally get the plot going, Head to earth! (like that's new), during which time the Tubby (my nickname for the Archangel, because it looks like it ate the White Base) ran out of water so they went to the ruined PLANT colony of Junius Seven (basically the colony that got nuked) and started to take chunks of ice from the debris. During this we learn that the Pop Idol of ZAFT has gone missing while doing a memorial service. the name of the pop Idol is Lacus Clyne, who is incidently betrothed to Athrun (who at this point is having serious doubts about the whole "fight your childhood friend" thing). Tubby picks up Lacus (and that ANNOYING PINK HARO!) because her craft was assaulted by someone who we never actually get to see (or ever hear of, BAD story telling). so the next few episodes are mostly about Coordinators and what they are. Most of this time Psycho-B**** is having constant hernias about having an Coordinator aboard the ship. this is compounded by the fact that Lacus has THAT F***ING PINK HARO. it can disable any electronic lock, no matter what the OS, coding, or what ever the door has. which means that she practically wanders the Tubby, like she owns the place. after a couple of skirmishes with Le Crumpet and crew, ZAFT learns that The Tubby has Lacus so Le Crumpet is ordered to not to attack The Tubby but to at least follow it. how ever the episode after this Yamato pulls a dumb@$$ maneuver (without permission too) and returns Lacus to Athrun. how ever Le Crumpet was waiting for this and attempted to pull a backstab, Lacus actually intervenes and gets the Tubby a few hours time to actually meet up with the 8th Earth Forces fleet.

and now for the fun part, during their stay with the 8th fleet we find out Yamato has the ability to go into a "Berseker" like mode. its really stupid and its just a plot point to make him more powerful than he actually should be. the episode after this is when we finally get the Tubby in the main fleet and most of the crew is offered to leave the ship, they don't so blech. but the civilians that were picked up earlier are let go, and during this the main fleet is attacked by Le Crumpet + back up fleet. Yzak finally gets a show down with Yamato in the upper atmosphere of the Earth. while they're having their duel in the civilian evacuee ship is doing its decent maneuvers. basically Yzak tries to fire at Yamato and the poor civilians get in the way, so (sadly, or not because they were infected by Yamato's perfectness) Yzak fires upon the shuttle (in his defense he thought it was full of coward soldiers fleeing the battle) and basically nearly broke Yamato (I really wished it did). After the shuttle incident Yamato and Yzak are called back to each respective faction's ship. The Tubby gets into earth's atmosphere.

and then we get a filler. the first one is mostly the Back story of how the Coordinators came to be, while we get a few cut scenes and mostly static images of what went on, all the while listening to Le Crumpet's narration of it all.

after that little cruddy episode, we're treated to the first episode of the Crew dealing with gravity. blech, but there's one good side to this, we get to meet Andrew Waltfeld! who during the time of The Tubby's descent was planning an attack on the local rebels in the Sahara. (also he has a coffee addiction, Like http://www.court-records.net/chara3-5.htm from Phoenix Wright!) his unit uses BuCUEs which look like the offspring of a Liger Zoid and a Zaku. anyway, he actually deduces that the Pilot of the Strike isn't a Natural (DUH!) and in the same fashion figures out how much damage it can take before its Batteries on the Gundam drain. (thus negating its plot armor, HA!) but sadly group of people in jeeps pop up and Yamato follows them so they can use a trap for the Ligerkues. and Cagalli (who was shown in the first couple of eps, who I thought was just there to show that Yamato was a complete dumb@$$) is part of the resistance in the desert. and Andy decides to attack the Resistance's hometown (but not kill any Villager, just to prove how good his tactical knowledge is) and this forces the entire Resistance to take their families to one of the major cities. and they also use this to get some supplies for the Tubby while they're there.

Yamato decides to accompany Cagalli to the major city (which is where Andy is stationed). basically it shows some devastation that was "supposedly" caused by ZAFT. anyway, we get a scene with Andy in shorts with a Hawaiian shirt arguing with Cagalli about what should be put on some kebabs, chili sauce or yogurt sauce. there was supposedly some symbolism there but I thought it was rather pointless. and during this a radical individual (most likely a Blue Cosmos member) tries to assassinate Andy who promptly flips the table with the kebabs (spilling all the contents on Cagalli.) fight ensues, more radicals (or more BC members show up), leads to a stituation where Yamato tries to reason with them and then Andy kills (a good part of them) some the radicals in front of Yamato. then he states his name to Yamato. this leads to a scene with Yamato and Cagalli in Andy's desert mansion (aka ZAFT desert HQ) with Cagalli in a dress. this kicks up the entire Ramba Ral speech of "its kill or be killed in a war" which Yamato promptly fails at grasping the concept. Andy then lets Yamato and Cagalli leave unharmed but rather scared. there were a few scenes about getting some supplies but they weren't important.

the episode after that was just a complete waste of time and budget. it was about Athurn's day off and ZAFT's Operation "Spitbreak". (which I kept hearing as Spit-take, plus its a stupid name).

and then we get the battle against Yamato Vs Andy (who gets a rather ugly ORANGE custom Zager). it ends with Yamato doing the whole "Berserker" thing (its not actually berserking its some idiot form of super calm mind trance soulless gaze thing called SEED but they never mention it except once in the entire series! and they never explain it!) basically they make it to look like Andy and his wife/lover died in the resulting explosion.

we then get a couple of sea episodes with nothing much happening until we get Cagalli shot down (she was flying a Skygrasper {ANOTHER STUPID NAME!} I don't know why the let her) and Athrun had to escape his transport plan due to Mu Fokker shooting it down, leading to the entire stranded on an island with the enemy. nothing much happens other than getting a bunch of gratuitous shots of Cagalli in her underwear (while Athrun is still in his suit). basically this boils down to where the two get the UST for each other. they get rescued by their respective teams, which results in Le Crumpet finding out that the Tubby is in the area. the Fight results with the Tubby heading into Orb's waters.

and there was a hole (yet another pointless) show of fighting and then Orb comes in says that ZAFT has to leave (they say it Yamato & friends) but Orb lets the Tubby in because Cagalli is the daughter of the Prime Minister of Orb. so Athrun & co. infiltrate into Orb because they figured (and correctly) that the statement to ZAFT about the Tubby being chased off was false.

then another recap episode happens.(episode 26)

we then get to meet the engineers of the Gundams! well Lead engineer anyway which leads to another explanation episode about the gundams and and then about the SEED factor (super calm mind trance soulless gaze thing). and then we get Yamato being asked to create an OS which allows naturals to pilot Mobile suits, because when a natural tries to pilot a MS it gets a realistic version of a giant mecha (or more apparently no one even tried to Reverse program an OS from a ZAFT suit for a natural). we also get introduced to the Astrays (or Ashtrays) which are a Massproduced Strike model with the Jump pack permanently attached. then we get a scene with Yamato and Athrun (with the fence between them) taking to each other like they don't know anyone.

anyway after that the Tubby leaves Orb and is soon assaulted by Team Zala (formerly known as the Le Crumpet butters) and we get the normal battle but, BUT for the first time ever! at the end of the episode Kira destroys the plot armor of a gundam right where the pilot sits with the meat cleaver. he actively kills a pilot! then Athrun kills one of the (useless, rarely seen) characters from the Tubby with is shield. we then finally get to see a traditional Gundam battle where parts are torn off things get damaged and then Athrun uses his giant flying hand to hold down strike while he activates the self destruct on his gundam. it explodes with the strike still in its grasp (and the cockpit of the strike is wide open to this explosion) so we're treated to a few scenes with people screaming people's names. we are led to believe that Yamato is dead (as he should be! there was no way he could have escaped that with out serious injuries) Athrun is captured by Orb, Dearka is captured by the Tubby.

while Athrun is in the brig Cagalli "interrogates" him over why he "killed" Yamato. he basically answers that he did it out of revenge. and while that's happening as the Tubby finally arrives in Alaska (the Feddies' HQ, but not for long) Dearka (who is being held in the sickbay due to injuries, but why no one is guarding him is NOT a mystery.) is being assaulted by Miriallia (another no-name who's love was killed, the guy who was killed out of anger from Athrun) who is then restrained by another no-name (Flay's previously fiancee) and then Psycho-B**** shows up, finds a gun tries to kill Dearka. thankfully he isn't killed by her. so Dearka is transfered to the brig so no one else can assault him.

And while those are happening we find that Yamato survived the explosion (via an undisclosed method aka PLOT HOLE!) and he awakes in the care of Lacus on a PLANT just a day after the fight. I'm not going to even try to explain what goes on here because its just @$$backwards.

and then another recap episode happens (at least they tried to be creative with it. it was told like it was a mission report for a Military trial).

so after that Roy Flaga, Psyco-B****, and Badgirl get transfered off the Tubby while the rest of the crew are left on. Dearka isn't let out of the brig. Mu gets the impression that something is up with the Feddies because they're evacuating their HQ. then Lacus leads Yamato to the Game-Breaker I mean the Freedom which is equipped with the Neutron Jammer Canceler. Kira then gets to steal and head off to the earth to finally reunite with the Tubby. but Operation spitbreak was initiated the moment Yamato stepped into the cockpit.

so while Yamato is dealing with plot speedlimits, the Tubby is defending one giant trap that the feddies set up to get rid of their dissidents and trouble makers. Psycho-B**** leaves her place on one of the evac planes, while Mu la Fokker does the same only he searches for why the base isn't helping the defending ships. he finds the control room empty with a simple recording of "continue attacking!" playing into the RF signals. some how Le Crumpet sneaks into the base confronts him and in the same fell swoop captures Psycho-B****. Yamato arrives just in time to get Tubby (who also picks up Roy La Flaga) out of the way of the massive Cyclops system which causes machines and people to explode.

so Orb hands over Athrun (because they're a pacifist nation) to ZAFT he gets chewed out by his Father because of his loss of a gundam, but then Athrun learns that Lacus is declared a traitor because she let an unknown pilot steal Freedom. Athrun is shocked (I wouldn't be) so his Father sends Athrun out in the Justice (the other unit to get the stupid Neutron Jammer Canceler) to either retrieve or (his father heavily implies to) destroy it. so Athrun heads out. and Dearka is still in the brig.

so the Tubby heads over to Orb because they're now considered deserters and Orb is a Pacifist nation. ZAFT in retaliation to the Feddies' little (Titans) stunt take out their new HQ in panama. using something that creates a powerful EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) that some how doesn't affect ZAFT stuff so they go insane and kill most of the people in Panama, while Yzak (who's been neglected all this time) watches saying its honorless to defeat an unarmed opponent. and while that was happening a reconstructed Strike is given back to the Tubby for anyone's (read as Roy Fokker Mu's) use. Dearka is still in the brig.

and now the Titans have made some political propoganda saying that any nation that isn't with them is part of ZAFT because Orb is the the holder of one of the Last two remaining Mass drivers on earth and the Titans are having problems getting the other one because its ZAFT's own Mass driver. so Orb gets some flak from everyone because ZAFT does the exact same campaign in space. and while that's being produced in the background we're introduced to BatS*** insane Muruta Azrael, who is the leader of the Blue Cosmos cult. with him comes a trio of reversed and slightly improved Gundam units. the Forbidden is the one with a Mirage colloid capabilities of an I-field, the Raider is another transforming one that turns into a rather ugly bird and wields the useless Hammer/flail and is mainly a transport for the Calamity, which is basically Beamspam made into a mobile suit. and each of them is piloted by an "Biological CPU" or more commonly known as a person with some rather extensive cybernetics (which cause an amount of pain if they don't get their meds) who are just about as insane as Azrael but they also just live to fight. they attack the Tubby which causes Yamato to have a difficult time until Athrun shows up. and Dearka is still in the brig.

so the next episode is basically the same thing with Athrun helping Yamato against the true berserkers, while Athrun debates with himself (weakly) about what he's fight for is the right thing. basically the next few episodes are just showing how evil Azrael is. so Orb decides to send the Tubby back into space along with the prototype for the Tubby (which actually looks cooler) the Kusanagi. so while the prep for their send off Cagalli finds out that Yamato is her brother (which was hinted at when the Tubby first came to Orb) which causes some distress as this happens right as the Tubby and the Kusanagi are lifting off. and the insane trio get a face full of explosive as all the leaders of Orb blow up the Mass Driver with them in it. and Dearka is finally release from the brig because he's bettered himself as a person.

so basically the next episode is showing how Evil Patrick Zala is due to his own propaganda. Azrael finally gets a Mass driver so he can start his assault on the PLANTs. Athrun returns to the PLANTs to confront his father about his plans and is then taken prisoner because of "treasonous actions". he is then saved by one of the Coordinator Resistance who is in service to Lacus. she along with a crippled Andrew Waltfeld (he's missing an eye and one arm, god damn it Andy you were a Ramba Ral, you're supposed to be dead!) steals the ship the Eternal which becomes the ship that launches the Freedom and Justice. they join with the Tubby and the Kusanagi.

so the Three Muskrats head off to a dead colony to make final adjustments to the Urinal, repairs to the Kusanagi and the Tubby. but sadly they are both found by Le Crumpet (who has Yzak and Psyhco-B**** with him) and the newly minted Dominion, an Evil version of the Tubby (aka its colored black instead of white) which is comanded by Badgirl. the next few episodes are just fights with Le Crumpet revealing some secrets about Yamato's, Mu's, and His own past. Yamato is apparently the Perfect Coordinator, bread in an artificial womb (because real wombs still affect development), Mu's Father funded that research so he could Clone himself which resulted in Le Crumpet. big whoop there. and while that was happening Le Crumpet set up Psycho-B**** to be sent out in a life pod with a disk containing something important. basically the Dominion pick her up, and Azrael gets his hands on the Neutron Jammer Canceler (as well as plans for the Freedom and Justice).

At this point the actual leaders of the Titans Earth Alliance want to just get some actually good power up and running but Azrael bends them into arming nukes with it so he can just Nuke the PLANTs. so after the first trial run of the "Launching Ze Missiles!" Zala orders to fire the GENESIS. (which I've stated is nothing more than the Solar Ray Cannon only done with radiation)which takes out a good chunk of the Titan's forces. one episode is spent on the up and coming battle. Le Crumpet gets to pilot the Providence a really stupid looking Gundam unit that has Funnels (proper funnels)and Mu gets to fight him in the Strike while Yamato, Athrun, and Cagalli (in a pink Strike with a unicorn on the sholder, NOT JOKING!) get to fight the dominion and the crazy three. Badgirl on the dominion got fed up of Azrael's treatment of people locked herself and him on the bridge while her crew got to escape. Azrael fires upon the Tubby and Mu (who somehow got away from his fight with Le Crumpet, I forgot how) jumped infront of the beam and literally melted to death (HE'S DEAD, YOU GOT THAT SEED DESTINY? he even got the cracked floating helmet in his death scene). to which the Bright-wannabe finally acts as if struck by the Man himself fires and Bridge shots the dominion. Le Crumpet is now more insane than he was before fires upon he escape vehicle from the dominion containing Psycho-B****. we are then treated to a Kamille like vision of Flay apologizing to Yamato about her racist mind set and that she never understoon how much everyone was going through. oh while that was happening Patrick Zala got shot in the back by a nameless ZAFT commander who sadly dies because Zala shot him before the Commander got his shot off.

so the last episode is basically trying to stop GENESIS from firing upon the earth. which Athrun does by self detonating Justice, and Cagalli rescues him in her pink strike. Yamato is left to defeat Le Crumpet, which he does and it was the most STUPID F***ING ENDING THAT I'VE EVER SCENE. everything I watched I predicted 20 episodes before it was shown.

supposedly (from Wikipedia itself) there's a 51st episode thats another recap/what are the characters up to after the war.

AND THAT IS THE PLOT SUMMARY OF GUNDAM SEED.

BLARGH! *dies from exhaustion.*

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 13 2009, 11:40 PM

Dear god.

SEED Destiny's going to be a nightmare when we actually watch it.

Posted by: Asher Omega Apr 13 2009, 11:56 PM

now you know my horrors.

Posted by: Zhanneel Apr 15 2009, 2:07 AM

Challenge of the Gobots! Probably the first (or second) robot cartoon I ever watched. And yes, it was kind of appalling...but nostalgic for me nonetheless. ^^

And now I am typing this in the intensive care ward...after my brain blew up from the SEED post. They think it was an aneurysm *shrugs*. But we all know it SEED gnawing on my brain cells. x_x

Posted by: Asher Omega Apr 15 2009, 2:31 AM

I'm sorry for bring the horror that is Seed upon you. need an elder sigil to ward it off?

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 15 2009, 2:39 AM

Don't forget the Mantarok runes.

Posted by: Zhanneel Apr 15 2009, 4:04 AM

O_o What and what? xD

Of course I'm off to look those two things up now (because I'm ignorant).

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 20 2009, 4:18 PM

Time to cover a new Tomino story... one that came out during a painful and dreary time in his life and when he needed to learn to laugh again after the terror and shock of Ideon. In fact, this series came on while Tomino was working on the Ideon movies and he no doubt needed something to cheer himself up what with also oversee all those death scenes.

This series is Combat Mecha Xabungle. And it is more epic than all of us will ever be.

Our hero this time is the "melon-headed" Jiron Amos. And I will say this right here, and right now even though Ranma and at least one silent reader is going to send me heaps of hate mail.

Jiron Amos is more hotblooded and awesome than the entire cast of Gurren Lagann put together. I will explain that in due time.

Xabungle takes place on a desert-like planet known as Zora (UNSPOILER: it's really Earth and people call it that all the time too). Humanity is divided into two groups; the highly advanced civilization known as the Innocent who live in pressurized glass domes and produce almost all the weapons, medicine, and raw goods the world needs, and the Civilians who live off the land, scrounging for materials to trade with the Innocent. It's a brutal living for the Civilians, where there is really only one law: the Three Day Rule which states the statute of limitations for any kind of wrongdoing is only three days.

Our hero is this Jiron Amos, who at the start of the story loses his parents to a cowboy-esque killer named Timp Shaloon and vows to bring him to justice no matter what. He's already had his three days but refuses to let that stop him, something his friends view as something seriously wrong with him. Said friends are a group of bandits known as the Sandrats, who are scraping out a living in the nigh-lifeless world of Zora/Earth. In the opening events of the series, an attempted raid on the large land ship known as the Iron Gear to steal its advanced Walker Machines gets out of control when the captain's bodyguard, Hola, attempts to use the chaos to capture his boss, the beautiful Elche Cargo.

Crazy stuff happens, and very quickly Jiron gets his hands on one of the two prototype combat-oriented Walker Machines (all previous ones were originally meant for menial labor) called Xabungle. Driving off Hola, Jiron and his friends end up becoming Elche's new security detail and Jiron gradually gets into a love triangle between the aggressive and tomboyish Rag and the Innocent-fangirl and culture-loving Elche. They are just supposed to stick around until they get to an Innocent base and engage in trading and resupply, but things spin out of control when the crew of the Iron Gear discovers a schism is going on between the Innocent being led by Athur Dent Rank and those serving an ambitions man named Kashim.

To make matters worse, Hola has sided with Kashim's faction in return for getting to marry Elche and Kashim then goes on to request the aid of the mercenary Civilians that call themselves the Breakers. And Jiron quickly discovers Timp is working for them too, and the fights go on as Jiron and company fight to not only determine the fate of Earth, but the truth about the Innocent and Civilians. And over the course of the battles Jiron gets his hands on the new, super-powerful combat Walker Machine known as Gallier, using it as he continues to fight the good fight and leaves the usage of the two Xabungles to his friends.

This story is a lot less serious than I'm making it out to be. There's loads of slapstick humor and they break the fourth wall all the time too. With only a few exceptions, most of the cast as genuinely good people and most of the villains, by story's end, are on good terms with the heroes. Hardly anyone dies either and all but one of those people really deserved the deaths they got.

Now, as I mentioned before, Jiron's just so absurdly cool. Part of what makes him great is unlike most Real Robot protagonists who angst, Jiron just opts to solve his problems by beating the crap out of his enemies. He also performs amazing feats of bravery that would seem standard fare for most Super Robot pilots... except for one thing.

Walker Machines run on ordinary gasoline. So whereas the likes of Simon and Kamina have Spiral Power backing them up and Gai Shishioh has the G-Stone, Jiron has nothing supporting him. It's just him, his machine, and his unshakable determination that lets him catch an ICBM or kick ass while announcing "WALKER GALLIER IS A BOY!"

And then there's that doujin where Jiron gets his hands on Boss Borot from Mazinger Z and makes it into Death Incarnate. Can't forget every single moment of hot-blood in that doujin...

Anyways, Xabungle's appeared in two SRW games, Alpha Gaiden and the recent Z since both had post-apocalyptic settings. In both games, the Xabungle cast often breaks the fourth-wall in their battle quotes with the enemies, and The Adel Bernal in Z even remarks Jiron's just the "Comic Relief" when they battle.

I dare you to call a guy that throws ICBMs just Comic Relief.

This vid contains all the attacks of Xabungle Unit 1, piloted by Rag, and Gallier, piloted by Jiron.

Posted by: Asher Omega Apr 21 2009, 2:48 AM

Wait, wait, wait.... ARTHUR DENT is in Zabungle? holy S*** I thought he was still gallivanting across the universe with Ford Prefect with the handy dandy Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? (I refuse to acknowledge the last book in the "trilogy").

also I could watch Zabungle's Intro for hours on end.

Ps. Morrigan I'm not sure but did the Seiyuu of Ryuzaki (Daimos) do the voice of the protaganist of Raideen? (I finally got farther in MX where I can finally control Raideen {and let dendoh rot in the hanger}, because they sound almost exactly the same.)

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 21 2009, 3:49 AM

I do believe the guy's name is Arthur Dent Rank. He's also blatantly Bishonen.





And yes, Ryuuzaki voiced Akira from Raideen. Akira Kamiya did them, Ryoma from Getter Robo, the guy from the first Gaiking, Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, and Suguru in Kinnikuman. And Dr. Tomeo in Sailor Moon and Perseus Algol and Dubhe Alpha Siegfried in Saint Seiya.

Posted by: Asher Omega Apr 21 2009, 4:12 AM

I was wondering about that. damn so that's another reason why I like my Getter.

and damn I was hoping Arthur Dent had a happy job in the Zabungle-verse.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 21 2009, 4:30 AM

Well, he's a perfectly nice and moral guy.

Posted by: Asher Omega Apr 21 2009, 4:36 AM

instead of being a @$$hat that most bishonen are? at least in shonen-verses? that's a nice mix up.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 21 2009, 1:11 PM

Oh yes, Arthur's a perfectly benevolent guy who wants the Innocent to carry out their original plan for the planet and the Civilians (Involving screwing over both 0%, seriously). Kashin holds him captive and at least in Alpha Gaiden you had to go and spring him.

Posted by: Zhanneel Apr 25 2009, 7:12 PM

With my ever decreasing amount of free time threatening to wage war against my sanity, I managed to make some time (or steal time?) to read through Xabungle. It sounds fun and unconventional. Something, were I allotted more time to myself, I may partake in. *sigh* Perhaps in the next decade.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 28 2009, 12:15 AM

Update time.

Martian Successor Nadesico is a subversive and unusual comedy Real Robot anime created by XEBEC Studio that came out roughly eight months after Neon Genesis Evangelion finished its television run. In a way, it is a spiritual cousin... but while Evangelion took a deconstructive route with the Super Robot genre, Nadesico does something different with the Real Robot genre.

The year is 2196, with humanity at odds with the alien invaders from Jupiter known as the Jovians, who are vilified as lizard-like monsters since nobody's ever seen an actual one. The Jovians resort to warping their own automated machines to Earth, and they've displayed tactics that have constantly defeated Earth's defenses. A chance at victory becomes apparent, however, when the military contractors known as the Nergal Group decides to field their own warships and machines. In the captain's chair of their prized, White Base-esque ship known as the Nadesico, is the daughter of Earth's highest ranking general, the ditzy but competent Yurika Misumaru. The remainder of the crew is equally quirky, having been selected from civilian databases rather than military ones. They all know how to fight, however.

Our hero this time is Yurika's childhood friend Akito Tenkawa, who has spent the past few years of his life on Mars as a soldier only to remember none of it. After stowing away on the Nadesico through contrived coincidences, being found, deciding to pull his weight by being the Nadesico's chef since he's a natural at it, and meeting the hot-blooded and passionate Gai Daigouji, Akito ends up piloing one of the Nadesico's Aestivalis machines.

The Aestivalises are very, very small and meant to be nimble. They are literally pieces of metal crafted together with guns and a forcefield... and nothing else. Not even a power generator. Instead, the Nadesico "beams" energy to them, so as long as an Aestivalis stays close enough to the Nadesico, it has unlimited running time. One episode in the series, often included in SRW games where Nadesico takes part in, actually involves the Aestivalis machines taking part in a ground assault on a railgun and on a tight time limit since they're running out of energy so fast.

The series itself really was founded on one strong belief: people should not take anime so seriously. The show within a show, Gekiganger III, exists mainly for this purpose and to show life is not like it is in anime, while at the same time presenting an usual commentary on the events of the episode. Nadesico really accomplishes this ideal through sucker-punches... even though it's a comedy, bad stuff happens and people die. Not to the same degree as Gundam, but they still die.

The first instance of this was actually the second episode, wherein Gai and Akito are watching an episode of Gekiganger III where one of the heroes dies a heroic death, sacrificing himself so his friend can defeat the enemy of the episode. The act reduces Gai to tears, wishing that he could have a meaningful death like that.

At the end of the episode, he is shot and killed by a panicking Earth admiral, thinking he was going to try to keep him from running away. Later on in the series, we discover that the Jovians are in fact human as well, and have their entire culture based around Gekiganger III, using it to further spur their war against Earth... don't ask why. It's confusing.

Lots of crazy stuff happens from there, and though the series does get bleaker, especially near the end, it doesn't really lose its light nor does it travel down the road of Evangelion. Peace is restored... ish... and the series ended with 26 episodes, with plans for a trilogy of movies to be made to tie up loose ends. Only one movie, the Prince of Darkness, was made... and it is... polarizing.

The Prince of Darkness takes place three years after the anime, with a Japanese-only video game bridging that distance and explaining how the young and snarky Ruri Hoshino, considered to be the most popular character in Nadesico at the time and the most iconic, came to become the Nadesico's captain. The peace between the Earth and the Jovian Alliance has grown uneasy, and many people have gone missing, such as Akito and his beloved Yurika. Bad stuff is happening, and a great part of the plot is tragically reduced to "getting the old cast back together". Some have changed and some have stayed the same...

And then there's poor Akito and Yurika... who are horrendous victims of character derailment, tragic victims of dark forces that have made their lives hell for the past three years. The movie itself ends essentially with Ruri going Deus Ex Machina on us and sloving the problem in about three minutes... a bit letdown, really. Naturally fans were furious and the entire movie project was scrapped. In the years since, the only other Nadesico media produced was a manga and an appearance in some SRW games. Ruri herself has since become sorta of a reviled Mary Sue, which is not really that untrue, and the series has more or less burned out.

That being said, it's short, and if you simply declare the movie non-canon (you wouldn't be the first one to do that), the series can be a lot of fun. Ruri doesn't become the Queen of the Universe until the movie, everyone can have a happy ending, and lots of SRW games avert the crisis that is Prince of Darkness anyways.

Nadesico got its entry into the SRW franchise with the first Game Boy Advance title, Super Robot Wars Advance. Bright ended up getting a de-facto rivalry with Yurika, which has been parodied in the 4koma that he's jealous of the fact they think she's awesome because she's hot and he can do better. Typically, the games focus on the original series, although there are a few occasions that a game will instead include the Prince of Darkness. Due to the events of SRW R, you actually *avert* the movie by going back in time and fixing problems there... which also includes preventing the events of Char's Counterattack coming into being. Super Robot Wars MX (planned to be a sequel to Impact) and W also include the movie's plot.

In gameplay terms, at the start of each turn, if an Aestivalis is close enough to the Nadesico, they get all their used energy back. Otherwise, they lose a small amount.

Here's a vid from SRW MX, covering some of the moves of an Aestivalis as well as Akito's customized "Black Selena" machine from the movie. It includes a clip from the movie at the end. Also note Miss Ruri "Mary Sue" Hoshino. You can't miss her.



I will cover Gekiganger III, which I mentioned earlier, in a few weeks.

Posted by: Fortress Guy Apr 29 2009, 3:56 AM

This is one of your best write-ups yet Morri. You kept it shorter than the others. The pacing was decent. You did not include too much detail, instead you kept it more on track for an overview.

While there certainly is a lot of names to wade though, that is also reflective of the series with its large cast. I liked where you talked about the culture built around a fictional TV show called "Gekiganger III". I liked the Gai character and was sad to see him die. That was a poignant couple of episodes. I think the series did not live up to these episodes later on.

I am glad you pointed out how horrid the movie was. The series ended badly IMO, and the movie was a wretched pile of swill that stepped all over its predecessor with little regard. I did not know it was supposed to be three movies, but considering how bad the first was the others were doomed. Did they even know the series they were supposed to be following? It was like turning the sequel of a romantic comedy into a slasher film.

I say keep your new more-condensed style.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Apr 29 2009, 4:13 AM

Lolz. Easier said than done. I haven't watched Nadesico, and I just had to pool from information I know about it. Usually, the more I'm familiar with the depths of the series, the more expansive my coverage goes.

That being said, there's plenty of series out there that'll have shorter summaries. Daltanius, Godmars, and Dangaioh come to mind... not to mention covering Gekiganger III itself.

Posted by: MorriganAensland May 4 2009, 3:35 PM

Today, I cover the last series that Tadao Nagahama, director of the Robot Romance trilogy, helped contribute to before his death due to Hepatitis. This series is Future Robo Daltanius... and I'm going to have to hold back the laughs as I write this due to... obvious reasons.

The year is 1995, and Earth has since been conquered by the nefarious and evil University of Akron Star Cluster. With most of the large cities destroyed and humanity struggling to get by, a young boy named Kento finds refuge in a cave... where he meets a humanoid alien (Yep, another one) who goes by the name of Earl. Earl himself is from the Helios Empire, a civilization that had been wiped out by Akron. Earl himself is in possession of one of the robots needed to form the defender of the Helios people, Daltanius, the humanoid machine called Atlaus, and he decides to entrust it to Kento. There is also a jet-like machine called the Gunper, which is piloted by Kento's older and laid-back friend Danji.

After their first battle, Danji and Kento discover a giant mechanical lion called Belarios, which in fact can combine with Atlaus and Gunper to become the 57 meter tall Super Robot known as Daltanius... and together they resolve to fight against the Akron forces and save the Earth. In the meantime, we find out about the famous space warrior known throughout the galaxy Gascon and the heroes attempt to earn his support -and by extension the support of much of space- to let Earth become free... providing a sticky situation for the Akron forces of whether to let him live or make more enemies by killing such a well-loved soldier.

Kento also goes through a series of discoveries himself, eventually discovering he is in fact the last in the line of the emperors of Helios and helps further his desire to finally defeat Akron and save humanity. Naturally, being a Super Robot series, the day is saved in the end.

Daltanius was fairly by the books in its story, but its premise stood out in a number of ways. For instance, conquering the Earth was oftentimes the long-term goal of villains in a Super Robot series... whereas in Daltanius that was already accomplished. This was also the first real instance of connecting a lion to a Super Robot and have its face stick out of its chest. Many installments of the Braves franchise, such as Exkaiser and GaoGaiGar, carried on this proud tradition. Dancougar and Golion also possibly can have success attributed to it, what with mentioning cougars in the name of the former and the over-abundance of lions in the latter.

Daltanius was also originally going to be the first part of the Voltron trilogy before it was decided that Golion would be a better pick. The humor is that the three planned Voltron series would be Lion Voltron (Golion), Vehicle Voltron (Dairugger XV), and then Gladiator Voltron (Lightspeed ElectroGod Albegas)... whereas Daltanius has a Gladiator (Atlaus), a Vehicle (Gunper), and a Lion (Belarios). The first episode of Daltanius was even dubbed in English and fitted into the Voltron storyline before it was changed to Golion. Such a shame too... V_V

Anyways, Daltanius has appeared in a few SRW games... including SRW GC for the Gamecube and SRW D for the Game Boy Advance. In D, the Akron forces were *kinda* demoted, their entire force merely under subdivision of the Gishin Empire from the series Godmars. Daltanius could separate into its separate pieces and was a decent enough unit, although like all Supers in the game it was a glass cannon and not really worth using in the endgame. Here are its attacks... oh, and its nowhere near as buffed as this video makes it out to be. You also need to take a specific route point to power it up to its max potential... which sorta kills the fun of it since in D Supers are so worthless... and those levels require you to take on the enemies using mainly Supers so... yeah...

Posted by: MorriganAensland May 12 2009, 10:14 PM

Ack! Can't believe I forgot about it yesterday! The day I was going to cover the great, the powerful, the awesome...

THE BIG O!

It was a painful night all those years ago when Bruce Wayne lost his pare- Whoops. Wrong series.

The Big O was created by Sunrise in an attempt to break the mold of spamming Gundam series all the time and having a teenage boy as the chief protagonist. There'd been enough space operas or modern-day epics that they just needed a break. So in 1999, after several years of planning and a number of Sunrise's own artists having helped out on the Batman animated show making the cels, things were set.

The premise is a far cry from many Sunrise series that had been made during the time. In the domed locale known as Paradigm City, people exist without memories. Well, memories of most things prior to them living in Paradigm. In spite of it all, they attempt to go about their lives and the city is a deliberate throwback to the old Noir detective stories. Our hero this time is a man at least in his mid-twenties named Roger Smith, obviously styled after Bruce Wayne in more ways than one. He prides himself on being a gentleman, has a loyal butler (named Norman), has a cool limo he drives, and rather than go out and fight crime in costume, he instead uses a giant robot.

As mentioned before, Sunrise had helped at least animate the 1990s Batman show, and naturally they found themselves interested in it. Roger himself possesses many a trait similar to Batman, although some things were changed to keep him unique. Roger was originally going to be a detective, but it was later decided it'd be more appropriate for him to be a negotiator for problems. It explains why he works with the police so much and why he's always there when things turn sour. And then Big O helps out. The series itself has aspects of Tomino's old Daitarn 3 as well, although Daitarn was more spy-oriented.

Rounding out the cast this time is Roger's old friend on the police force Dan Dastun, the android Dorthy R. Wayneright who stays at Roger's mansion and is possibly interested in him, the femme fatale Angel who somehow plays a much larger role in all of this, and the crazy guy that's possibly a Getter-2 cosplayer (not the pilot, the machine) named Schwarzwald, and other recurring characters.

The first season was fairly episodic; bad stuff seems to happen, Roger goes into to Negotiate, someone suffers from regained memories and summons a giant monster called a Megadeus, Roger would summon his with a shout of "Big O! SHOWTIME!" and the fight would commence. These episodes also introduced us to the other characters, such as the recurring albeit comical antagonist Beck and his gang.

Now the Megadeus in Big O were different from other giant robots. They were sluggish, rarely transformed, and were more about raw firepower and defense than anything else. Nobody pulled off any acrobatic moves. In a way, it was reminiscent of Giant Robo. And like Giant Robo, it was also not very successful in its initial run until it was brought over to America in 2000. Naturally, the Batman-esque environment appealed to a lot of people and Cartoon Network helped make a second season.

Season 2 had more of an arc-based narrative, dealing with the origins of Paradigm and Roger and Angel's own identities. It was kinda crazy but was still well received... in America. In Japan, it bombed again and Adult Swim decided to pour energy into cheaper crappier series which will go unnamed. In spite of it all, the series is still well-remembered and had a quality English voice acting cast.

Big O has since appeared in two SRW games, SRW D which included only the first season's events, and the recent SRW Z which introduced season 2 as well. It plays an important role in each, with Roger being responsible for arranging negotiations between the various heroic factions in D and the screwy ending of season 2 being one of the possible endings (read that as a bad ending) for SRW Z.

Big O's attacks in Z.

Posted by: MorriganAensland May 18 2009, 6:10 PM

Update time.

Now, remember I covered Nadesico not too long ago and kept mentioning a certain show within a show called Gekiganger 3; a Super Robot series meant to contrast with Nadesico's Real Robot nature. In spite of being very formulaic and basic, Gekiganger 3 is well-remembered for being an affectionate parody of so many series, and has gotten an OVA and clips were shown all the time during Nadesico.

So guess what.

Yeah.

The clips in Nadesico were farely basic and didn't show much, but XEBEC has still released plenty of material which helps bridge the gaps.

As the opening shows, the story begins when Professor Kokubunji is excavating an underground chamber and discovers drawings left behind on the wall. These drawings, left by the ancient Super Paleolithic People, predict an invasion by the extra-dimensional Kyo'akk Empire and provides design plans for a robot known as Gekiganger 3 to combat them. Kokubunji develops the machine, which is made up of three separate machines that can combine in three separate ways to make three different forms.

The three pilots are the hot-blooded Tenku Ken who pilots the primary form, while the calm and intellectual Joe Umitsubame pilots the agile and water-based Umiganger, and the portly Daichi Akira uses the strong and earth-based Rikuganger. There's also the tagalong smart-kid Junpei and Kokubunji's attractive daughter Nanako.

From what clips we see, the story is meant to be a throw-back to all the old 1970s conventions. Nanako has a brother named Rokuro joins the Kyo'akk empire, both Joe and Ken romance alien girls who sacrifice themselves rather than hurt their loved ones, Ken sparks a rivalry with the prince of the Kyo'akk forces named Akara, we meet a Texas Mack-stand in named Texas Robo piloted by a man named Cowboy Johnny, and Joe discovers he is in fact a member of an alien race that has been conquered by the Kyo'akks.

One of the most iconic (and quickly shown) sequences in the series is when Joe is killed in battle against General Masaka. Gekiganger 3 is also critically damaged and things seem hopeless. However, they quickly get their hands on the even more powerful Gekiganger V and another cool guy named Tetsuya Ryuzaki joins up with them. We don't know about much of what happens next, although we do know the final battle takes place on the Moon. Against Emperor Hyperion and hordes of the Kyo'akk's monsters, Gekiganger V seems outmatched until Joe miraculously returns with a rebuilt Gekiganger 3 and they together win the day.

Yes, it's cliche'd. But Gekiganger's colorful design and playing the things so seriously works out, and people are heartbroken every year with no inclusion of Gekiganger 3 in Super Robot Wars... besides the whole paradox thing.

Speaking of Paradoxes, episode 14 of Nadesico is a recap episode... except we watch the Gekiganger 3 cast watch the episode and have a battle against Prince Akara at the end, with both Akara and the Gekiganger times using weapons that were inspired by things they saw in Nadesico. That makes no sense, but it doesn't matter, because it's awesome.

They also made a Gekiganger OVA, which places all the Gekiganger 3 clips shown in chronological order for the first "act", and the second "act" is a Gekiganger 3 "movie". Essentially, it's a non-canon means of introducing Gekiganger V and is a send-up to the original Mazinger Z vs. The Great General of Darkness movie. It involves the Super Paleolithic people returning to conquer Earth and wipe out humanity and the Kyo'akk Empire. In spite of being so derivative, the execution was stellar enough that most fans agree that the Gekiganger 3 movie was much better than the Nadesico one.

Now, as said before, there has been no inclusion of Gekiganger 3 in SRW yet. But there's something just as great on youtube.

Posted by: MorriganAensland May 25 2009, 3:36 PM

Update time. Today is a bit of a fun one for me... it being one of those few Super Robot franchises where the main focus is on women.

Aim for the Top: Gunbuster came out in 1988 and was the directorial debut of Hideki Anno, who would later go on to make Neon Genesis Evangelion. In spite of similarities in characters, such as between heroine Noriko Takaya and Shinji Ikari of Evangelion infamy, the story is much more optimistic and more about one's desire to accomplish great things. It was an OVA that ran for six episodes, and is fondly remembered today for a very intense battle in the fifth episode along with an accurate portrayal of FTL travel.

In the future, humanity discovers gigantic creatures in space creatively known as the "Space Monsters", although this is actually an abbreviation of "Space Monster Terrible Crowd", which is also shortened down to SMTC. Earth, beginning to travel outside of its solar system, discovers the SMTC is in fact approaching Earth itself, and these monsters eat *planets*. After many disastrous battles, humanity decides to pool is resources to create one grand means of fighting the monsters.

The year is 2023, and if this were a conventional Super Robot series, the machine would already be completed and waiting for Noriko at the start of the series. But Gunbuster is different, with Noriko enrolling in a training program for potential pilots for the various Buster machines. She has an active grudge against the SMTC, since her father died in a battle against them, and strives to be one of the best cadets so she can be on the frontlines and avenge him. This is a tall order, since Noriko is clumsy and struggles with her training regiment.

She finds support in a man she calls "Coach", who served with Noriko's father and also admiration in the top cadet in the program, Kazumi Amano, who she looks up to like a big sister. Through hard work and determination, Noriko is eventually decided to be the second pilot from Japan, and the stage is set for the battles to come. They are equipped with Gunbuster, the 200 meter tall machine armed with more firepower than the combined strength of most of the Super Robots to date, and yet another machine with Motion Capture technology that emulates Noriko's actions while Kazumi handles the technical stuff.

Said battles take place in a faster-than-light environment, and Noriko and Kazumi are at first startled to realize that even though very little time is going on for them, thousands of years are going by for humanity. In spite of it all, the day is saved in the end, and they return not to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but to anxious and praising humans, who have continued to live for 12,000 years in peace thanks to the sacrifices Noriko and company made.

Gunbuster was very successful, and solidified Anno's status in the world of anime. Twenty years later, a sequel series called Diebuster was made to honor it.



Aim for the Top 2: Diebuster, with an art style more similar to FLCL or Gurren-Lagann, tells the tale of a girl name Nono, who aspires to become a space pilot and be like "Nonoriri", meaning Noriko.

Noriko lives in a world where, somehow, the SMTC has managed to recover and are again planning to destroy the Earth. The counter it, the empire that rules humanity has begun work on many new Buster Machines to oppose them. Naturally, Nono wants to become a pilot for one and be like Noriko, and it all seems a rehash of the old story, right?

Wrong.

For one, Noriko ends up realizing that there is no need for her to ever pilot a Buster Machine, because she IS a Buster Machine, Buster Machine 7 to be specific. Crazy stuff happens, including infighting amongst the members of the Topless, the Buster Machine-using team, and eventually Nono leaves Earth. The other Buster Machine pilots, including Lal'C (her own stand-in for Kazumi), are heartbroken by this since Nono was such inspiration for them before. The final battle line gets drawn as they find out that the main SMTC creature is bringing a black hole (somehow) along with it.

Crazy stuff happens from here, and the Topless still resolve to fight to the bitter end. Nono returns as the superpowerful Diebuster, and eventually she and Lal'C save the day... albeit at the cost of Nono's life.

In the final part of the series, we find out the truth; Diebuster is not a sequel per-se to Gunbuster. Instead, it is events that happened WHILE Gunbuster was doing that FTL time dilation thing. And when Noriko and Kazumi return in the end, having fought the SMTC away from Earth while Nono and Lal'C fought them near Earth, Lal'C decides to tell them of the brave sacrifices Nono did, and how she looked up to both of them as role models. Bittersweet, but fulfilling all the way through.

Gunbuster has since appeared in the Classic and Alpha timelines of Super Robot Wars, although Diebuster has not. Gunbuster is a very large and powerful machine, and in SRW Alpha 3, it is the only machine that is the same size as the titanic Keisar Ephes. The Gunbuster events are very crucial to the storyline of the Alpha timeline, with the destruction of the Earth ship Excelion near the end of Alpha causing the events of Alpha Gaiden to begin. The SMTC are also stated to be encroaching into Balmarian space in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 as are the Buff Clan from Ideon, forcing the Ze Balmarian Empire to pull forces away from battling you and deal with them as well.

Naturally, you still have to fight them all. But the Gunbuster route through Alpha 3 is one of the three possible endings, and it's pretty fulfilling as is the whole story.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jun 1 2009, 10:13 PM

It's Monday. So you know what that means.

Today I'm covering one of the first Real Robot series made after Gundam. Similar to it, it's begun a long and proud franchise that is still going strong. This series is Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the first in Big West's Super Dimension metaseries, which began airing in 1982.

Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the title in fact a compromise between "Megaroad" and "Macbeth" due to a dispite with two writers. Anyways...

THE YEAR IS 1999!!! And in South Ataria Island, a massive warship crashes down to the ground. After ten long years of reverse engineering this machine's technology, the UN forms the UN Spacey, a military branch that focuses on space battles as the Army does with ground assaults and the navy does with water. The machine itself has been redesigned into the SDF-1 Macross, and smaller vessels inspired by the Macross's transformation ability, known as Valkyries, are made as well.

However, all is not well in the world. Turns out the Macross is based off of a warship used by a race that opposed the Zentradi aliens who are, naturally, humanoid except much, much taller but otherwise normally proportioned. Just as the ace pilot and leader of the newly-formed Skull Squadron, Roy Focker, invites the civilian Hikaru Ichiyo onboard does the Macross go berserk and engage in self-defense programs. Detecting Zentradi forces, it activates a powerful cannon which wiped out the scouting fleet all while the crew tries in vain to stop it. Whether they like ir or not, however, Earth is now at war with the Zentradi.

With things going crazy and more Zentradi coming, Hikaru ends up meeting the sweet and honest young girl Lynn Minmay and saving her from the Zentradi. He quickly joins the Skull Squadron, and just in time too as another Zentradi force comes. In desperation and knowing that the Zentradi are concerned only with the Macross and don't care much for the rest of humanity... at least at the moment... the crew of the Macross hope to use its FTL-Jump Drive to flee to the moon.

Unfortunately, it gets munged up and they end up warped to the edge of the Solar System instead, forced to slowly crawl back to Earth over the course of months while fending off Zentradi attacks.

The Zentradi also begin to grow interested in humanity, believing them to be their creators or descendants of their creators, a race known as the Protoculture. Some of them end up becoming "Micloned", meaning shrunk down to human proportions, in an attempt to infiltrate the Macross. Romance blooms, as do love triangles, and the Zentradi begin to feel confused about Minmay's singing, which she uses to help boost people's spirits onboard. The Zentradi, so used to war, are confused by it all and don't know what to make of it.

The story continues on from this point, developing into a much more serious story than first expected. In fact, Macross was supposed to PARODY Mobile Suit Gundam complete with Hikaru initially sucking royally in his first sorties, and yet it still grew into a semi-serious, although still optimistic tale. However, it had a number of painful tragedies in it, such as with poor Roy who suffers severe internal injuries in episode 18. Refusing to get medical treatment and go against a promise he had made to a girl he liked, he instead proudly played his guitar while she made pineapple salad for him... only to die from his wounds when they finally catch up to him. Pineapples have since become a symbol of tragic deaths in Macross, becoming a twisted joke of sorts.

Anyways, they get back to Earth. And bad stuff happens. Lots of bad stuff.

The series was losing sponsors and although planned for a 48-episode run, it was likely it would have to be cut down to 27. Big West decided to go out with a bang with the Zentradi attacking Earth in full-force, and wiping out nearly all life on it. Skull Squadron, however, finds some support in dissident Zentradi, who have begun steps to becoming more civilized thanks to Minmay's music and help them. The villains are killed off and event though Earth is devastated and much of the population is gone, there is the reassurance that Macross is intact, the protagonists have the resources and manpower to rebuild the Earth, and things can be okay.

With that, Big West was sadly going to close the tale on Macross until Tatsunoko Productions stepped in and funded them to make a few more episodes. These episodes take place two years afterwards, where some Zentradi grow bored with peace and attempt to return to a path of violence. These last few episodes also help wrap up romantic plot threads, which were a big part of Macross's story, with Hikaru choosing supporting character Misa Hayase, who he had fought alongside on the frontlines in Valkyries, over Minmay. However, everyone behaves like adults and the story ends with Hikaru becoming captain of a new ship that will explore the galaxy.

The story was very successful, as I said before. It was also brought over to America as part 1 of Harmony Gold's Robotech saga, in which the story ended up getting MORE bleak and had the entire cast killed off in the end to make way for the next series involved. Macross's emphasis on music in the story, along with the romantic elements, set it apart from Gundam and it enjoys popularity to this day. It is the most expansive part of the Super Dimension trilogy, with spin-offs, movies, side-stories, and audio dramas. The compilation movie, Do You Remember Love?, is treated as a movie in-series, and is mentioned in the sequel Macross Seven.

Macross has also been included in a number of Super Robot Wars games, and the crashing of the Macross into South Atalia ends up being an important event that kick-starts the events of the Alpha timeline, forcing the One Year War of Gundam to an early close and revealing that the Zentradi are in fact another faction that the Ze Balmarian Empire wars against.

Here is Hikaru's machine in Super Robot Wars Alpha.


And the Macross itself.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jun 6 2009, 3:24 PM

*staggers out of the abyss, in worse shape than Asher after he watched Gundam SEED*

If a kind and loving God existed, Gundam SEED Destiny's anime would not exist.

I have, over the course of six hours, watched the compilation movies for that horrible, HORRIBLE series. It was like everyone they introduced in the new series suddenly started being an idiot sooner or later, which is a crying shame because it started out decently enough!

In time, I'll provide an elaborate summary of everything that happened, similar to Asher's review of SEED. First I'll cover the characters and technology and stuff, then I'll cover the events itself. Except I'll be doing lots, and lots, and lots of retconning. Which really is for the best.

Posted by: Asher Omega Jun 6 2009, 9:07 PM

I would heavily suggest that you find a series that doesn't make much sense outside of itself. Like Cromartie.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jun 9 2009, 11:27 PM

Okay. Big update... a really big one at that. I'm covering all the other Gundam continuities except for 00 and the Cosmic Era.

Well, after Victory Gundam, Tomino was burned out. He didn't want to do anything with Gundam anymore and I believe he actually left Sunrise to get some therapy and get his problems sorted out. The problem for Bandai and Sunrise, however, was Gundam's 15th anniversary was coming out in 1994, they were planning something big, and they had no director.

And then in came Yasuhiro Imagawa, whose fame was growing thanks to Giant Robo... who was asked to do a Gundam series. He jumped at the chance, only to be told it was going to be radically different. There was not going to be much story, just the hero travelling around and fighting other people in their Gundams in a big tournament. Naturally, Imagawa had no interest in such a generic story. Taking that premise, that boring as hell premise, he made an iconic story.

He made Mobile Fighter G Gundam.

G Gundam is the first of the alternate continuity Gundam stories, taking place in the Future Century calender. War has since been abolished and much of humanity lives on colonies that are usually shaped like the respective countries they represent. Their names are also the same, just with the word "Neo" slapped on the front. War has since been abolished, replaced with the slightly less destructive Gundam Fight tournament, which is held every year. Similar to Robot Jox mentioned before, the Gundam Fight has the various countries each field one fighter in a Gundam who engages in a number of preliminary matches before the finals are held. The winner at the end of the tournament gets to have his country rule humanity for the next four years.

So in short, it's a less bloody version of America's presidential system.

Our her this time is karate expert and current holder of the title "King of Hearts", Domon Kasshu. Domon himself pilots the Shining Gundam, and like the other Gundams in this series, are a stark contrast to Tomino's in terms of their overall power and status as Super Robots instead. It's still got the head-mounted machine guns and the beam sabers, but the Shining Gundam also came with a "Super Mode", which would boost up its performance.

The first eleven episodes or so were fairly basic. Domon and his tech support, brainy girl Rain, would travel around the world, fighting opponents while hoping to get information about a man in a photograph he carried. A few episodes in, it is revealed that the man in question is his brother Kyoji, who one year ago stole the experimental "Ultimate Gundam" which was planned to repair damage to the Earth. In a scuffle with the Japanese military, Domon's mother died and his father was sentenced to prison via cryogenic stasis with the condition that if Domon arrests or kills Kyoji and wins the Gundam Fight tournament, his father will be freed and the charges will be dropped. During this time, we might a number of important characters, including the other members of Domon's Five Man Band: the American Chibodee Crockett his more brash Lancer, the intellectual Frenchman George de Saand as the Smart Guy, Chinese kid Sai Saichi and Russian space pirate Argo Gulski as the Big Guys, and Rain as the Chick.

However, things start to heat up during visit to Egypt where Domon discovers that the Egyptian Gundam has been influenced by the Devil Gundam and Domon knows he's on the right track. However, he is then called to Shinjuku in Japan, where he discovers the city has been under attack from grunts created by the Devil Gundam. The shock is softened by reuniting with his old master, the previous winner of the Gundam Fight called Master Asia or "Undefeated of the East", and whose name was never revealed until a G Gundam prequel manga a few years ago. Domon then discovers that Chibodee and his other friends have been affected by the Devil Gundam's nanomachines, called DG Cells and after a few battles with their leader, discovers that Master Asia has allied himself with Kyoji and the Devil Gundam for his own gains. Things seem hopeless until the Shuffle Alliance; other Gundam pilots who bear titles similar to the "King of Hearts" title Domon has, arrive and sacrifice themselves to restore Domon's friends back to normal. Domon has a scuffle with the Devil Gundam, but hesitates in the end because he didn't want to hurt his brother. We also meet the CHAR of the series, a German ninja (no, really) named Schwarz Bruder.

After that, Domon decides to train in Giyana Highlands where he had trained in the past with Master Asia. He and Rain discover Chibodee and the others have come to the Highlands too, in order to lay to rest their uneasy feelings and trauma from being pawns of the Devil Gundam. Except for Argo, because not even being the slave of a monster like that shakes him up that much. Domon gradually learns to tap into the true power of the Super Mode, and just in time too, because the Devil Gundam and Master Asia show back up for round 2. Schwarz helps out, and in the end Domon seemingly destroys the Devil Gundam at the cost of critically damaging the Shining Gundam.

However, he gets salvation when Japan sends him the even stronger God Gundam, and he manages to dispatch Master Asia and then head off to the Gundam Fight finals in Hong Kong... incidentally the region Master Asia's representing.

The latter half of the series chronicles Domon's attempts at hacking his way up the ranks, discovering that the deceased Ramba Ral of the series, England's fighter Gentile Chapman, and his first opponent, Michelo Chariot, have been re-admitted into the tournament and are in fact working for Master Asia and Wong Yunfat, the head of Hong Kong and a man planning to use the Devil Gundam for his own good. He also meets Allenby Beardsly, a female Gundam pilot and they become fast friends, which throws a wedge in the DomonXRain relationship. Nevertheless, when the time comes around for the Domon vs. Schwarz duel, Rain does end up realizing her feelings for Domon and vice-versa, and all is well.

The final set of episodes take place over the course of two arcs. First of all, the Devil Gundam has been slowly crumbling away due to the damage Domon inflicted to it at the Giyana Highlands, and Wong has researched its strengths and how to bring it out. Having captured Allenby earlier in the series, he plans on using her as its new Life Core unit to replace Kyoji. During the Battle Royale to determine the winner of the tournament, Domon and his friends fight against the Devil Gundam's forces to the best of their ability, Chibodee, George, Argo, and Sai all falling by the wayside to defeat Chapman and Chariot. Rain herself, using the personal Gundam of Domon's superior, Ulube, duels and successfully saves Allenby. Domon discovers Schwarz is actually a duplicate of his brother prior to Kyoji becoming a slave to the Devil Gundam, and tragically, Domon must kill them both to end the monster. He then goes on to defeat and mortally wound Master Asia. The two make their peace before Master Asia dies in a poignant and tragic moment in the series, with Domon being declared the winner of the tournament. In short, all is well.

Almost.

Turns out that Domon's bosses, Ulube and Rain's scientist father, were planning on using the Devil Gundam for THEMSELVES, and Ulube kidnaps Rain to be used as the new Life Core Unit of the repaired Devil Gundam. Domon and his friends rally to her rescue, and eventually succeed in the end, giving us a happy ending.

G Gundam's iconic in the Gundam franchise because it broke the mold every other series helped set. The deliberate camp to it all (A Gundam that turns into a WINDMILL!?!) is what makes it so appealing, really, along with all the kung fu action and all. It's definitely worth a look if you're into Super Robots, and it also comes with a number of shout-outs to previous Tomino works by providing brief cameos of some Universal Century Gundams. Well... and it also included a shot of one more Gundam too, one which would make itself known in just a few months.

That Gundam was Wing Gundam. And the series it was in, was Gundam Wing.



New Mobile Report Gundam Wing was the first Gundam series that came to America, and the most well-remembered here as a result. It also was a fangirl's wet dream, fraught with lots of young boys that they could pair up together for lots of yaoi. But that's besides the point.

Gundam Wing takes places in the After Colony timeline, wherein the colonies are AGAIN being harassed by the Earth Federation's military arm, known as the Order of the Zodiac, or OZ for short. They got the name for having Zodiac-themed mobile suits (the Leo, the Virgo, the Taurus, etc.) However, five scientists defect after the murder of a peaceful diplomat from the colonies, named Heero Yuy. They develop five powerful mobile suits, made from the nearly indestructible material known as "Gundanium", and entrust them to five young but skilled soldiers. The five kids gimmick was a hold-over from G Gundam and Sunrise's also successful Ronin Warriors, and they decided not to break the mold of it.

A stoic and loner, the Chinese Chang Wufei pilots the Shenlong Gundam which was based off of Sai Saichi's Dragon Gundam from G Gundam. The optemistic and rather nice Arab (almost certainly an Aryan because he's blonde and has blue eyes) named Quatre Winner uses the dual-blade using Gundam Sandrock. The doom and gloomy Gundam Deathscythe, meant to evoke the image of the Grim Reaper, finds itself in the hands of the surprisingly upbeat and friendly Duo Maxwell. The other two pilots though are... weird.

The planned pilot for the gun-toting Gundam Heavyarms was PLANNED to be a man named Trowa Barton, a rich and arrogant heir to the Barton family fortune. But he ends up getting killed and some no-name mechanic who was familiar with fighting in wars steps up to take his place, taking the name Trowa Barton along with Trowa's machine. Similarly, the stoic and military-minded pilot of Wing Gundam adopts the name Heero Yuy, and the five pilots decide to take the fight to OZ so that the colonists don't have to.

Things hit a few snags. For one, the pilots don't know the others exist, and initially presume each other to be enemies. However, they eventually decide to work together, for the most part. Wufei just sticks to his own, but the others get along and oftentimes work together. Second, during Heero's first sortie, he got shot down by this series's CHAR, a masked man named Zechs Merquise. He is quickly found by a young woman named Relena Peacecraft and panics because she's seen his face and could identify him, which is VERY dangerous to his mission. He resolves to kill her sometime when he has the opportunity.

For the first fifteen-ish episodes, things go along decently. Yeah, Heero had to destroy his Gundam, but he grows to have a respected rivalry with Zechs and borrows Gundam Heavyarms so they can have a fair duel. Heero also keeps promising to kill Relena when they meet, but never gets to actually try to. Wufei also sparks a rivalry with the older Treize Khushrenada. Things take a sour turn, however, when they find out two new details. Not only are some colonists getting restless and deciding to take up arms, but OZ is supplying weapons to the colonists as well. With few options, the Gundam pilots abandon their machines and decide to head off into space.

From here, CRAZY stuff happens, lots due to Gundam Wing Zero, the prototype Gundam that was the basis for Heero and company's Gundams. Quatre gets his hands on it first, but goes insane from the Zero System and almost kills Trowa. Heero tries to kill him, but eventually Zechs steps in and saves the day and saves Quatre, who then sobers up and resolves to try to rebuild Sandrock and get on and do his job. Relena also, by CRAZY coincidences, ends up in charge of the Earth Sphere and resolves to bring about pacifism and make things easier for Heero and company. Meanwhile, Heero gets his hands on the super-powerful (but melee-only) Epyon. After using it for a while, he duels Zechs and they realize that they both realize that the other's machine better suits them, so they again decide to be super nice best friends and trade Epyon and Gundam Wing Zero. Wufei also upgrades to the Altron Gundam and Duo to the Gundam Deathscythe Hell. Quatre puts the finishing touches on the new Gundam Sandrock Custom and Trowa eventually reclaims Gundam Heavyarms, which has since been upgraded into being Gundam Heavyarms Custom.

And good timing too, because things are REALLY going to hell with the militant colonists, who are now being led by Treize in his desire for the bloodiest war in all of history. And Zechs, who we discover is really Relena's brother, is helping him too. However, Zechs and Treize have good intentions though, hoping to show humanity the horrors of war to make them swear it off for good.

So what do they decide to do?

COLONY DROP!!!

The heroes still save the day though, Heero succeeding in destroying the Libra military base in the end with Wing Zero's superpowerful Twin Buster Rifle. He patches things up with Relena and everything's a-ok! Zechs seemingly dies in his duel with Heero, but his subordinate and possibly-lover Noin refuses to believe that. Treize though? Wufei kills him when they duel. It's a really big heart-breaking moment too.

The series eventually got a sequel set of three OVAs, which tell how the heroes, save for Wufei, decided to abandon their Gundams. And just in time for all hell to break loose too! More crazy stuff happens, Heero fighting Wufei who has now joined the bad guys, but Wufei has his reasons and everything gets patched up in the end. More Heero X Relena "goodness" (the Director's admitted he sucks at writing romance, which is why fangirls to this day bash her and approve of Heero X Duo) and a happy ending for all. And that's the end of that.

However, things were still going good, and another Gundam series was planned in the works. The grand capstone to the "Post-Victory Gundam" trilogy! A story that would be sabotaged by Sunrise and Bandai themselves!

GUNDAM X!!!!



Gundam X's story is SEEPED in homages to the original Mobile Suit Gundam, so let's look at it this way first. Imagine for a moment that Amuro Ray's Gundam had one big superweapon on it that was specifically meant to stop Colony Drops. Let's say it's a large beam rifle, similar to Gundam Wing Zero's. UNLIKE Wing Zero's, however, it can't be fired on its own. It needs to be supplied with microwave beams from a relay station, one of which could be anywhere like, say, the moon. That's the basic idea for Gundam X's backstory. Copy and paste Mobile Suit Gundam's One Year War, except have the Gundams equipped with this superweapon and they were mass produced. Hence, the timeline in Gundam X is appropriately called the "After War" Calender.

Oh yeah, and they came with Gundam-shaped Funnels that ALSO were equipped with Satellite Cannon receivers.

The narrator explains in the beginning that the One Year War in this case, became frantic due to the widespread escalation, the Principality of Zeon stand-in, the Space Revolution Army, panicked and decided to drop nearly ALL the colonies on the Earth. Even with the various Gundam X machines that the Earth Federation had, it wasn't enough and enough of them got through to ruin the planet's ecosystem and wipe out 99.9% of humanity.

Fifteen years later, the story starts humbly with a bandit using an old mobile suit to harass a town in the desert. A fifteen year old boy named Garrod Ran succeeds in capturing its pilot with a flashbang, grappling hook, and a handgun. From these humble origins, Garrod proceeds to begin a journey which will shape the fate of humanity in general. The Earth has slowly regained a precious and fragile stability, with former military officers acting as mercenaries or "Vultures" as they are called. Garrod, on a mission of finding a young girl named Tifa Adil (no, she looks NOTHING like Tifa from Final Fantas), ends up discovering a perfectly preserved Gundam X. Using it to fend off some enemy Vultures, he discovers the Vulture landship the Freeden and eventually decides to join up with them and protect Tifa. The captain is an aged and jaded stand-in for Amuro Ray, named Jamil Neate. Although a Gundam pilot in the past and the hope for the Earth Federation, the brutality of the 7th Space War, as it is called, is nothing but painful memories for Jamil. Literally. Every time he sees Gundam X use its Satellite Cannon, he starts to bleed from his ears.

To say nothing about Tifa going CRAZY when the Satellite Gun is used to kill people.

Gundam X was, and unless you count the unexplained flashes in Gundam SEED, the only non-UC Gundam timeline that has Newtypes that are actually called Newtypes. Quatre in Gundam Wing had the "Space Heart", which was similar, but it was never really delved into. Anyways, Newtypes in Gundam X are a prized commodity, and Tifa is seemingly one of the few remaining alive. Garrod, guilty of how he much he put her through the first time he fired the Satellite Gun, resolves to protect her. After being paid, the pilots of two other Gundams, Witz and Roybea who pilot the jet-like Gundam Airmaster and the Heavyarms-esque Gundam Leopard, agree to stay on as well. We are also introduced to the doctor of the Freeden, a Dr. Tex, a woman named Sara who is Jamil's second in command, another woman named Tonya who is very energetic and handles communications, and a child prodigy of a mechanic named Kid. We also meet the dastardly Frost brothers Shagia and Olba and the Ramba Ral stand-in, a woman named Ennil El who grows at first to care for Garrod, then want him dead (because she was trying to make him not feel alone and he SHOT at her because he was scared), and eventually trusts him and joins up with the heroes.

The Freeden's goal is simple: find and protect Newtypes. Tifa's ability, to paint pictures of locals where they should go, proves to be of great use and their first stop is Fort Severn... where EVERYTHING goes to hell.

Dueling an artificial Newtype there named Carris, Garrod is humiliated and Gundam X is nearly destroyed, the heroes barely escaping as they learn that the leader of Fort Severn is actually a Spacenoid who desires to destroy the Earth. Garrod trains to overcome his handicap against Newtypes as Gundam X is upgraded into the more combat-capable Gundam X Divider. The hard work and upgrade pays off, and Garrod, with some help from Jamil who is slowly going through therapy so he can pilot again, manages to defeat Carris, save him from the Spacenoid, and things are okay. Ennil also goes through her most profound "BLARGH! GARROD MUST DIE!!!!" phase during this point, and begins to calm down. Later on, crazy happenings result in her meeting with Tonya and growing to become fast friends which helsp as well.

Someone else apparently using the Satellite System then causes everyone to scramble, however, in an attempt to figure out if there's another Newtype. After dueling with a bunch of pirates on the waters and a few more battles with the Frost Brothers, everyone finds out... nope.

Instead there's a super-powerful, next generation Gundam X known as Gundam Double X, or DX for short, and they're held at its gunpoint. Forced to surrender, the group eventually manages to escape and capture Gundam DX for their own uses. Jamil gets over the worst of his problems and begins to use the X Divider more often as well. We also find out at this point that the Earth Federation has rebuilt itself and is shooting for control of the world again. The Freeden takes a break from going into traps to help out the country of Estarde defend its right for sovereignty. In the meantime, the Frost Brothers contact and convince potential Newtypes to take on Garrod, even though Garrod's skill and teamwork with the others enable them to beat every one of them. We gradually find out that if there's one thing the Frosties hate, it's Newtypes. And the thing they hate most after that? EVERYONE ELSE!

Turns out there's a type of Newtype called a "Category F" one, the "F" standing for "Failure". Category F Newtypes have abilities that aren't really all that useful for military purposes, such as their ability to communicate to each other and feel each other's pain. The Frosties, more than anything else, want all Newtypes to die to prove their worth, and then kill off all of humanity for revenge since in the 7th Space War, they were ignored and treated as dirt.

More crazy stuff happens, and Tifa gets kidnapped by a Spacenoid. Nobody has a mobile suit that can reach space on its own, but Ennil El, who in fact is the daughter of a famous Spacenoid general (we find this out much earlier on, incidentally. It's just not really important until now), manages to get connections so Garrod can take a shuttle into space to try to save her. The Earth Federation, however, attacks, and everyone else stays behind to cover his escape.

In space, Garrod is quickly accosted by the rebuilt Space Revolution Army, which was not entirely destroyed at the end of the 7th Space War, and is at the mercy of the CHAR of this series, technically a stand-in for CHAR named Lancelow Dowell, and is almost killed when a young woman named Pala Cys comes to his rescue with the G-Falcon spacecraft. Becoming allies to the resistance movement, Garrod finds out that the Army is developing a powerful Superlaser and unfortunately, the Army's attacking the resistance base. So no sooner does Garrod make a bunch of new friends, THEY ALL DIE.

Thankfully, he and Pala escape, and through some clever use of DX's Satellite Gun, manages to coerce the Revolutionists to hand over Tifa or Garrod threatens to destroy their superlaser. So they hand her over... and Garrod then says he doesn't mind being a liar and blows it apart. Fleeing to Earth, Tifa hope to escape and save their friends, only to be accosted by a new fleet constructed by the Earth Federation, with the Frosties at the helm in new versions of their Gundams.

Captured and joining the others, it looks like things are over when Garrod and company are rescued by Carris and escape. They understand both the Earth Federation and the Space Revolution Army is being led by crazy men, all of them eager to capture the Satellite station and D.O.M.E., some strange force located there. The target is the Moon, and the Freeden II, a space vessel, heads off with everyone to try to stop the craziness.

Eventually, the heads of the two forces and the Freeden team reach the Satellite station and meet D.O.M.E., a cybernetic program based off of the memories and thought processes of the man who was called the first Newtype.

It is here where the Newtype belief is shot down, explaining that although Newtypes DO exist, they are not necessarily the next step in human evolution, they do not necessarily come about because people are in space, and they are really nothing more than mutants. Not that anyone really minds however, but the Frosties use this opportunity to reveal their Gundams can dock together to fire the Satellite Gun on their own. The crazy leaders are killed off, but Garrod and company finally battle the Frosties to the end and save the day. Everything ends happily, with a number of romantic threads finally ended, such as a love triangle between Jamil, Sara, and Roybea.

Anyways, Gundam X was tragically undermined by Bandai due to the fact that its models weren't selling well. Unlike the original Gundam, the series was unable to re-negotiate for extra episodes and ended after only 39 eps... but it was still fondly remembered by its viewers. It got a sequel manga series that proved immensely popular and ran for a number of volumes and has made it to a few SRW games.

Anyways, Gundam went to the backburner for a few years. Finally, in time for its 20th anniversary, Yoshiyuki Tomino returned, happily willing to make a new series. Having gotten over the worst of his problems and made a few series (the notoriously bad Garzey's Wing but also the better-received Brain Powerd), he returned to the franchise to create a new series. Although set back by a few problems with executives, Tomino states to this day that the 20th anniversary series was what finally let him bury his depression.

This series is Turn A Gundam.



First of all, the two dark skinned people with white hair are the same person. And second of all, the person in question is a guy named Loran Cehack. Tomino had originally planned for Loran to be a woman, but the executives at Sunrise shot him down, so he made him look like a woman and spend a bit of the series in drag.

Anyways, Turn A Gundam takes place in the Correct Century timeline. It is a weird world, where much of humanity is living a Victorian-era with early 20th Century technology, even though there are people on the moon. Our hero is in fact a member of this "Moonrace", having been sent to Earth two years ago to investigate the planet and see if it was habitable. Loran himself has since lived in a small town as a limo driver for the wealthy Heim family, becoming friends with elder daughter Kihel while younger daughter Sochie has a bit of a crush on him.

Idealistic existences crash when a few Moonrace mobile suits come down to Earth, Loran ending up discovering an ancient Gundam sticking in a mountain called the Turn A Gundam. Without much of a choice, Loran ends up fending off the Moonrace machines and thus begins the story of Earth and the Moonrace's quest for coexistance.

The series is famous for including homages to previous Gundam series, and is believed to imply that all the other Gundam series take place in the same timeline. For instance, one character supposedly went into cryogenic stasis centuries ago and has painful memories of fighting against a Gundam, momentarily shown to really be Gundam Wing Zero. Similarly, ancient mobile suits from the UC timeline, such as the Zakus from the first series and the water-based Kapools from Gundam ZZ, are dug up from under the ground as Earth begins to take steps to arm itself. The leader of the Moonrace, Queen Diana -who incidentally looks almost EXACTLY like Kihel- wishes for peace and at one point actually meets with Kihel in private and does something very, very stupid.

They decide to switch outfits and pretend to be each other. Naturally, some more hardline Earthborn attack, stuff goes down the crapper, and Kihel gets swept back to the moon and has to play Queen while Diana's wracked with guilt about it all. However, Kihel does some get some help in the form of this series's CHAR, a man named Harry Ord who is the only person in the series that can tell the difference between Diana and Kihel with nothing but a single glance. He and Kihel actually begin to develop a romance and Kihel begins to become an even more adept queen that Diana is. And considering how bad things get, it's a good thing too.

The Moonrace really fits into two factions: those that agree with Diana that the war might be unneccessary and those that want to conquer the world for their own. The military is similarly split between the Diana Counter, Diana's personal military bodyguard detachment, and those led by Gym Gingham, the military's primary leader. Similar problems exist on Earth, and Harry and Loran and all the heroes try had to keep the peace and we gradually find out Turn A is the most powerful Gundam in all of existence.

In the past, there was a horrible war between the Earth and the Moon, with tremendously powerful technological machines. Turn A, and a machine it was based off of called Turn X, were responsible for wiping out nearly all advanced technology on the Earth with a power known as the Moonlight Butterfly operating at only 20%. And unfortunately Gym gets his hands on Turn X. Loran and Gym quickly grow to be enemies as the two machines bring out the power of the Moonlight Butterfly, but in the end, the two machines are destroyed, Gym is killed, and Loran escapes to reunite with his friends. Kihel and Diana decide living lies is better in the long run, Kihel being a capable leader anyways and living on the Moon with Harry while Diana lives a quiet life with Loran. In short, a happy ending... a rarity in Gundam.

Turn A, although it got a lot of flack for a lot of premise changes and mech designs, plus toys that didn't sell very well, is still fondly remembered by many Gundam fans. It had an upbeat message about how even dangerous things like nukes or the Moonlight Butterfly were only dangerous if in the hands of dangerous people, and Tomino as repeatedly said the series made him stop hating Gundam... a problem that came up do to all the stress that the executives put on him.

And now, SRW attacks!

First up is the God Gundam, in its most recent non-remake appearance, Super Robot Wars J.


Then, Gundam Wing Zero in Super Robot Wars D. Not this uses the anime version of Wing Zero, rather than the Endless Waltz OVAs' redesign.


Then Gundam DX in Super Robot Wars Z. Note that this video includes the attacks that DX gets due to the G-Falcon docking with it.


And lastly, Turn A Gundam in Super Robot Wars Z.


...

WHEW! FINALLY DONE! This is the first and big summary in a while. Everything else should be smaller than this.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jun 16 2009, 2:40 AM

Update time. And today I'm following up on my post with Macross by posting the second series in the Super Dimension franchise, Orguss.

Super Dimension Century Orguss initially begins in the year 2065. Two tremendous superpowers are at war, with a valuable Space Elevator as the chief prize. Growing desperate, the Freedom Space Corps plans a desperate attack on the elevator in an attempt to end the battles and death with a powerful bomb leagues beyond even a nuclear weapon. This weapon, a Time/Space Oscillation Bomb, is dangerous enough that it has to be built on-site by a team of engineers to decrease the odds that it goes off at a wrong time and everything goes to hell. Assigned to help them is a particular young man named Kei Katsuragi, who is unlike many Real Robot heroes in that he's a womanizer, he's brash, and he's got at least one chick pregnant. But that's for neither here nor there.

The mission goes badly and ends up getting aborted, Kei feeling furious because many of his friends will have died during this battle with nothing to show for it. Doing the best he can, he attempts to finish arming the Time/Space Oscillation Bomb and detonates it... and then the REAL story begins.

Kei is transported to not only a future world, but a mix-and-match reality where numerous realities have intersected. Twenty years have passed, and much of the world that Kei knew of is now gone. His girlfriend died five years ago, his best friend who was with him when the Oscillation Bomb detonated is missinng, and there's a very powerful military organization out there from another world called the Chilam who are out for him. It turns out everyone views Kei as a "Singularity Point", and this plays an important role in potentially fixing the world. Unfortunately, the Chilam don't give a damn about anyone other than themselves and plan on capturing him.

Kei and his damaged Bronco 2 variable fighter (similar to the Valkyries from Macross) are rescued by a group of Gypsy-like individuals known as the Emaan, who decide to take care of him in return for him defending them against the Chilam. There's a lot of colorful characters, and a lot of sexual humor too since Emaan women become sterile at age 18, so the captain of the ship, Shaya, tries to romance Kei. There's lots of other women on the ship too, but Kei eventually falls in love with a girl named Mimsy. Kei's machine also gets repaired and dubbed "Orguss", after the god of war from a pet dragon's dimension.

Now, on the bad guy's side, there's the various Chilam forces that wish to capture Kei. And it turns out one of them is actually Kei's best friend Olson D. Verne, who has since raised and trained a prodigy pilot by the name of Athena, who is strangely connected with Kei's own past. There's lots of other powerful enemy aces, but the main focus is on Athena and Kei. We also find out Olson himself is the second "Singularity Point", and both of them are needed to set things back to normal.

Anyways, Orguss ran for 35 episodes. It also got a sequel OVA called Orguss 02, which takes place 200 years afterwards and, from what I can tell, goes to great length to buck traditional mecha conventions, like villains faking out civilians when bombing their cities when nothing seems destroyed... only for it to turn out they're using Neutron Bombs instead. Orguss 02's six eps long, and by the looks of it, it's quirky and surprisingly dark.

Orguss finally got into Super Robot Wars in Super Robot Wars Z, and played critical to the plot due to the "Break the World" incident, the name coming from the Colony Drop sequence in Gundam SEED Destiny. It is the detonation of the improperly wired Space/Time Oscillation Bomb that brings many of the various worlds together, and also kills off nearly everyone in a small military squad. The sole survivor, a woman named Xine Espio, would then go on to join antagonist Asakim Dowin and give you hell until you defeated and/or recruited her to help you out. The Variable Fighters are also very effective similar to the Valkyries from Macross due to being so small and agile. Kei himself is possibly one of the best Real Robot pilots in the game, up there and nearly a match for Amuro in the Nu Gundam... in spite of just using a basic machine with nothing really going for it other than agility and lots of guns.

Here's the vid of Kei's attacks. Notice that Olson eventually joins up with you again.

Posted by: Fortress Guy Jun 16 2009, 2:58 AM

That was a good take on Macross. I want to put one up on my site too. That series was very influential to me back int he day, and the ultra quality movie "Do You Remember Love" was amazing.

Too bad about Roy and a lot of the characters along the way. The show seemed fairly serious from the start although there were comic interludes. The Robotech version was not half bad, although cut up. In fact, I never fully understood the ending to the series for 20 years! It was not until a couple years back that I finally watched the original DVD set subbed (not Robotech but the real Macross) that I understood the whole story.

I was much relieved too as I had carried some nagging questions about the final fates of some of the characters and everything else for two decades.

Haruhiko Mikimoto designs rule IMO, and Minmay is his crowning achievement. If you do not agree at least his most popular character design.

I noticed in Macross Flashback 2012 that Hikaru boards the new Megaroad Super Dimension Fortress with Misa as the captain and he seemingly head of the pilots. Also Minmay decides to go along in the giant city spaceship. That is a good ending IMO.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jun 16 2009, 3:28 AM

Lolz. It's good to know I did a good job. In spite of being a mecha buff, or at least I try to be, I know very, very little of the Super Dimension franchise and had to frequently read and re-read wiki and TV Tropes pages so I knew what I was talking about, whereas with Baldios or Jeeg or something, I could just sit and write it all out.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jun 23 2009, 1:17 PM

Damn Super Robot Wars Unlimited Generation role-play on live journal! YOU MAKE THIS SUFFER FROM SCHEDULE SLIPPING! Thankfully this week's subject is one I have precious little information on, so this might set the record for the smallest text-to-videos ratio.

What I am covering is the J9 trilogy, one of the few anime trilogies that, even though the don't carry over any characters (from what I know), still is an actual trilogy with continuity.

Galactic Whirlwind Brygar (a name that has been translated about a gazillion different ways due to Japanese phonetics) takes place in the future, dealing with the mercenary J9 group. It is also the one I am most familiar with.

The team, meant to be in the vein of Lupin III with elaborate and quirky protagonists, is made up of their boss Isaac Godonov, primary Brygar pilot Jotaro Kido, the driver for Brygar's car form Stephen Bowie who has a friendly kind of rivalry with Jotaro, and the buxom female spy Michiko Valencia who uses the nickname "Angel Omachi". Brygar was actually the first Super Robot with only four pilots, but it sorta subverts this because the machine is not combined from various pieces, so technically Dancougar still did it first.

Anyways, the year is 2111 and the Solar System has been colonized and then divided into four main power blocs. The only real one that is a problem is the Nubia Connection, led by the arrogant and Egypt-obsessed Khamen Khamen. And let me tell you... if Khamen Khamen is ANYWHERE near as irritating in the anime as he was in Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden... it's a miracle anyone ever finished the series. Because he's arrogant, laughs at everything, and never really seems to worry about anything. Plus he's immortal and can exist in an indefinite number of areas at once and you don't ever really beat him and Brygar's not in any more of the Alpha games so you never do.

Anyways, Khamen Khamen, desiring to take over the solar system, hatches a plan to destroy Jupiter, wherein the resulting blasts and whatnot would cause the planets to be damaged and remade into thirty smaller planets, each one livable. Naturally, very few people like this idea, since Khamen Khamen's planning on using that kind of craziness to seize power. The J9 team, which frequently is called in to help out when the Space Police are out of their league, stands in his way and...

Well, I really don't know what happens. Like I said before, in Alpha Gaiden, that plotline wasn't taken to its conclusion. Really, the J9 people were there to help out save some of your people from the Titans early on, and Khamen Khamen's still alive when you go to the future, but the game doesn't have any missions on Jupiter or anywhere near it, and plus there's the fact that in the sequel, I found out Jupiter WAS destroyed. Brygar doesn't seem like a depressing story though, and so I'm betting Khamen Khamen finally did get shafted or anything.



Galactic Gale Baxinger takes place 600 years after Brygar, where the destruction of Jupiter and the general lawlessness of the worlds has created the need for a new J9 group to restore order. This time, the heroes fit into the dynamic of the Five Man Band... and seemingly also think themselves musketeers or something. Wikipedia says they were based on the Shinsengumi from Japan, a kind of special police and detective force. Anyways, unlike the Brygar team, they have these motorcycles called the Cosmocycles, all named for elements of a storm, like Typhoon, Cyclone, etc. They motorcycles also all merge together to form Baxinger.

They take orders from a man named Dan Condor and again... I really don't know about what happens after this, like who they fight or anything else... I do know that somewhere between this and the third series, the 30 planets got mashed down into 50, but again, I have no clue how this came about.



Galactic Cyclone Sasuraigar is the third and final part of this series, taking place 200 years after Baxinger. The premise starts out with a basic premise: a gambler by the name of I.C. Blues ends up making a bet with someone that they could navigate all fifty planets in just one year. Said person is actually a boss of the crime group Bloody God, and they set out to make sure they win the bet... and probably end up breaking Blues's thumbs along the way. I don't know why.

But to Blues's rescue is the new JJ9 group, which has just purchased a Super Robot that turns into a train called Sasuraigar! They offer to run his race for him, plus Sasuraigar can fend off any schemes that the Bloody God agents might try. In the meantime, the JJ9 group is on the run as well from an Inspector Organ for being suspected of bank robberies.

So... essentially, it's Around the World in Eighty Days... just in space with a giant robot. Again, I have NO idea how any of this ends up playing out since Wikipedia only has a very, VERY small entry for it.

So long story short, that's the J9 trilogy. They all tried to have the spirit of some other genre or story in their own series, and it's certainly weird in its own unique way. But I'm in the dark about them almost as much as you are. The only saving grace is that the new Super Robot Wars NEO game on the Wii's going to include them all, a first after Super Robot Wars GC and XO on the Gamecube and XBOX a few years ago. I'll post attack vids then... until then, this team attack from XO is the best I can do.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jun 30 2009, 2:11 AM

It's Monday. And that means an update. Today I'm covering Godmars and a similar series, Mighty Orbots.

Six God Combination Godmars was a series loosely based off of a manga written by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, the man that greated the original Giant Robo and Tetsujin-28. Godmars is a story of brothers and loss, and also lots of robots. It came out in 1981 and was one of the longest running Super Robot series ever, with 64 episodes.

Anyways... THE YEAR IS 1999!!! Humanity has begun to travel through space for exploration, but in the process reveals itself to the powerful galactic conquerors of the Gishin Empire. To do so in a covert manner, he decides to sent a young infant named Mars to the Earth with a powerful robot named Gaia. The plan is simpe unnecessarily complicated.

Rather than simply attack Earth, the idea is that Mars will, in give-or-take fifteen years, realize his duty for the Empire and detonate Gaia. It's power source is great enough that it would destroy the entire planet and so, rather than send a bunch of monsters, Emperor Zule decides this is the best course of action. Naturally, Mars grows up in Japan by a nice couple as a guy named Takeru and decides rather than using the powerful Gaia to destroy the world, why not use this advanced machine leagues beyond many of the Gishin Empire's forces to fight against them?

Right? Easy idea for a story and fairly basic?

Not exactly. It turns out Gaia does have a powerful reactor, but its combat capabilities are lacking. A *lot*. It's not so much a tank as an oil tanker. And if Takeru were to die, then Gaia would self-destruct anyways and the world would be destroyed. So a bit of a crazy and unnecessarily convoluted scheme, but one in which Zule had his bases covered.

Now, THANKFULLY, Takeru/Mars's father happens to be a prestigious scientist, and happens to have developed five support craft for Gaia, which all combine together to form Godmars. Godmars is can be summoned at will by Takeru thanks to him having ESP, and he resolves to help out the Cosmo Crusher force assigned to oppose the Gishin Empire.

Of course, we need some more craziness, so it turns out Takeru has a twin brother named Maag, who is a high-ranking officer in the Gishin Empire. At first hesitant to fight Takeru, things take a turn for the worse when Maag gets brainwashed so he thinks some chick is his sister and Takeru's a no-name traitor who needs to die.

So yeah. That's Godmars in a nutshell. Lots of weirdness and the plot definitely could have been better handled compared to the awesomeness of Xabungle or Baldios, but live and learn.



Might Orbots was a series initially pitched to bank off the popularity of Transformers. The plan was that in the 23rd Century, robots, aliens, and humans had banded together to defend peace with the United Planets governing body, with the Galactic Police being their, well, police. The villainous organization was the criminal syndicate SHADOW, lead by a certain computer/cyborg called Umbra. Thankfully, a scientist named Rob Simmons was able tohttp://magixclub.com/forums/index.php?act=post&do=reply_post&f=33&t=2561 develop a series of robots that would combine together to form the Might Orbots machine.

Unlike many series where an anime was imported, redubbed, and had only passing similarities to the original anime's plot such as the Macross/Southern Cross/Mospeada-to-Robotech change and Golion-to-Voltron transition, Orbots was an actual series made from scratch. Anime designers were commissioned and although Godmars's design was originally planned to be used, the more cartoony and Western design for the robots was chosen instead.

The line-up of robots was fairly colorful as well, choosing to have a Five Man Band-dynamic, sorta... although the main hero was Rob Simmons himself, who had an alter ego as the Orbots commander.

The series tragically only ran for thirteen episodes, but still has a fanbase to this day. Tonka took offense to the show and sued, claiming copyright infringement due to alleged similarities between Orbots and Gobots/Machine Robo. ABC, which had been airing the episodes, ended it after that first season, and has yet to release the episodes on VHS or DVD.

Godmars has, last I checked, been only in Super Robot Wars D, where it played an important role. The Gishin Empire was *very* powerful in it, and was one of the last enemy forces defeated. The Vegan Empire from Grendizer and the Akron Star Cluster forces from Daltanius were also only its subordinate forces and defeated much earlier on in the game. The rule about Gaia exploding was also put in place, meaning that if you sortied Gaia and it was destroyed, GAME OVER. This is countered by Godmars, at least in premise, having the most raw power of any Super Robot in the game. Maag could, if certain options were taken, get his own Godmars-esque machine and join you, otherwise he would die. Gaia's transformation early on was also controlled by if it was destroyed/had health in the red after getting to be attacked by the enemy, at which point it would become the much stronger Godmars. Maag's machine would change if his morale got high enough.

Tragically, Super Robot Wars D was not... "friendly" towards Super Robots, and Godmars might have been the strongest, but it was also the most dangerous to use because of how thin the armor for Super Robots were in D. The fact that the Gishin Empire route near the end of the game was FREAKING HARD (fighting numerous copies of Emperor Zule AT THE SAME TIME!!!!) made most people just take the Macross 7 route instead.

Anyways, here's Godmars's attacks, including Takeru's team attacks with his brother Maag. Gotta love that bromance and that awesome music at the end.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jul 6 2009, 6:05 PM

Time to shift gears a bit... and tell you all about The Matrix The Megazone.



Megazone 23 was originally planned to be a fully-fledged anime series set in a weird 1980s cyberpunk world with motorcycles that turn into robots called Garlands. Unfortunately, budget cuts meant a lot of it was left on the cutting room floor and the plans were *ALMOST* scrapped.

See, at this point in time, they still had enough material left over for compilation movies. Lots of shows did that, and Megazone 23 was possibly going to have to work with that. However, the producers got a crazy idea to take the footage they had, try to fill in the gaps as best as possible, and retool it into the very first Original Video Animation ever, with direct-to-video releases and installments longer than just 22-and-a-half minutes in length. The success of Megazone 23 would spark the tradition of releasing OVAs in the future with tremendous success, and series like Legend of Galactic Heroes and The Slayers owing it all to Megazone.

Anyways, THE YEAR IS SOMETIME IN THE 1980S... SUPPOSEDLY!!!! And our hero this time is this guy named Shogo who, at the start, gets a call from one of his friends named Shinji to check out this state-of-the-art motorcycle he's found that's military property. Naturally Shogo goes, only for all hell to break loose, Shinji to be killed, and the military to be hot on his heels. Shogo discovers this motorcycle is *fast*, capable of going up to 300 km/hr.

After ditching the feds, Shogo tries to phone famous pop idol and talk show host Eve Tokimatsuri about this, but the broadcast is cut before long and Shogo ends up on the run again. More crazy hijinx ensue and Shogo quickly discovers that this machine, the Garland, can transform into a mecha! And not only that, but the military wants it! And not only is it NOT the 1980s, THEY'RE NOT EVEN ON EARTH!!!!

It turns out that hundreds of years ago, humanity destroyed the Earth although a few ships managed to escape. These vessels simulated life in the 1980s since it was "the most peaceful time in history" which raises an issue because the Cold War was really heating up back the. Oh well. ANYWAYS, it turns out that Eve herself isn't a person but a computer program tasked to keep humanity ignorant and safe. Naturally, this doesn't work out well when Eve resolves to assist Shogo in his crazy adventure which is... well, pretty darn crazy. He loses a few fights, the first OVA ends with him losing the Garland and only spared an ugly death because he spared the villain earlier on, and in the end almost everyone on the Megazone dies in the second OVA.

The third and fourth OVAs take place hundreds of years later, where the few survivors from Megazone 23 have settled on Earth and things are proceeding okay in their shielded city, and our hero this time is a young hacker named Eiji. Again, weird stuff happens and he finds himself behind the controls of the successor to the Garland, and resolves to go out there, kick tail, and save humanity from its computer overlords along with help from Eve and an all new cast. In the end, the day is saved and humanity is free to live and grow on a revived Earth and finally get out of the totalitarian grip that is the 1980s fashion.

I would not be lying if I said Megazone 23 helped make The Matrix what we know it to be today. It also helped anime by introducing a brand new medium to the table entirely separate of movies or a television release. It also made it into Super Robot Wars D, or at least the first OVA did. The second was altered to include dimension-hopping, but that's okay. They distilled the first two OVAs down into two missions where you just play as Shogo, and then afterwards he joins the group.

And let me tell you... the Garland ROCKS in D. It's very, very small and agile, and in SRW D, the smaller and more agile the unit, the better. On ground, the Garland can also turn back into its Motorcycle form to decrease its size even more and give Shogo access to his best attack, which involves his biker buddies shooting the crap out of the enemy. Its power is a little lacking, but funds are plentiful enough for you to boost its weapon strength, and if you get it to max then you can give it a 20% accuracy bonus to make the Garland even stronger. The downside is that the armor and health are ridiculously thin, but if you use the unit right you won't have any problems. Eve and Shogo later pitch in with Basara from Macross 7 and they sing a duet to help weaken the final boss after he powers himself up.

Megazone 23 also recently got a PS3 AU game Aoi Garland (Blue Garland) which takes place after the first OVA but has a different plot.

Now, tragically, nobody's put up a Garland exhibition, but some guy did put up the final battle from Megazone 23. It's long, but take from it what you will.

Incidentally, this was a HARD fight in the game.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jul 14 2009, 12:58 AM

Today I cover a bittersweetly executed anime when it comes to Super Robots, one that had so much going for it and yet still fumbled the ball too much. But hell, it's got a kickass theme song, so that counts for something, right?

Dangaioh - Hyper Combat Unit was created in 1987, and had Hideki Anno, who would go on to make Gunbuster the next year, be one of the OVAs key animators. It was made by AIC Studios and had three OVA episodes, and was then followed by the thirteen episode anime series Great Dangaioh.

Anyways, Dangaioh is set in the future, where the dreaded pirate Captain Garimoth is rampaging freely and making life hell for everyone. Garimoth, contacting the prestigious scientist Dr. Tarsan, arranges for him to have a triplet of powerful psychics to serve as living weapons for him. Garimoth also includes his daughter, Barius, after tricking his daughter into believing it would make him happy. Unfortunately, Tarsan gets double-crossed, whips up for combining jets for the kids, and now they have DANGAIOH, the amazing, psychic-powered mecha who, over the course of three OVA episodes, fights this one-eyed guy called Gil-Berg all the time! YEAH!

In all seriousness, there wasn't much they actually COULD do with the OVAs, what with it being three episodes. Pretty much, with Super Robot anime OVAs, you need at least two to really set the tone and get into gear, and then a few more to really have fun. Dangaioh and Zeorymer fumbled quite a bit partly because they were so short. And it's a crying shame too, because there's parts of Dangaioh I actually LIKE.

Our heroes are the four psychic kids, with ages ranging from 14 years to 22 years old. Ironically, the "hero" per-se isn't the pilot of the machine... a plot twist similar to what would happen in Gravion. No, our hero is 18 year old Mia Alice, a soft-spoken girl with tremendous telekinetic powers ranging from barriers, flight, freaking huge energy blasts, etc., who is able to call upon her powers in a pinch and is pretty brutal when you get her mad. There is the also soft-spoken Rol Kuran, who used to be the leader of a resistance movement. Rol himself grows to be very serious and intense during a battle, and has psychic powers that are essentially that of Superman (near invulnerability, limitless stamina, super speed) except ONLY when he builds up enough speed while running. He could even smash down robots doing this.

That's right, folks. Unless I'm mistaken, Rol was the origin of going Master Asia on robots and taking them down on foot. Hell yeah.

The other two protagonists are the young and childish Lambda Nom, who can release energy blasts from her fingers, and Garimoth's dauther Barius who has adopted the name Pai Thunder and has super strength. Dr. Tarsan also is around to offer tech support for the kids and ironically has grown into their mentor, although they beat the crap out of him whenever they think he might be selling them to people if the price is right.

Anyways, in the first series, the only enemy they really fight that has a name in the original series is Gil-Berg. And in the end, they finally do kill him... except we never find out what happened with the Garimoth guy and he's pretty much free to do what he will. Boo-hoo.

A few years later, the anime series Great Dangaioh was made. Although it initially seemed unrelated to the original series, it was later confirmed it was a sequel.



Anyways, in Great Dangaioh, Earth is attacked by a bunch of robots but they're turned away by a triplet of Dangaioh machines piloted again by psychics. Mia is also present but doesn't pilot any machines.

Anyways, the villain is Dr. Katou, who had originally helped out with the Dangaioh project before having a dispute with the good guy doctor and stealing a bunch of documents to develop his own machines. As the battles rage with the new cast, we find out Katou was originally Dr. Yonamime's partner in the project of making this new Dangaioh to fight against Captain Garimoth's forces which were approaching the Earth. Of course, now things are thrown out of whack and it's a whole new barrel of monkies now. YAYZ!

Great Dangaioh was not exactly that great. Again, none of the real villains (Gil-Berg and Garimoth) get comeuppance and the series ends on a bit of a sour note, with some new machine coming out of nowhere and telling the heroes they aren't needed anymore. This was obviously planned to be some kind of sequel hook for a new series, but the overall quality of the scripts wasn't good enough and the project tanked... and that was the end of Dangaioh.

Hey, at least Hideki Anno got to work in a series that would have a lot of women in it in important roles. And Mia actually looks a lot like a much more soft-spoken and gentler Noriko.

Don't believe me?



The mech designer would go on to direct Gravion, which, as I said before, had a situation where the hero was NOT the one piloting the machine.

In a way, Dangaioh was similar to Dancougar where you have four pilots, but there are some key differences. Dancougar attempted to Reconstruct the Super Robot genre by keeping the ideals, but including lots of Real Robot importance on guns and teamwork and stuff. Dangaioh, on the other hand, was very gritty and crapsacky, and as I've said numerous times, the heroes really never accomplished much of anything. Oh well.

Dangaioh's also been in a few SRW games, most recently SRW K where the Dangaioh script played a bit of a big role, with Gil-Berg helping out the original villains in the series. You really have four attacks to work with until near the end, when you beat Gil-Berg for good and get the Psychic Wave attack. A fun unit to use, and one of the few units in the game that has a lot of pilots.



And far be it from me from not including Psychic Wave...

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jul 22 2009, 12:49 AM

Late update is late. I blame Killer7 for this.

The series I'm covering today is one directed by the guy that helped with Dangaioh, Masami Obari. This series is Overweight God Gravion.

Gravion is made up of two twelve-episode seasons, with our story focusing on one Eiji Shigure on the eve of the Earth's invasion at the hands of the Zeravire aliens. Eiji, not knowing of this, is on a quest to find his older sister Ayaka inside of the large Saint-Germain Castle owned by the wealthy Klein Sandman. Sandman at the start of the series is hosting a party for the Earth Federation Alliance forces, but again, due to crazy stuff happening, Eiji finds himself falling into the cockpit of a giant robot.

In a twist though, Eiji is in fact just one of the people piloting a support vessel for the great machine Gravion, a Super Robot that uses the power of gravity to battle. His machine, the G-Attacker, is actually the right leg of the machine, with the other limbs piloted by various women of varying age of the Saint-Germain Castle, with the control over the whole machine under the control of the only other young boy on the estate, Toga Tenkuji. Toga himself is very childish and knows little of the world outside of the castle and knows nobody else other than Sandman and his maids, and Sandman himself hopes that Eiji can open Toga up and let him mature as a person.

Sandman himself selects people that possess the G-Factor, a tolerance to the effects of gravity, to pilot the components of the powerful God Gravion. Similar to Kotaro Taiga in GaoGaiGar, he stays behind and uns things as the head of the mission control. However, there is also the masked man Raven, Sandman's assistant, who is somehow connected with Eiji. The plot twist is pretty clever, and I really don't have the heart to spoil it for you all.

Anyways, the battles are fought and the first season primarily serves to flesh out the characters while still saving the surprising truth about Raven and Sandman, along with a few other bits of info, for the second season, Gravion Zwei. At the end of the first season, the battle abruptly ends and things look okay... only for the Zeravire to return in the second season stronger than ever.



But that's okay! Because Sandman has an even stronger Gravion for the heroes to use now, Sol Gravion! And Sandman decides to help out with battle too, bringing in the Gran Sigma machine, so if Toga's out of commission then the others can combine their machines with his to create Sol Sigma Gravion! And then there's an entirely separate set of machines specifically meant for the Gran Sigma, creating the even stronger God Sigma Gravion!

Again, the battles are fought and won, and the day is finally saved. Eiji finally rediscovers his sister and in the end everything's fine.

Granted, the series is not the greatest, but it's still quite solid. I'd rate it better than Dangaioh and if you can put up with the fanservice (a lot of women are very, very busty) it can be a quite solid series with a lot of unique ideas.

It also got into Super Robot Wars Z, and it is interesting to note that Eiji is voiced by none other than the guy that does Shinn Asuka from Gundam SEED Destiny. During the schism between the two sides, the Gravion cast also sides with Shinn and ZAFT... which I think is awesome.

God Gravion's attacks


Sol Gravion's attacks


It is notable that Obari also was called in to do the redesign of the Compatible Kaiser, a Banpresto Original machine when it was introduced into Super Robot Wars with Original Generation Gaiden. As a result, it looks a lot like a Gravion machine and has similar attacks. If I decide to cover Banpresto Original plotlines, I will probably start with Fighter Roar and the Compatible Kaiser.

The Compatible Kaiser

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jul 28 2009, 4:16 AM

New update. And also the first one I REALLY dread.



My subject tonight is one's Hades Project Zeorymer, a manga and later an OVA series originally created by Chimi Morio, in reality the penname by Yoshiki Takaya, a man who would later on create Bio Boosted Armor Guyver, a series that is still running to this day and is much better written. But Zeorymer was one of the first series he wrote and let me get this across right now.

Zeorymer is crap. The original manga ran in the erotic magazine Lemon People, and as the location of its content implies, Zeorymer was a lot more focused on sex than the actual mecha battles.

To put it simply in Zeorymer, manga-version, the powerful Hau Dragon organization is primed to take over the world. One Masato Akitsu finds himself selected by some professor to pilot the super-powerful machine Zeorymer, a machine equipped with a Dimension Coupler which... does crazy stuff. Zeorymer can teleport, project nearly unbreakable energy barriers, release brilliant blasts of light that can destroy nearly anything through various means. Not only that, but if it's damaged, it just teleports in replacement parts from another version of itself.

So in other words, its Gary Stu in Mecha form.

Well, it has one weakness, but it's one of those "if it gets destroyed you're screwed" problems, so it never gets explored. The Dimension Coupler is the only part that can't be replaced, and it incidentally is stored in the... lady parts of one Miku Himuro, Masato's side-kick and person he ends up banging a lot later on. Masato himself seems a fairly nice guy at first... except then behind the controls of Zeorymer he goes crazy and starts being a total jerk. We find out later that's because the creator of Zeorymer was some crazy guy named Masaki who worked for Hau Dragon before turning it over to the professor, but not before uploading his brainwaves into it so when Masato, incidentally a zygote formed by him, sat inside it then Masaki's brainwaves would enter his mind and would control Masato's body.

And really, that's about as much story as we get. Zeorymer wins all his fights without difficulty, and the story ends up becoming more focused on Masato raping poor Miku. Until magically he goes back to normal because it "wasn't really him" and he decides to take the fight to Hau Dragon and end it once and for all. The manga originally ended there, until Takaya returned to finish it in 2007, at which point there's a few more basic fights which Zeorymer wins effortlessly before it's revealed that Masaki didn't die and has really been ruling Hau Dragon this whole time, complete with his own copy of Miku to power his own personal Zeorymer. They fight, weird stuff happens, and humanity's saved.

The story really wasn't that good, and the anime, which took only part of the premise, ditched the sex and rape, and tried to do a better job is only a little more successful.

Pretty much the premise is the same, except Zeorymer is in the hands of the Japanese government, Miku is actually a robot that serves as the Dimension Coupler rather than being the vessel for it, and Masato never rapes anyone. This time, the Hau Dragon is ruled by a young Empress, who is backed up by the Hakkeshu: seven machines piloted by individuals ready to take over the world. Zeorymer was with them to round-out the Japanese elements of Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart, Mountain, Moon, Electricity, and the Heavens.

Anyways, the first fight for Masato is against Lanster of the Wind, piloted by the Empress's lover. Zeorymer wins easily. Next episode has him up against Briest of Fire and Gallowin of Water, which were meant to use teamwork. Unfortunately, the sisters piloting them can't get along and Zeorymer has another easy fight. Next time Miku gets kidnapped and Masato has some horrible luck against Rose C'est La Vie of the Moon and can barely keep up with it. Is this the point where the hero loses and gets humbled, forcing him to unite his personalities and become something more? Something greater?

Nope. He just activates Deus Ex Machina device #37, teleport Miku inside of Zeorymer, and again wins his fight without any effort.

Finally, Hau Dragon realizes that sending their forces to fight Zeorymer is really stupid, so they use their remaining three machines, Omzack of the Thunder, Dinodilos of the Earth, and Burrstone of the Mountain to destroy stuff because that's what Hau Dragon is for. It's stupid, yes, I know. And Hau Dragon scientists actually point out that aside from Saiga, Omzack's pilot, none of them are really THAT bad of people. Masato, currently in perma-Masaki mode, doesn't want to raise a finger but eventually gets convinced to fight when Saiga calls him out.

Again, Zeorymer wins easily. Masato eventually regresses to this middle-ground between his two personalities with a weak explanation and the Empress challenges Zeorymer to one last fight for control of the planet... which Zeorymer wins in the last fifteen seconds of the series.

Really, there's not much more to say. The hero's pretty much a disgusting example of humanity at its worst, the fights are dull and boring because there's so much dialogue and ranting in them, and Zeorymer's just too strong.

It's since appeared in two SRW games, both using the anime continuity because nobody wants a rapist in a fairly idealistic game like Super Robot Wars. These two games, SRW MX for the PS2 and SRW J for the GBA are considered very easy partly because of the fact Zeorymer's there and he's so goddamn overpowered. In J, he can even be powered up into the mighty and non-canon Great Zeorymer if you follow a specific set of steps, granting the machine the best attack of each of the Hakkeshu machines. For sake of simplicity, I'll be showing that attack exhibition vid to you.

Ugh. Now only read/watch this if you want to lose a bit of faith in humanity.

Posted by: Asher Omega Jul 28 2009, 4:26 AM

Addendum: Also the Power source for Zeorymer is also the same thing the creator did for The Guyver's power source meaning that if you somehow get a gun that can destroy entire universes. it should be fairly easy to take them out. and I know just the anime to steal that weapon. Morrigan hates it though.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Aug 4 2009, 1:58 AM

Okay. This is another well-loved series that I have yet to watch (and probably won't anytime soon) that is loved by many a person here. Like Ranma and LinneaKou.

This series was made by Gainax and is effectively considered the Anti-Evangelion, complete with lots of shouting and guts solving all the problems. It still gets darker as the story goes on, but, oh well.

This series is Toppa Tengen Gurren Lagann.

Gurren Lagann came out 2007, and starts out with very humble origins. Well, not exactly, because it begins with space with this guy staring down a huge enemy fleet with one of his own and remarking that the battles are going to be crazy or something like that.

The world has drastically changed, with humans living underground and many people making their lives as diggers. Our hero, a very young boy named Simon, is one of them. He's good friends with this crazy and very hot-blooded guy named Kamina, who much of the more casual mecha fans find to be completely and utterly awesome in every way. Most, if not all, of the quotes people say from the series originated with him. He is also the one with the desire to visit the surface after seeing it once as a kid himself.

Anyways, this idea has a few snags. For one, the world is ruled by a individual named Lord Genome, and humans are suppressed and kept underground by humanoid creatures known as Beastmen, who are sterlie and can only reproduce by cloning. They use machines known as Gunmen, and things start to change one day when Simon and Kamina end up discoverng a machine known as the Lagann and use it to save a girl from another village named Yoko. After that, they begin their humble adventures together, discovering another Gunman called the Gurren which, as they find out in episode 3, combines together with the Lagann to form the Gurren Lagann, a machine that has lots and lots and lots of drills and can assimilate machines to get stronger and draws strength from the power of courage.

Many have compared the machine to Getter Robo, and especially Gurren Lagann's final form with that of the Getter Emperor.

Along the way, Simon starts to man up thanks to being surrounded with upstanding and well-meaning people, and a good thing too. Because guess what happens when episode 8 rolls around?

Kamina dies.

Yep. As idealistic as Gurren Lagann is in comparison with much darker series like Zambot 3, it still has no objections with killing cast members off. Which it does quite a bit.

Anyways, the heroes continue on their fighting, because this is not Neon Genesis Evangelion where tragedies bog down the heroes for thirteen episodes. This is Toppa Tengen Gurren Lagann, where things get done, dammit! And things do indeed get done! Simon and company duel against their recurring antagonist, a Beastman by the name of Viral, and in the process against Genome's four generals and succeed time and time again, until at long last, the battle lines are drawn, with Simon on one side and Lord Genome on the other! And the final battle is indeed epic, and intense, and with lots of wear and tear as Simon struggles to bring down the great Spiral King himself! In the end, the day is one and the series is ov-

Except, wait a second. We're only on episode 15. What the heck is going on?

Well, then comes a timeskip of seven years. Humanity's come out of its holes and civilization's sprouted again. Unfortunately, crap hits the fan. Big time.

Turns out Lord Genome, who in fact is *NOT* dead, had a very noble reason for everything that he did. Granted, he could have just *told* everyone it, but shut up, Gurren Lagann has no need for your introverted logic. Besides, the knowledge that he had was also quite dangerous in the wrong hands.

It turns out that humans, like Simon or Yoko or even Genome himself, have access to this thing called Spiral Power. Spiral Power creates matter from nothing and is the reason why Gurren Lagann can make all those drills and stuff. Except there's a little snag: the Spiral Nemesis. Spiral Power unfortunately circumvents the Laws of Physics since matter cannot be created or destroyed, except Spiral Power does exactly that, make more matter. So the Spiral Nemesis is a fallback plan that can be summed up as "KILL EVERYTHING!" Genome didn't want Spiral Power to be misused, which is why he himself left everything to the Beastmen, who were specifically engineered to not be able to use Spiral power and also have machines that could still defend the Earth from the true villains of the story: the Anti-Spirals.

The Anti-Spirals are much more hardline in their defense against the Spiral Nemesis, by deciding if a certain population limit was met, they'd destroy the planet. In the seven years' time, that limit was surpassed, and Simon and company are thrown into action again and at the same time dealing with some problems at home from well-meaning individuals with questionable methods. But in the end, the day is *still* saved albeit at a cost which sparked many a flame war after the final episode aired.

Nevertheless, Toppa Tengen Gurren Lagann is a well-loved series with high-quality animation and 40% of its animation budget going towards the last few episodes to make sure they were perfect. There's a lot of colorful characters besides Kamina and people in it are men and women of action. I personally kept getting drawn away by obscure series, but you don't have to be. If you want to give it a look, Gurren Lagann'll most likely be a great watch for you.

Now, granted, Gurren Lagann hasn't been in Super Robot Wars yet, but people have their hopes that the next game will have it. I mean, LOOK at the fan videos!

Posted by: Cloud9 Aug 6 2009, 9:17 PM

Gurren Lagann is on iTunes, so I hope to download it at some point and soak in the awesome. I like what you guys are doing in this thread.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Aug 6 2009, 10:21 PM

Awww, thanks Cloud. ^_^

I'm surprised this has been so, well, successful for me. I've rarely missed updates and in those instances I caught up on Tuesday. I've learned a lot about certain mecha series too and who knows? I could rework and expand on a few entries and see if I could get it published.

Posted by: Cloud9 Aug 7 2009, 1:36 AM

That would be interesting. "All You Need to Know About Mecha: A Compendium by Forum-Goer MorriganAensland."

EDIT: Suggestion for review/coverage: Eureka 7 (opinion based entirely off of a couple of openings I saw on YouTube, but which make it look like a series worth looking into.)

Posted by: MorriganAensland Aug 7 2009, 5:26 PM

I may try to see if I could get this written up. I'll need to fix a few things though, like typos and embellish some series that I only glossed over but have since watched, such as Gaiking and Orguss.

As for Eureka Seven, I'll gladly cover it for my 53rd post here. The reason why is because I want to use my 52nd to be on the Astro Boy movie, no matter how bad it is. But after that, I'll most certainly cover it.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Aug 10 2009, 10:59 PM

The series this week is a relatively under-the-radar series that, in spite of all that, still has managed to continue going along and be incredibly successful. This series, Armored Trooper VOTOMS, is considered a follow-up and spiritual successor to the director's previous series, Fang of the Sun Dougram, and possessed similar "hard" science fiction which really tried to stay grounded in realism.

Armored Trooper VOTOMS takes places in the far-off Asragius Galaxy, where a long and bitter war has raged between two massive superpowers: the Gilgamesh Confederation and the Balarant Union. In a twist, the story starts after the war, which has gone on for centuries, has finally wound down and ended. Our hero is an ace pilot by the name of Chirico Cuvie, who for a while was a member of the Red Shoulder Battalion but at the start is transferred to a new squad for a suspicious mission.

Things take a strange twist when he discovers he is stealing secret military plans *from his own side*, and is all but doomed to death. In spite of being captured, tortured, and having his life generally take a turn for the absolute worst when he's branded a traitor, Chirico is not driven to angst and whine about what's going on in his life. No, that idea of having angsty Real Robot pilots hadn't come yet, so what Chirico does is kick serious tail in a quest to travel through the entire Asragius Galaxy and sort out what happened and drag up damning secrets about both the Gilgamesh Confederation and the Balarant Union in the process. In spite of being very much a loner, he still ends up gathering up a group of friends who, in spite of personal feelings, are always there to watch each other's backs.

The series is divided into four very large story arcs, in contrast to the shorter ones found in most Real Robot series as Chirico battles against equally-hardened soldiers and insane criminals, using whatever Armored Trooper machine he can find. In the end, Chirico discovers the highly advanced computer known as Wiseman, which is responsible for manipulating the course of events in the galaxy for thousands of years and Chirico himself was a superhuman specimen planned to use Wiseman to rule the Asragius Galaxy... but Chirico doesn't want any of that so he destroys the computer and resolves to go and live a quiet life with his friends as the Confederation and the Union descend into war again. Dark, yes. But with Wiseman destroyed perhaps the two superpowers can finally overcome their desire for war.

Armored Troopers, or VOTOMS (Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and ManeuverS), are a far cry from many Real Robots that came before and after them. They are a dime a dozen, and they really are nothing more than glorified bipedal tanks. They're only a few meters tall and require on a special fluid known as Polymer Ringers Solution to move fluidly. Not only is PRS very flammable and degreades, but a machine without it cannot function properly. Armored Troopers also usually only carry around one or two machines, like a big machinegun or rocket launcher and completely ditch the beam weaponry that was so common in Gundam. In fact, unlike a Gundam, an Armored Trooper can be whipped up out of in a cave in the desert with a box of scraps spare parts and a few basic tools. Chirico actually changes Armored Troopers *a lot*, simply because they always get wrecked.

... Ironically, the designer for all the Armored Troopers was the guy who made the mobile suits for the original Gundam. I find that very ironic and amusing.

Anyways, Armored Trooper VOTOMS has been fortunate to get a whole string of follow-up series, including a prequel featuring an entirely new cast that finished up last year. If you want a mecha series that really doesn't put much emphasis on the mecha themselves, you can't go wrong with VOTOMS.

Now, tragically, the nature of VOTOMS means it has yet to be in a SRW game, and it probably never will be. But that's okay.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Aug 19 2009, 12:05 AM

This is great. This is a series I've wanted to cover for quite a while. It's a series I began to love when I picked up a volume of it at the library, which was followed by more volumes, which was followed by the anime series. This is the series known at B't X.

What began after the hastily-concluded Saint Seiya ran for almost twice the length, although with less volumes. It remains to this day one of the few series that the author, Masami Kurumada, was able to finish up how he had intended, rather than being canceled. Now, I covered this a while ago, but to nowhere near the detail I can now, since at that time I had only read a few of the volumes and none of the anime. But now I can give the full story of it, which is good.

B't X begins with a robot exhibition in China, in the not too distant future. Brilliant prodigy Kotaro Takamiya's is planning to unveil a new technological marvel, but is almost immediately attacked by an android, although a figure from his past defeats it without difficulty. This person is Teppei Takamiya, his younger brother who Kotaro left five years ago to study in Germany, and has been training this whole time on Kamui Island and is in possession of the unusual gauntlet called the Messiah Fist. Teppei's overjoyed to see his brother again, and they both decide to do some catching up afterwards.

The robot, however, was sent from reclusive Machine Empire, a hidden organization that is attempting to eliminate war by any means necessary, and they have their eyes set on Kotaro. During the exhibition, they gas the entire hall, killing hundreds before capturing him. Teppei pursues, using the cables from the Messiah Fist to hold onto dear life as he clings to the large wasp-type robot, or B't, known as Rosemary, as he is dragged to the Area, the Empire's base in the Gobi Desert. Teppei, being found out quickly, is nearly killed when he's confronted by a Machine Empire officer named Metalface, who appropriately enough has replaced much of his body with cybernetics, and Teppei is doomed to die in the junkyard where failed B'ts are left. A human's blood, however, can activate a B't, and Teppei ends up lucking out, with his blood revivinga relic from five years ago; a kirin-type B't known as X once trumped up as the most powerful B't in existence.

Initially fleeing the Machine Empire, the two learn a bit from each other, and we discover Teppei's much better informed about the Machine Empire than we thought. It turns out that five years ago, X and his partner Karen had discovered a horrible truth about a developing B't known as Raphaello, and we attacked by their comrades. Fleeing, X was nearly destroyed and "died", Karen also being critically injured before she managed to get to Kamui Island, where a young Teppei found her, hid her away, got nearly killed by Metalface and other Machine Empire officers, and was only saved by a chance transfusion from Karen. Karen's blood, in Teppei's body, is what revived X again, and X eventually decides to help Teppei in his quest and then reunite with Karen afterwards.

However, the forces of the Machine Empire are many, and Teppei is nearly killed dueling against one of X's fellow B'ts, the phoenix-type Je'Taime and her partner, the atheist monk Foh. Foh spares them, however, out of respect for Karen and his own motives, and then reveals to Teppei the nature of the Area, the Machine Empire's base. With numerous revolving Points that serve as defensive layers, what would normally be a brief ten-minute flight to the Empire's headquarters is slowed down by the numerous Point Soldiers. Teppei doesn't care though, and after defeating a few goons that were going to attack Foh for turning traitor, heads off with X. Foh, recalling to five years ago when the Four Knights, he, Karen, Chinese fighter Ron, and the brilliant doctor Hokuto defended the Empire together, decides to set off as well and make heads or tails of everything.

In the meantime, we find out the situation at the Machine Empire's a little complicated, with Aramis, the female general who captured Kotaro, wishes for him to help with containing Raphaello, but angering the representatives of the Machine Emperor causes Kotaro to get thrown into the Underhell, a labor camp underneath the base where uncooperative prisoners are forced to work. Crazy stuff happens there and, well... back to Teppei.

Teppei begins to fight his way through the Points, facing a great deal of difficulty since he can't call upon X's full power -which causes him to lose against Four Knight member Ron although like Foh he spares him-, and this eventually catches up to him in his third battle. X nearly gets killed, and Teppei is forced to start viewing him as a partner rather than a tool to get his brother back, helping tap into X's "Prism of Aura" state which lets him blast through the next two soldiers, although X's decaying condition catches up to him and he then dies again.

All is not lost, however, with Hokuto now convinced the Empire is acting wrongly and repairing X and treating Teppei's injuries. And a good thing too, because now the Machine Empire is getting serious and the story's going into high gear, with the introduction of the seven Devil Knights.

The craziness continues on from there, with parts of the plot focusing on Karen, Kotaro, and Teppei and their own personal battles, leading up to the hectic conclusion where the heroes face off against the powerful Raphaello and their sacrifices to finally defeat it.

Due to the manga taking so long to finish, the anime had to edit out more than half of the Devil Knight battles, and added some filler early on too. The battle against Raphaello also plays out differently, as does the list of who survives the final battle itself.

... Argh. It's... really hard to explain a series as awesome as B't X when I'm distracted and have lots of other things to do. I highly recommend it to Shonen fans, and especially people that liked the Rukia Rescue arc thing in Bleach of, if you watched Saint Seiya/Knights of the Zodiac, this is even better. Zhanneel and Hanna have both seen it and really liked it too.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Aug 31 2009, 7:54 PM

Ugh. @_@ Can't believe I missed an update last week. Oh well, I can just double up today since I have the time.

The series that was MEANT to be posted last week was Super Dimension Cavalry Souther Cross, the final series in Big West's Super Dimension trilogy and the least successful (at least over in Japan). Unlike Macross's confinement of just our Solar System or Orguss sticking to the Earth itself, Southern Cross takes place after the Earth has been ravaged by nuclear war. Humanity, in search for a new planet to call home. Mars and Jupiter have many colonies (presumably in orbit for Jupiter) and in the Proxima Solar System the planet "Liberte" was discovered and colonized as well. Harmany Gold's revision of Southern Cross was the second part of its Robotech saga, taking place after the events of its Macross arc.

Southern Cross focuses on the planet Glorie, which was surprisingly harsh for humans. Much of it was in a perpetual state of Winter, but as of the start of the series (2120) it has been successfully colonized.

... And then crap hits the fan.

The alien group in Southern Cross is the Zor, a race that had previously left Glorie in the past. Although they are not physically conditioned to be well at fighting, they are remarkably good at biotechnology and have created numerous Bioroids to fight for them. Returning, they end up warring against humanity with the goal of conquering them. The Zor also function as triplets, and are very capable and plotting as a result... however, the death of one takes away their tactical advantages. Their Bioroids were also much more capable than the Southern Cross forces in a one-on-one basis.

The Southern Cross, as just mentioned, is the Human forces that are controlled by the Government. They have numerous branches like a navy and an air force and as the opening shows you, everyone in the force also is provided an Arming Doublet. Similar to a Powered Armor, the Doublet provides personal protection and also better integration with the various machines that the army members use.

Tragically, Southern Cross wasn't that great of a series and it was reduced to 26 episodes from its original length due to low popularity. In spite of that, it was still brought over as part 2 of the Robotech Saga and served to bridged the gap between the Macross and the Mospeada arcs. The heroine was also rewritten to be the daughter of Max Sterling (the Americanized version of ace pilot Max Jenius from Macross), which leads me to another interesting bit of info.

See, in Southern Cross, the focus was specifically on three women, dutiful soldiers Mary Angel and Lana Isavia, and our heroine, the impulsive and inexperienced Jeanne Francaix. Naturally there was a bit of romance involved, but the story also put some genuine focus on the fact that these three women could carry their own in a fight. Lana was the youngest officer in the Southern Cross and at the same time one of the most highly-ranked MP. Many times Lana chews Jeanne out for ignoring her orders and doing what she will, but at the same time begins to grow and open up as a person. Similarly, Mary is the former leader of a biker gang and is a natural leader. And lastly, Jeane is a very capable pilot and fighter in spite of her own faults.

Now, as I said before, Southern Cross wasn't successful as much as Macross or Orguss in Japan. But nowadays, if you're going to see a new Robotech story in America, it's most likely going to be based on Southern Cross or Mospeada rather than Macross due to copyright issues surrounding them. This leads to a greater deal of focus on Southern Cross than it got in Japan, where it was mainly a standalone series, and has since gotten embellished and improved on. In fact, the very first episode of Robotech's Southern Cross arc was an entirely brand-new episode that used some scene from Macross for flashback material.

Anyways, it's only 23 episodes and this series definitely helped give us Mecha series with a female protagonist, like Gunbuster. And it can't be worse than Zeorymer, right?

... Which FINALLY leads us to the series I had planned for today anyways, Golden Warrior Gold Lightan.



Gold Lightan is essentially, well, imagine Transformers except if the robots didn't have to worry about having their disguise modes being the same size as their regular bodies. That's a good way of looking at it at first. It also actually predated Transformers AND Machine Robo, created by Tatsunoko Productions in 1981 and running for 52 episodes.

Anyways, our hero this time is the 30-meter-tall robot named Gold Lightan, who, like the name implies, transforms into a golden lighter. Discovered by the little boy Hiro, Lightan is tasked with defeating the villainous Emperor Ibalda and his many subordinates. Assisted by lots and lots of friendly robots that change into things like a timer or a scope, Lightan mainly fights just with his hands and feet. In a way, this is a retraux of the old-school mecha before Mazinger Z where weaponized robots were still not thought up.

However, Lightan's big finishing move is usually stabbing into the enemy's body and pulling out their power source. This makes me think of the similar "Hell and Heaven", plus there's the relationship he has with the kid Hiro, who carries him around in his pocket when Lightan's not fighting. If anything, Lightan was probably a huge inspiration for Transformers and the whole Braves Metaseries... although probably not so much with Machine Robo due to differences in their plot.

Well, it's nice that I could catch up after falling behind. Tragically neither series has been in Super Robot Wars, and it took us forever to just get Orguss for crying out loud. However, Lightan HAS recently appeared in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and I might as well post a vid of him in his silver recolor taking on the final boss.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Sep 8 2009, 2:52 AM

Update time. Today's series is one that was created by the famous Leiji Matsumoto, the genius behind a number of well-loved anime series like Space Battleship Yamato (known here as Starblazers) and the great and legendary Captain Harlock series. This series is Planet Robo Danguard Ace.

Danguard Ace, created in 1977, took place in the future when most of the Earth's natural resources had been used up. The ensuing crisis started to cool down with the discovery of the material-rich tenth planet Promete and people began to arrange transport to that planet. Things are looking up and then... crazy stuff happens, the expedition force is killed off when one of their own turns against them, and then some guy named Mr. Doppler gets onto the planet and uses the resources to create a powerful military force. He wants Promete all to himself and isn't afraid to fight to keep it. Naturally this is quite stupid and the Earth forces begin using what materials they have left to create an army of powerful robots to combat him...

... Except things then hit the fan AGAIN when Doppler has his machines destroy them. Only one, saved by the intervention of a masked man named Captain Dan who once worked for Doppler when under mind control, survives. Our hero in this case is one Takuma Ichimonji, a young cadet that serves in the base. Takuma has it a bit rough, with his father being the one responsible for the initial voyage to Promete ending in everyone dying, and wants to restore his family's honor by fighting to retake it.

And thus begins Takuma's journey, one of both redemption and manning up, one of both defeating the enemies within and the enemies without. And doing it with massive kick-butt robot too.

Gunbuster took a lot of inspiration from Danguard Ace. As you will recall, Noriko wished to avenge her father's death against the SMTC in Gunbuster. In this series, Takuma wants to atone for his father's mistakes. They both end up getting a lot of flack from fellow cadets, and although the reason differ, the end result is very much the same. In fact, you could say that Takuma started the tradition for having more introverted mecha pilots, since he predates Gundam's Amuro by a solid two years. Captain Dan also served as a distant, aloof, and yet still inspiring role model for Takuma to look up to, much like Coach in Gunbuster.

Danguard Ace ran for 56 episodes and finally wrapped up in March of 1978. A little more than ten years later, Gunbuster would be made and further explore themes that Danguard Ace put forth.

Tragically, Danguard Ace has yet to appear in a SRW game. Whatever the reasons are, we will probably have to wait and see if it ever really is included.

(looks at next week)

OH GOD, IT'S GUNDAM SEED DESTINY! *Bangs head* DAMN DAMN DAMN!!!!

Posted by: Cloud9 Sep 8 2009, 3:48 AM

Just make it a mock-fest like AsherOmega did with SEED. That was quite entertaining to read.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Sep 8 2009, 11:18 AM

Well, I'm actually thinking of doing a re-write of it after I finish Shin Minako.

The problem that springs up is that there's a lot of ideas bouncing around my head and I have no idea how it's going to exactly work out. Oh well, push comes to shove I'll just give everyone the straight truth about it.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Sep 14 2009, 1:42 PM

Change in plans! Rather than get this all out of the way right now... I'm going to do something even better!

WARNING! WHAT FOLLOW IS BLATANT AND SHAMELESS CANON DEFILEMENT! IT GOES AGAINST THE ORIGINAL VISION OF THE SERIES AS DIRECTED BY MITSUO FUKUDA! AS SUCH IS IS CONSIDERABLY BETTER IN SPITE OF BEING WRITTEN BY AMATEURS WITH LITTLE IF ANY PLANNING! PLEASE DISREGARD THE EVENTS OF THE ANIME AS WE PROVIDE THIS MULTI-PART STORY AS IT DEVELOPS!

In other words, yesterday in the SRW RP, we did the first mission including events of Gundam SEED Destiny in it. As such, I've decided whenever we do a mission, I will forgo what was originally planned for the week in question and tell about what happened.

Meet http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u86/ryuuzakinaj1/shinn202.jpg and http://static.minitokyo.net/view/04/35/129254.jpg. They are two inhabitants of the United Emirates of Orb, Coordinators who live at peace with the Naturals of the country. The world the live in is dangerous, one where peace is endangered by numerous forces, ranging from villains of various Gundam series to those from countless other canons and is defended by the Earth Defense Force. One year ago, Shinn had been a tremendous fan of one Kira Yamato and the Strike Gundam, even having a blog where he sang their praises and kept up on their exploits. After crazy stuff happened and the EDF was all but dissolved after a disastrous attack by a mysterious, it nevertheless returned, reformed as the Galaxy Defense Force. In this time, after being thought dead after his disasterous final battle against Athrun Zala in the Aegist Gundam, Kira Yamato returned as well. Much happiness ensued from this for Shinn.

Shinn lived with his parents and his beloved little sister, Mayu Asuka. He was also very close friends with Luna, who harbored a bit of a crush on Shinn and helped be a voice of reason whenever he did something stupid without thinking things through. Shinn turned 16 on September 1st, having a wonderful day which was capstoned by a visit from Luna. She had brought him a "chibi" model of the Strike, a gift that Shinn was truly grateful for and promised to one day return the favor for.

Of course... then things started to go downhill rapidly due to the Blue Cosmos group that Asher talked about. In the SRW RP-verse, their big gripe was that Orb had not assisted in the war against ZAFT and were going to attack them. Although the GDF was not directly involved, when the group attacked, Kira Yamato went to defend his homeland. Accompanying him was one Riki Mikashi, who piloted the powerful Super Robot known as Bangai-O. Riki's motives were pretty basic: the group he fought against was the SF Cosmos Gang, and nobody had the time to explain to him the difference between the two. At Orb, they were assisted by Cagalli Yula Athha, who would assist them in the defense of Orb using the Strike Rouge IWSP, a version of the Strike incorporating elements of all three of the original's modes.

It turns out, however, the SF Cosmos Gang HAD allied itself with Blue Cosmos, and for much of the battle Riki battled his nemesis while leaving the Blue Cosmos forces to Kira and Cagalli. However, the situation took a turn for the worse when the Druggies in their Gundams showed up, slowly overpowering Kira and getting closer to defeating him...

However, Kira was saved with the return of his friend-turned-enemy Athrun Zala, piloting the new Justice Gundam, was fighting to protect his friend and those he cared about...

However, in the scuffle, Shinn and Luna were fleeing with their respective families near the battlesite when Mayu dropped her cell phone. Being the upstanding and fearless big brother that he was, Shinn ran back to get it, returning quickly...

... Just in time to see the large wrecking-ball weapon of one of the Druggies, knocked away during the course of the battle, crush his entire family right in front of his eyes. This all but shattered Shinn's spirit, leaving him in a pained depression on the mountain as Luna tried and eventually succeeded in convincing him to not just give up. However, a number of explosions knocked them down to the base of the mountain to an Orb military hangar. Confused and scared and not knowing what was going to happen, Shinn still promised Luna that no matter what would happen next, he would protect her. Traveling through the base as Athrun, Kira, Riki, and Cagalli fought outside, Shinn and Luna eventually discovered the hangar, where inside they found a number of basic Orb mobile suits, Astrays... and the Strike Gundam. The Gundam he had for so long idolized seemed improved, using the new Lightning Pack which increased its operation time and long-range capabilities at the cost of melee weapons. However, Shinn noticed a large anti-ship sword in the hangar meant for the Strike IWSP.

After a few minutes of hacking into the systems and cracking the encryption and determined to defend their country, Shinn and Luna charged out into the battle -but not before Shinn grabbed the sword- where there was some confusion to be had. Their inexperience showed, and they did little to help when one of the Druggies attempted to attack Luna. The Druggie was stopped, however, when Shinn managed to fend off its attack through sheer force of will, letting Shinn save at least one person that day.

Not long afterwards, the Blue Cosmos forces retreated to regroup, Kira and the others being called to speak with Lord Uzumi, the leader of Orb and Cagalli's father. Believing nothing could be won by standing and fighting, he urged them to flee, Cagalli distraught and unwilling to leave her father. Nevertheless, Kira and Athrun hung back to defend the Izumo-class ship Kusanagi as it fled, Shinn, Luna, Cagalli, and Riki on board and fended off another attack by the Druggies. Orb's leaders then blew up the installation, taking their own lives in the process as the peaceful country burned.

Shinn, demoralized and all but broken, still found strength as he held Luna's hand. He had a promise to keep; he wasn't going to die.

EDIT: http://community.livejournal.com/srw_unlimited/141483.html#cutid1 This is the link providing the RP's official description of the mission. The chat log provides a complete archive of the events for any and all those interested.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Sep 22 2009, 1:49 AM

Alright, update time. And today's series will be...

"YOU GOT YOUR COWBOY BEBOP IN MY TRIGUN!" "YOU GOT YOUR TRIGUN IN MY COWBOY BEBOP!"

... Better known as Gun X Sword.

Gun X Sword was a creation by Sunrise in the year 2005 and ran for 26 episodes. It is much-beloved by 4chan and its /m/ board in general for various reasons. For one, it is one of the few series that shows revenge as a positive force.

Anyways, our hero is one Van, a drifter in a tuxedo with a funny hat, a belt that turns into a sword, and a determination to track down a certain man that causes him to frequently forget to eat. Our story begins when, dreadfully hungry, he walks into a church hoping to get some food just as a young girl named Wendy Garret is apparantly shot dead. However, Van quickly deduces that she survived, a pendant that she wears really being a small turtle named Kameo whose shell blocked the bullet. Held at gunpoint, Van skilfully defeats the thugs, subordinates of a man named Lucky.

Van, hailed as a hero, is taken into the town, where he finds out that this "Lucky" is a man who has been attempting to get his hand on the town's ridiculously rich bank, the citizens all holing up in the mall. Wendy tries to convince him to help out, but Van brushes them off and doesn't consider it his fight... until he meets Lucky in person and sees that he is a hypocrite, at which case he resolves to defeat Lucky and his giant robot known simply as an "Armor". To do so, with a turn of his hat and cutting a "V" in the air with his sword, Van summons from space a lanky, sword-wielding Armor known as Dann of Thursday and soundly defeats him before he continues on his journey. Wendy, looking up to him and hoping to fashion herself to be a wife for him -an idea that Van finds ridiculous- follows after him with Kameo and reveals that they are both in fact searching for the same individual: a man with a claw for a right hand, commonly referred to as The Claw Man or The Claw. Although she cannot fight, Dorthy brings with her a gun with a single bullet that Michael had left for her.

However, their motives are entirely different. Van it turns out lost his beloved wife to the Claw on their wedding day, and has committed his entire life to revenge ever since. Wendy, however, is searching for her brother Michael who had been captured by him in the past as well. Along their journey, they meet many individuals, including the quartet of really old mecha pilots known as the El Dora V (a huge homage to Super Robots in general, specifically Combattler/Voltes V, GaoGaiGar, and Dancougar), a mercenary lady friend of Van named Carla Mendoza who prefers to go by the name of Carmen 99, a young boy named Joshua Lundgren searching for his brother...

And then his brother himself, one Ray Lundgren. Ray shares Van's single-minded desire to find the Claw Man and kill him to avenge a loved one, in this case his wife Shino. Ray, in contrast to Van's Dann of Thursday which duels entirely with a bifurcated sword, uses an armor originally designed for mining called Volkain and uses an assortment of guns. Ray is, somehow, actually *more* determined to kill the Claw Man, doing whatever it takes in the process in contrast to Van's more laid-back approach to life whenever the Claw Man isn't directly related to the goings-on.

The first few episodes start slow, Van and Wendy traveling along and confronting various one-time villains, but things start to change around episode six when Van begins to narrow in on The Claw's trail. From there, things ramp up as Van and Wendy begin to close in on The Claw, running into their friends several times along the way until things hit their climax around episode 13 where...

... We find out the Claw Man is a kind-hearted old man who loves to take care of animals, hates violence, and believes everyone should follow their dreams? And Michael has since joined with him and serves as one of his subordinates?

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Stuff goes crazy from here, with Van and company strambling to stop the Claw Man's scheme of integrating with all life on the planet of Endless Illusion, a planet terraformed by Earthlings years ago that became a penal world, and then humanity's last stand after the destruction of Earth. To serve as wardens on this planet, there are seven powerful Armors known as the Original Seven who are without peer and named after the days of the week. Van is in possession of the most limited... and yet at the same time the most powerful of the seven, Dann of Thursday being the only one lacking any kind of long-range weapon, but simultaneously able to heal any injury Van receives if he only steps inside of the machine.

The Claw Man himself, already dying from unknown causes, desire to provide one last "boon" to humanity, having Michael use the powerful Saudade of Sunday to travel to space and capture the terraforming equipment and then use it to unite with the life of the world and create his vision of a Utopia. And, incidentally, the Claw Man is willing to kill along the way.

Van quickly finds himself outmatched time and time again by the Original Seven machines, suffering a number of near-defeats and at least one crushing-defeat. And yet, he continues to press forward and succeed against the odds due to his desire for revenge, enabling him to effectively defend the world in the process. Along the way, Van and company make a few more friends as well, including the prodigy Armor fighter Priscilla, who uses a machine called Brownie she whipped up from spare parts.

The battles continue to take their toll, one difficult battle against the young twins Carosa and Melissa ending with Ray suffering damage to his eyes, which he keeps silent about. The heroes are too late, however, and Saudade blasts off into space, destroying Dann's repair satellite and leaving it grounded. The heroes then move into the space center that The Claw had used previously, rushing to try to get Van and Dann back into space. Dann, running out of power, is gradually weakening and Van with it, and they hope to use one of the satellites of another of the Original Seven to repair Dann. They eventually succeed, and not a moment too soon as the final battle begin shortly afterwards.

Yet again, Van fights through to face his nemesis, the man that took his belove wife Helena away from him, and against all odds succeeds against The Claw Man's monstrously large and overpowered Armor called Birthday. He murders the man at long last and justice is achieved, although not without some sacrifices along the way...

We get a very brief epilogue at the very end, chronicling Van and Wendy's reunion many years after the series. How things pick up from there are unknown.

Gun X Sword is, due to the setting, often compared to Trigun. Similarly, Van's appearance is reminiscent of one Spike Speigal from Cowboy Bebop. At the same time, however, Gun X Sword is a story that is entirely its own, with a colorful cast, a unique message in this day and age that revenge is not automatically a bad idea, and mecha designs that stand out. It's a great series, only 26 episodes long, and it can really hook you.

It has also, as of this March, been inducted into Super Robot Wars with Super Robot Wars K. Van is a fun character to use in it, and Dann's very powerful and agile too, its only real limit being a very short range for its attacks. Brownie, the El Dora V (later upgraded into El Dora Sol) complete with an homage to GaoGaGar's Hell and Heaven attack, and Volkain also are units you can use. The game mainly focuses on the latter half of the plot, starting with Dann of Thursday vs. Diablo of Monday early on and gradually having more fights against the Original Seven as time goes on.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Sep 29 2009, 3:26 AM

Whew! Another Monday, another series! And here comes another rather obscure, yet at the same time very important series, one by the name of Detonator Orgun.



Detonator Orgun is another series directed by the visonary mecha creator Masami Obari, already mentioned for making such series like Dangaioh and Gravion. Orgun is a bit different, being a 3-part OVA series that had each separate episode be released in 1991, 1992, and 1993 respectively. It took a lot of inspiration from the old 1970s anime Tekkaman the Space Knight, and would ironically go on to inspire Tekkaman Blade, a remake of Tekkaman that was closer in line with the style of Orgun.

Our hero is college student Tomoru Shindo who lives in City 5. He is going to graduate in a few months and is debating what to do with his life. One of the most tempting things would be to join the Earth Defense Force military, which is fairly advanced and has transformable jets called Birdmen. Tomoru, during this time, begins to have dreams of a strange machine called Orgun, being attacked by other machines. He also has visions of a woman in similar straights.

Well, from here you can probably guess what happens; crazy stuff starts going down, alien monsters start to attack, although for once they're more-or-less human sized, and Tomoru ends up bonding with a rebuilt, again-humanoid-sized machine and saves the day, kicking ass left and right before revealing the machine's name is Orgun and he has travelled millions of lightyears to reach Earth.

In the second OVA episode, we find out that Orgun and the invaders are of the same race, the Evoluders, who are in fact descendants of those sent out 200 years ago in a space probe, and due to time dilation have undergone millions of years of evolution. They have returned to Earth, seeking to conquer and destroy it like they have many other planets. And yet Orgun opposes them, believing strongly in the ideals of justice and love, and even succeeding in helping a few other Evoluders to realize this, such as Leave, who sacrifices himself to defeat another powerful Evoluder.

The final battles end up pitting Orgun against the leader of the Evoluders, the ridiculously overpowered Zoa who effortlessly demolishes him and tears out Orgun's power supply. And yet, through the power of love, Orgun continues to struggle on, eventually killing the madman and saving the Earth from destruction at the cost of himself in a Christian-themed sequence. Tomoru survives, and is able to continue on with his life.

The story was regrettably just three OVA episodes, but at least they were about twice the length of a normal TV show episode to counterbalance the fact. Orgun was also not that big of a success in Japan, although it did respark interest in Tekkaman, but it was better received in America when it was licensed in 2001. I'd definitely suggest it if you want to see what gave us the Tekkaman Blade (aka Teknoman) some of you might be familiar with when you were younger.

It has also since gone on to appear in Super Robot Wars W, where its plot was tied very closely to the Tekkaman Blade plot and the GaoGaiGar plot as well... partly because in GaoGaiGar, the super-evolved state that Gai and his girlfriend obtain at the end are ALSO called Evoluders. During the first half of the game, which covers the events prior to Orgun bonding with Tomoru, Orgun accosts the heroes multiple times, apparantly familiar with D-Boy, the hero of Tekkaman Blade... and then near the end we find out that in W's continuity, the Evoluders were sent back in time millions of years and war against the Radam from Tekkaman Blade as well. Compared to D-Boy, Orgun is a bit slower and more powerful, better for singular units but lacking some of the perks that D-Boy has. Either way, they're both fun units to use.

Regrettably, nobody's put up an exhibition for Orgun on youtube, so I'll make due with a vid of his basic sword attack and totally-not-a-Christ-Allegory attack.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Oct 12 2009, 2:55 PM

Argh... didn't update last week. So you know what that means?

DOUBLE UPDATE THIS WEEK! WHOOOO!

Anyways, the series I intended to cover last week was a series set in the same continuity as GaoGaiGar, but had a completely different theme and mood. This is a thinking-man's mecha series, where a strong grasp of scientific terms or at least quick access to Wikipedia is advised. This series is...

Betterman.

Betterman is, as I said before, a series that takes place in the same continuity of The King of Braves, GaoGaiGar, confirmed first by the fact that the older brother of one of Mamoru's friends from GGG is a semi-regular cast member and again in GaoGaiGar FINAL where we see a few of the Betterman characters from behind. In spite of that, the stories have very little in common, and the heroes of Betterman cannot rely on lots of shouting to solve their problems for them.

The situation in Betterman is this: a disease/mutation is ravaging much of the world, called "Algernon" and causes those infected to experience a tremendous loss of intelligence and self control. Named after the rat from the story Flowers for Algernon, they become little more than monsters consumed with rage, insanity, and ever-mutating bodies.

Our hero, again in contrast to the hot-blooded and courageous Gai Shishioh, is Keita Aono, who ends up joining Akumatsu Industries, a company that is taking it on themselves to discover the cause of Algernon and stop it. Keita himself is unsure and panics a great deal, yet at the same time has a much better track record of manning up and protecting people than one Shinji Ikari did in Evangelion. He is a Dual Kind, a certain kind of individual with psychic powers and can connect with the Neuronoids, advanced machines that are meant to help out the heroes on the mecha end of this... the Bettermen.

The Bettermen are... weird. They are sentient life-forms that can take humanoid appearances, and yet they are also the giant machines that battle against mutant Algernon creations. They have a number of transformations, which are in fact brought on by the consumption of specific types of seeds that trigger temporary mutations. Our hero here is Lamia, a Betterman that usually shows up when Keita gets into danger. There are a few other Bettermen, but he's the important one and the one that saves the day in the end. The fruit that provide the seeds for their transformations actually, in a twist, comes from dead bodies of people suffering from Algernon Syndrome.

The main villains also are an interesting case of, for the most part, not being directly related to Algernon. It's more a case that Algernon is more or less a side-effect of their ambitions and schemes, with the entire group attempting to make the perfect life form, called the "Bestman". Over the course of multiple episodes, the heroes struggle with dissension in their own ranks before going on to confront other enemies outside, all the while learning about the true nature of Algernon and who is a carrier for it.

As I said before, Betterman is the thinking-man's mecha. It discusses a lot of advances scientific terms and expects you to know what the hell they're talking about because they won't take twenty minutes explaining what it means. At the same time it's also a very unique, unconventional mecha series that again, was made by the great guys who cooked up GaoGaiGar. It ran for twenty-six episodes and did have a successful run in America, in spite of still not being very well known. Oh well.

Betterman has only appeared in one Super Robot Wars game, Compact 3. Youtube vids of them are scarce, but I did dig up two of them. He's one of Hinoki in her Head Diver.



And the most powerful attack of Betterman Lamia's normal, NEBULA form.



Now, the series I had planned on for today was Lord of Lords: Ryu Knight, another Sunrise production that came out in 1994 that proved to be very successful.



Ryu Knight, as the opening shows us, is a fantasy mecha series... kinda like Escaflowne or Dunbine but a lot more lighthearted and humorous. The hero this time is a young knight by the name of Adeu, who is determined to live his life by the Ethos of Chivalry. It's pretty much like a code of knighthood. Anyways, on the world of Earth's Tear, which has a giant sword sticking out of it, there are lots of giant robots that people can use. The traditional, mass-produced ones are known as Solids and there's a whole bunch of them out there and none are really out of the ordinary.

The other group of robots are called Ryus, and they are one-of-a-kind machines with tremendous firepower and based on some RPG class like healer or monk or fighter, etc. These Ryus are stored in mystical tarot cards and can then be summoned out by the users. Adeu himself possesses the card of the Ryu Knight, Zephyr. He quickly joins up with a princess named Puffy, ninja named Sarutobi, and a priest named Izumi who are travelling towards Earth's Blade, the large sword that's sticking out of the ground. They too have a quest in that general direction and they grow to become a close-knit group of friends.

The first half of the series mainly focuses on their adventures, meeting other Ryu users and fighting evildoers and such. Along the way we find out about the Dark Ryu user Galden and the heroes battle him multiple times, usually coming out on top. Around midway of the series, the old mecha tradition of upgrading robots is combined with the fantasy tradition of class changes, resulting in their machines getting stronger through the acquisition of the Spirit Stones. We also find out about the nature and purpose of the Ryus as well.

You see, before Earth's Tear was created, there were two gods, Sodin, who totally was not entirely based off of Odin at ALL and some demonic and chaos god whose name escapes me at the moment. ANYWAYS, they fought and fought for what seemed like an eternity until Sodin defeated him and as a sign that the battle was over the god impaled his shield with his spear. This shield grew to become the world of Earth's Tear.

And it turns out that there are creatures called Helldragons, which descend from space and attempt to attack Earth's Tear. These creatures were held at bay by two separate forces; the Ryus themselves which were tailor-made to fight against them, and a barrier which... ends up getting weakened by various evil forces

Anyways, the heroes now have a much grander quest to worry about and continue on, gathering the Spirit Stones for the Ryus and using their powered up machines to defeat the villains and their new machines called Dooms from destroying the barrier. People die, there's lots of action and Galden eventually makes peace with the heroes. It was a suitably epic finale for the story and all was well in the end!

The series had an unexpected popularity, possibly because of the more tongue-in-cheek way of having a fantasy story in contrast to Escaflowne and ran for fifty-two episodes. It also ended up getting a few OVA sequels; the 13 episode Adeu's Legend, the 3 episode Adeu's Legend II, and the finale Adeu's Legend Final. Special props go to my friend Doggie from the Super Robot Wars RP for providing me some recap episodes and a very nice recap for me to work with for this, considering it doesn't have a TV Tropes entry and a bare-bones Wiki one.

Anyways, Ryu Knight for a long time wasn't in a Super Robot Wars series until actually this upcoming one, Super Robot Wars NEO. Who knows how it's going to fit into the grand scheme of things, but it should be a good addition to the overall story. Pick it up if you want, or hell, Betterman. They're both unconventional series and pretty solid ones at that.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Oct 22 2009, 10:07 PM

Okay, a little late on the update but whatever. Today's subject is the long-running Takara-Tomy series and franchise Zoids.

Zoids, I guess has a bit of the essence of B't X and Tranformers in it. The machines are essentially automatons, however their hearts/minds have organic components, making the Zoids technically alive. The franchise started in the 1980s, and although it was not the biggest franchise that Takara had, Tranformers beat it by leaps and bounds, it was still very successful and has since had four anime series. The first of which was Zoids: Chaotic Century.



Anyways, our setting is the distant planet known as Zi, and the hero this time is a young boy named Van Flyheight. And no, unlike the hero from that Final Fantasy game, this Van actually has a reason to be there. The story begins with him discovering a strange girl by the name of Fiona and the small Organoid named Zeke. Organoids are essentially creatures that can integrate into Zoids to power them up.

The situation is a fairly basic one, where for years in the past there was a long war between the Helios Republic (no relationship to the Helios Empire from Daltanius) and the Guylos Empire although an uneasy peace has been reached a bit before the series began. Van himself starts out as an ordinary boy, until finding Zeke and commandeering an old Shield Liger Zoid forces him to leave his village to keep them from getting attacked more. Stumbling on Fiona in the same place he foudn Zeke, Van sets out on a quest to hopefully find the Zoid Eve and restore her memories. Along the way, they end up making a number of friends who tag along for various reasons.

Things hit a snag, however, when a stay at a Helios military base causes them to have to stop an encroaching Gylos attack force. Unfortunately for the two countries, peace really IS that fleeting and problems start to flare up. Van also meets his rival-of-sorts, the ace fighter named Raven who is more than a cut above him and the two clash numerous times, Raven usually emerging victorious although Van does kick his ass occasionally when it's do-or-die.

In the meantime, the noble prince of the Empire, named Rudolph, attempts to stop the machinations of the sinister Regent of the Empire, Prozen, only for the Empire to be dragged into a civil war in the process. At the same time, Prozen uncovers a very powerful and large Zoid known as the Death Saurer that in the past destroyed the ancient civilization of the Zoidians. In the process of reactivating it, Prozen also develops the Geno Saurer for Raven to use. It is this machine that destroys Van's Shield Liger, although with some help from Zeke and Fiona, discovering her identity as one of the few Zoidians left, recreate it as the Blade Liger. After a difficult rematch, Van succeeds in destroying the Geno Saurer. And with that, the stage is set as Prozen finally reawakens the Death Saurer that goes on a rampage until Van and Blade Liger stand against it, and after another difficult struggle slays the monster.

And with that, the day is saved, Rudolph ascends to being the emperor, everyone celebrates, and Van and Fiona continue on their journey to find the Zoid Eve... which leads to season 2, which focuses more on the backstory of the Zoids and Fiona and introduces the villain Hiltz, who plans to kill everyone on the planet that is not a Zoidian like he or Fiona. Battles again rage, Hiltz reveals to be in control of the even more powerful Ultimate Death Saurer, and again, in the end the day is saved.

All in all, Zoids Chaotic Century was a fairly interesting mecha series, one that ran for 67 episodes. It gained a very strong following when Cartoon Network aired it, prompting the network to run a marathon for the last four episodes when it was taken off of Toonami.

It also got a follow-up series in 2001 that ran for 26 episodes, Zoids: New Century/Zero.



In the time of NC/Z, the Guylos Empire and the Helios Republic are mere aspects of the past and war has been abolished. In their place, large tournaments are held to sate the combative nature of people and Zoids, essentially meaning this is going to be a LITTLE bit like G Gundam. Our hero, in this case, is the junk dealer Bit Cloud who ends up joining the Blitz team and finds himself in possession of Liger Zero, a Zoid on the Blitz team that lets nobody pilot it. However, it warms up to Bit, and the team decides to let him use it anyways.

Along the way, the heroes find themselves going through the competitions while facing off against the villainous Backdraft Organization, wishing for the combat between Zoids to return to a violent and warlike nature. They are also interested in very powerful, Ultimate X Zoids which, as luck would have it, Liger Zero is one of! In fact, Liger Zero can learn and react much quicker than most Zoids, and in fact can transform between three separate add-on modes that can power it up even further.

Unlike Chaotic Century, New Century/Zero only ran for one season, 26 episodes, and is more or less self-contained. However, they make vague allusions to the events of Chaotic Century a number of times, and the final battle against the very powerful Berserk Fuhrer Zoid takes place atop the remains of the Ultimate Death Saurer from Chaotic Century.

The third anime series in the franchise, Zoids Fuzors, is a departure from series separated by periods of time and is assumed to take place in its own continuity.



Working with the idea of the Organoids from the original series, Fuzors expands on this with smaller machines that integrate into larger ones, except unlike the Organoids they are much more widespread.

The local is Blue City, and our hero this time is a young boy named RD, who is delivery boy for the company Mach Storm, which has its own Zoids fighting team. Like New Century/Zero, the fights are mainly for entertainment, but whereas New Century/Zero had fights in whatever location the people were at and had satellite observers, Fuzors has them in enclosed areas. Likewise, RD ends up in the possession of a Liger Zero and there are other similar machines from older series that are shown, like the Geno Saurer from Chaotic Century.

The story starts slow, focusing on the Mach Storm team and its matches with other enemy teams, although it also grew to discuss the evil schemes of individuals hoping to take control of Blue City. What is interesting, however, is that unlike Chaotic Century and New Century/Zero, Fuzors puts noticeably more effort into the world of Zi in issues that didn't involve fighting. As I said before, our hero works as a DELIVERY BOY, for crying out loud with all the running around he does you would be surprised if you didn't see what life was like in a world like Zi.

The titular Fuzors comes from the fact that some Zoids can combine together to create stronger ones. However, it doesn't cut it if there's just the same make; it has to be specific, individual Zoids. No other ones work.

Fuzors also first aired in America before Japan, but it was also rushed and crappy ratings killed its run here halfway through. In the meantime, the finishing touches were added on the series, and by that I mean "revise the hell out of it" considering how much work was done on some episodes. Its second half has neither been dubbed or released here, so if you want to watch it, you better get fansubs.

Fuzors ran for 26 episdoes in 2003.

And lastly, the newest series in the franchise and also the one that made much of the Super Robot Wars fanbase to collectively shat brix.

This series was Zoids Genesis.

Like Fuzors, Genesis is considered to take place in its own continuity, but at the same time it returns to the adventure/war story themes that Chaotic Century had.

It takes place many years after a horrible cataclysm known only as "God's Fury" wrecked the planet, forcing many humans to flee to floating Sora City while others grew into closely-knit city states. Bio-technology was gradually developed, with the intent of reintroducing it to the planet to help it recover so it could be re-habited by those in Sora City. However, shortages in resources forced those of Sora City to begin trading with surface cities in exchange for technology.

This technology would lead to Bio Zoids, powerful Zoid machines a cut above normal ones, and with that, the military forces of the city of Digu, known as the Digald, grew and began conquering independent countries.

Our hero is one Ruuji Familon, a young boy living in the small village of Miroodo who helps his father salvage old Zoids under the ocean near Miroodo. However, the Digard forces catch wind of a generator in the village and move to capture it and before Ruuji knows it, he's using a Murasame Liger and fighting the good fight against the forces of evil. Ruuji's first battle ends up with damaging the generator, which potentially dooms the town, and thus Ruuji's initial quest becomes one to find someone who can fix the generator.

Along the way, Ruuji makes many friends, including those of the city of Zuuri, which was founded by the remnants of the kingdom of Kira. Along the way, Ruuji makes a number of friends and he continues fighting against the Digald and comes to realize that just getting the generator fixed will solve nothing: if something isn't done aobut the Digald then they'll just conquer everyone anyways. Thus, they start to create a new Digald Suppression Army, and although it is difficult at the start due to a hesitance of many resistance forces to join, they eventually succeed in creating a powerful force to fight the Digald.

However, things can never be easy. The prince of Digu, actually a child from Sora City named Jiin, has since grown into an ambitious man that declares himself emperor after the death of his father. Jiin drastically increases the size of his army through the usage of human souls in the Bio Zoids and crushes enemy force after enemy force, although at the same time enforcing harsher and harsher methods. In the end, his repeated monstrosity causes his subordinates to break rank and fight against him and the final battle is raged against Jiin and his powerful Bio Tyranno.

However, Ruuji and company are not going to let him just have his way! And again, the hero using a Zoid based off of a liger fights against a Zoid based off a Tyrannosaur and the day is saved yet again! Whoo!

Zoids Genesis ran for 50 episodes, starting in 2005. Its run in America was cut short after a few episodes, however, when Toonami was disbanded by Cartoon Network. However, fansubs ARE out there.

Now, to mecha fans, it's no surprise that Zoids for the longest time was not in a Super Robot Wars game. SRW is a series by Banpresto, a company owned by Bandai, which is a rival to Takara-Tomy. However, there are a few times in the past we DID get the two companies working together; with the inclusion of GaoGaiGar in Super Robot Wars Alpha 2 and 3 and also Super Robot Wars W.

So... earlier this year Super Robot Wars K came out on the DS, and they included Zoids Genesis... a revelation that made some SRW players just freak out as they tried to understand how the hell that happened. But it did, and I have the youtube video, showcasing the attacks of all three of Murasame Liger's forms to prove it.



The game included a LOT of the characters from it, including a recruitable character using the Bio Terra. Although really, unless you're a huge Zoids fan, the only one you're going to be using is probably the Liger. And even then, the unit was kinda overwhelming. Oh well, at least they're there.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Oct 26 2009, 11:52 PM

Update time again. Today's subject is the last minor series I'm going to be covering for a while before I kick off the approaching one year anniversary of doing this! WHOO!

Anyways, the series in question I'm covering today is Space Emperor God Sigma.

In spite of the similar name and the fact that the Greek character for "Sigma" resembles a sideways "M", I can assure you this series is in no way related to Godmars. However, if you mistook Godmars for Golion/Voltron at first, well, that's probably because they were made by TOEI and were airing during 1981.

Anyways, THE YEAR IS 2050! And thanks to the ingenous breakthroughs at Trinity City, the world's energy crisis has been solved due to develops in Trinity Energy. However, this glorious revelation is soured by the approach of a new villainous force from the Elda Empire, which desires Trinity Energy for itself. Humanity quickly scrambles for defense, and creates three machines that run on Trinity Power, the black Sky Thunder King, the blue Sea Rumble King, and the yellow Earth Quake King. Entrusted with piloting them are the young karate expert Toshiya Dan, the intellectual July Noguchi, and the gruff Kensuke Kira. The machines appear like large blocks, as you can see, but can also take on human shape or even combine together to create the powerful God Sigma machine.

Unlike many mecha series out at the time, however, partway through it was revealed that the Elda had a semi-sympathetic reason for attacking the Earth. They were actually from the future, and the greater part of their empire had been destroyed by humanity. Backed into a corner, the Elda did what any group in a series that didn't play straight with the laws of physics did: go back in time and try to fix stuff then!

... And... that's about what I have for this. God Sigma's another fairly obscure series out there, and Wikipedia and TV Trope pretty much have the exact same article for it. Whoever did that was lazy. >_>

Nevertheless, the series was successful enough to run for 50 episodes, starting in 1980, and kept going until a ways in 1981.

It was also recently inducted into Super Robot Wars with Super Robot Wars Z. However, Toshiya's original voice actor, one Kei Tomiyama, died in 1995 suddenly from pancreatic cancer and as such a number of his roles were taken over by new voice actors. Toshiya fell into the capable hands of Tomokazu Seki, the voice actor for Domon Kasshu, the hero of G Gundam and Sousuke Sagara from Full Metal Panic, and his first stint as Toshiya was Super Robot Wars Z.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Nov 14 2009, 3:43 AM

I know I haven't updated in a while, but I have my reasons and they involve school being merciless.

That being said, expect a big update come Monday. It's the one year anniversary, after all.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Nov 16 2009, 11:49 PM

ALRIGHT!

NO MORE SLACKING OFF! IT'S TIME FOR SOMETHING AWESOME! IT'S TIME FOR ME TO CELEBRATE THIS THREAD'S...

ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

And the first up on the list is the newest chapter in the Mazinger Z franchise, SHIN MAZINGER IMPACT! Z-CHAPTER ON TELEVISION!



Well, that "on television" part isn't a part of the title for the webreleases, but whatever. >_>

Shin Mazinger Z came out earlier this year on Aprith 4th and ran for 26 episodes. Directed by the famed director of G Gundam and Giant Robo, Yasuhiro Imagawa, and described not as a remake but a retelling, Shin Mazinger takes much of its inspiration from the original manga, recreating many of the iconic battles and scenes shot for shot. At the same time, however, it is so much more.

The first episode serves to show us numerous clips from the final few episodes and introduce us to all the characters that will be included, not really bothering to explain everything. In a way, it's almost a reverse recap episode, showing us what WILL happen to whet our interest.

The story's biggest difference at first is a number of yakuza thugs working for a woman named Tsubasa who runs the Kurogane House hot springs, which Kouji's grandfather frequented often prior to the start of the series. Tsubasa herself is shrouded in mystery, although Dr. Hell refers to her at one point as his "ancestral enemy". Tsubasa and her subordinates end up being a huge help to Kouji, Tsubasa even seeming to know more about Mazinger Z than he did at first. She and the others are also an instance of Imagawa pulling a Giant Robo, because the originally appeared in another Go Nagai series, Violence Jack. In addition, the previously mentioned Gloizer-X Super Robot is recast as a creation of Dr. Hell, and Kouji occasionally clashes against them and there are loads of shout-outs to other Go Nagai series all throughout.

Unlike most Super Robot series, including Shin Mazinger's source material, Dr. Hell does not send one machine after another to fight Kouji. Oftentimes four or five are sortied instead, usually in an attempt to overwhelm Mazinger Z's power, and there are also a number of episodes where there is no fighting at all. The plot delves heavily into the backstory of when Dr. Hell went to the Island of Bardos as well, and we find out that the situation isn't as clean cut as we once thought either.

The series is notable for also not carrying over any of the old Mazinger Z voice actors. Why? I honestly don't know, although most likely there's a problem with the VAs simply being too old and unable to do it anymore. The original series ran in 1972, and many of the great VAs of the mecha anime genre are tragically dying off for various reasons. Nevertheless, everyone does a really good job.

The story ends on a bit of a cliffhanger note... and I'm not really going to spoil it at all. But let me put it this way: people are CLAMORING for a sequel or a special to finish the storyline up. We don't know what's going to happen and people are afraid that like Giant Robo, Shin Mazinger won't get its resolution.

And with that, I go to another series Imagawa directed a few years ago, incidentally another series created by Giant Robo's original writer! This is the 2004 Tetsujin 28 series.

Tetsujin 28's most recent cartoon was another series directed with Imagawa, as you can tell. And even though I've seen only the first episode, I've found out a bit of information on it.

Anyways, THE YEAR IS 1955. Post-war Japan has flourished due to innovations in robotics, and almost immediately they bring up references to the war. Tetsujin itself was made during that time period, and in fact codenamed "Shotaro" and initially hidden away on an island for fear of its power. One of the named characters turns out to be a kamikaze pilot that managed to be lucky and survive the war. American influences in the designs, clothing, and companies were plain to see. And just like in real life, even though the war was ended, a great many weapons are still around.

Shotaro Kaneda, the prodigy detective, is first seen chasing down the Murasame brothers, a trio of gangster brothers who robbed weapon designs from a contractor. Their intentions are noble, however, as Eiji Murasame, the oldest of the brothers, is shown destroying them. This is an interesting twist; in Giant Robo, Eiji's incarnation was a detective when now he is on the other side of the law. However his personality and philosophies are similar, and he's shown to hate weapons because they bring nothing but tragedy. When confronting Shotaro, Eiji ends up bringing up the big theme of the series: whether tools and weapons are dangerous or not. Even the lyrics of the theme song speak of this, speaking of Tetsujin's strength and the importance of keeping hold of its remote control.

This comes to ahead when, surprise surprise, a story arc actually deals with Tetsujin's remote control falling into the wrong hands, showing just what can happen when a soldier of justice is used for evil.

The 2004 series also has the honor of being the only edition of the Tetsujin storyline that is available in English as Tetsujin 28, rather than being revised into "Gigantor". It's available on box-set for 20-ish bucks too. There was also a movie released for it in 2007, however that has not been translated yet. I'd say more, but, well, I've resolved to by the box set and didn't want to spoil it for myself. But since it's Imagawa, as usual, I'd say go for it.

And with that, I've covered recent Mazinger and Tetsujin stories. And now it's time for the capstone! It's time that I review...

THE ASTRO BOY MOVIE!

... Oh wait, it sucks. Forget that. I'm going to review another recent Astro Boy story. It is a different kind of tale. A tale that looks into the very nature of humans and robots and explores racism, the cycle of revenge, and so much more.

This...

Is Pluto.



Pluto was a series written by the famed manga writer Naoki Urusawa, who had previously written 20th Century Boys and also Monster, two very dark and gloomy tales that dealt with psychotic madmen and the terrors of unnatural forces on the very Earth. Pluto, is similar, expanding one of the most beloved story arcs in Astro Boy history and one I mentioned way back in my first post for this thread.

The World's Greatest Robot arc was already an amazing tale when it was first written. The premise was that an exiled Sultan of a Middle Eastern country hired a skilled robot designer to create the world's greatest robot, a behemoth of a monster known simply as Pluto, with 1,000,000 horsepower. Pluto is not a cruel or hateful robot, but one that will adhere to its duty: to hunt down and destroy the seven greatest robots in the world.

1. The Swiss mountain robot Mont-Blanc
2. The Scottish butler robot North #2
3. The Turkish wrestler robot Brando
4. The German detective robot Gerhardt
5. The Greek gladiator robot Hercules
6. The Australian, photon-powered robot Epsilon
7. And lastly, the Japanese robot with the power to change the world, Astro.

Long story short, the story partially dealt with the theme that strength did not imply greatness, and further showed Pluto's conflict between doing the right thing and his own brand of honor, and his nature as a killer. In the end, he still died a hero's death and we are left on a bittersweet note, as the great robots aside from Astro are all dead. The story itself had a fast pacing and was entirely contained in a single volume. However, it's still just utterly amazing to read. And when I got the chance to read the remake, I jumped at the chance.

In a twist, the remake instead focuses on Gerhardt, now renamed Gesicht, which is German for "face". Nearly all of the robots get a makeover to the point they look perfectly human, with the only exception being Mont-Blanc and North #2 who still are designed in a style that is both very realistic (Urusawa's style is above most comedic anime/manga cliches) and at the same time can convey a great deal of emotion. Gesicht himself has a very expansive role, in fact, all of the robots do, as the story is taken in a darker direction. The seven robots were in fact involved in a war in the Middle East some time before, under the command of the United States of Thracia-

And yeah, the author did use this story as social commentary and also a commentary on the Iraq war. He doesn't let it drag down the narrative, though.

But Gesicht's drawn into the strange coincidence as a string of murders coincide with the deaths of Mont-Blanc and later North #2. Suspicions that a robot is killing humans, the second time in the history of modern robotics in which that's happened are abound, and he knows all too well he's on the hit-list as well. Gesicht himself also has a tortured past, one that brings Astro to tears when he hears of it... which leads me to the boy robot himself.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you http://www.4thletter.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/pluto-atom.jpg.

Astro plays a big role in the story too. In fact, all of the great robots do. Obviously Gesicht is the biggest example, but at the same time we find out much more about Mont-Blanc and the others than we did in the original story. Pluto's backstory is changed too, causing him to change from a machine of death into a gentle soul broken by overwhelming hatred and needing someone to light the way again.

Pluto's just... Pluto's one of those stories that has so much going on. It finished up earlier this year and is available in its entirety at Onemanga.com. It's only fifty chapters, and as I said before, it's simply amazing. Give it a look some time when you're wondering just how strong, emotionally gripping, and top-tier a manga story can be when in the hands of a talented writer.

Posted by: Doomgiver Nov 23 2009, 10:22 AM

heres a nice gundam videos

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 6 2009, 9:03 PM

Agh, I know I haven't been updating for the past few weeks and it's just that we're gearing up for finals this week and I really need to do well. I'll catch up on my updates over break.

Until then, let this tide you over. It's the a video commemorating Mobile Suit Gundam's 30th anniversary, or "30th Perfect Mission" as the video calls it.

In order of appearance:

Gundam Alex from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, which ran in 1989
RX-[79]G from Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, which ran from 1996-1999
God Gundam from Mobile Fighter G Gundam, which ran from 1994-1995
Destiny Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, which ran from 2004-2005
V2 Gundam from Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, which ran in 1993
00-Raiser from Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Season 2, which ran from 2008-2009
Gundam GP-01 Full Vernion from Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, which ran from 1991-1992
Nu Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, which was released in theaters 1998
Turn A Gundam from Turn A Gundam, which ran from 1999-2000
Gundam X from After War Gundam X, which ran in 1996
Wing Gundam Zero from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing, which ran from 1995-1996
Wing Gundam Zero Custom from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, which ran in 1996
Zeta Gundam from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, which ran from 1985-1986
Unicorn Gundam from the upcoming Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn OVAs which will air in 2010
Gundam F91 from Mobile Suit Gundam F91, which was released in theaters in 1991
Gundam Full Armor-ZZ from Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, which ran from 1986-1987
Freedom Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, which ran from 2002-2003

And lastly, the original RX-78-2 Gundam from the orignal series which ran from 1979-1980

The song that is playing is a remix of Amuro's song from the original series as well.

Posted by: Cloud9 Dec 7 2009, 12:19 AM

Buster Rifles and Satellite Cannon uber-shot FTW.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 7 2009, 12:42 AM

That was indeed an extremely well-done sequence in the short, plus the fact that the song goes vocal for that brief period.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Dec 22 2009, 11:13 PM

Alright. Time to get the underway again. Rather than catch up all the way, I'm going to just start anew since I finished year one anyways.

Anyways, the first series is the one that I didn't know much about for a long while... but at the same time it's well remembered aside for some minor snags. This series is Psalm of the Planets Eureka Seven.

Eureka Seven, pronounced Ay-Oh-Reh-Ka and not You-Ree-Ka, is the story of one Renton Thurston, fourteen years old, living with his grandfather, and the son of Adroc Thurston, a professor who saved the world from cataclysm years ago at the cost of his life. The "surfing" the opening shows is called "lifting", with the boards using a substance called trapar as a medium to surf through. His sister, a mother figure of sorts, went missing years ago as well.

His relatively boring life changes, however, when a Nirvash typeZero machine crashes down from the air piloted by the green-haired girl named Eureka right into his room. For Renton, this is literally a case of love-at-first sight, which actually becomes a strong and recurring theme in the story. Eureka herself is a member of the Gekkostate, a counterculture movement which serves as the cover for its true nature: that of an antigovernment organization.

Gekkostate, which Renton has idolized, ends up actually inviting him to join after he delivers a part to them. The chance to fight alongside the girl he's fallen for, the famous leader of Gekkostate, Holland, and experience the awesomeness of kicking ass in a giant robot is something he's all for... only to find out it's a lot less idealistic than he first thought.

The story is very expansive, with 50 episodes that explore a great many ideas. The story takes place 10,000 years into the future and involves ideas like coexistence with other forces, for once focuses heavily on romance rather than having it just be tacked on, and brings up curren-day political issues too. In contrast to many other recent Real Robot series that have seemed to lose steam in the latter half, Eureka Seven goes the other way, with the entire first season serving to introduce characters and the setting, while foreshadowing at the conflicts that will play out in the end.

Admittedly, Eureka Seven's not without its faults, and the three bratty kids that Eureka takes care of are almost universally reviled. Likewise, if you want a Real Robot series in the style of Gundam you're looking in the wrong place. But if you liked RahXephon and what it did, you'll probably like this series too.

It ran for 50 episodes from 2004 to 2005, and was very well-received. It also recently was included in SRW Z, where its units were ridiculously overpowered.

Here's Renton and Eureka using the the power of the Nirvash typeZero Spec 3, which he obtains for the final battle. Considering how strong it is, that's probably for the best.

Posted by: Cloud9 Jan 6 2010, 2:07 AM

Morri, I am currently watching Gundam Seed Destiny, mainly because I received a Master Grade Sword Impulse model kit for Christmas (which, by the way, I love.). Would you permit me to submit a review of the series when I'm finished? I promise, from the looks of the series right now (I'm on episode 14), I'll be none too gentle with the characters. Everybody seems to have some kind of problem they can't get over.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 7 2010, 6:11 AM

You could.

Considering how behind I am with everything (and I'll catch up, I SWEAR I WILL), it wouldn't be a problem. And even though I am admittedly a Shinn fanboy for various reasons, I know he's so freaking messed up.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 7 2010, 6:57 AM

EDIT: Catching up NOW. Might as well at any rate.

Anyways, the first series I'm covering is Whirlwhind! Iron Leaguer, a series that began airing in April of 1993 and ran for 52 episodes.

As you can see, this series is a little bit... different from most mecha series I've covered. Specifically, it's a sports-themed anime, but rather than sticking to just one sport or another, it tackles a whole bunch of them instead, and rather than have people on board, it has robots that actually specialize in specific sports even though the entire team would play the actual games.

Our hero this time is Mach Windy, a soccer-themed robot or "Leaguer" that is a member of the Dark Prince team. As the name would imply, Dark Prince's members usually cheat and break rules for the sake of winning games and tournaments, and eventually Mach gets fed up and leaves. But he instead, for various reasons, signs up with the Silver Prince team, infamous for being the lowest-ranking team in the circuits. You can obviously guess what's going to happen here; it's the staple underdog story of sports teams where the heroes face insurmountable odds to win.

Anyways, the usual Japanese conventions to a sports team story usually apply, often placing camaraderie and team spirit over winning important games, and admittedly this idea isn't as prevalent (or accepted) here across the Pacific. But at the same time, there are a lot of "small" victories, succeeding in defeating the pride of their more nefarious opponents when winning was unlikely. And since the series covers more than just one tournament, the Silver Prince team losing and being out of a competition isn't the end of the world.

Admittedly, this is more a sports anime than a mecha one, but it still has the robots and the final nail of the coffin was Iron Leaguer appearing in the most recent SRW game, Super Robot Wars NEO for the Wii. Tragically the only video up on youtube covers guys that don't appear to be Mach, but those are the breaks.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Jan 17 2010, 12:40 AM

You know what really sucks? Having a computer that's completely crashed so you can't even get on it using safe mode.

You know what really sucks, to a degree that the previous thing's really minor? When that person keeps putting off updates because he's too obsessed with Super Robot Wars F Final. ANYWAYS!!!!

The first series by all rights I should have covered was the Wings of Rean. A while back, when I covered Aura Battler Dunbine, I made mention of the Wings of Rean, which was a light novel series that Tomino wrote during production of Dunbine and which took place in the same continuity. A few years ago he even came back to the story and remade it into a six-episode ONA series. ONAs are similar to OVAs, but while the latter are direct-to-video releases, ONAs are released online first, almost like a podcast. In recent years there have been a few series that have been released as ONAs, including Gundam SEED Stargazer which I'll review at a later date.

Anyways, the Wings of Rean is chronologically set before Dunbine, taking place during America's occupation of Japan following WWII. Our hero is a young Japanese man named Asap Suzuki (I am not making this up), who happens to be friends with a lot of people that absolutely detest the American presence in Japan. When his friends convince him to help out in raiding a joint Japan/US military base and stealing some weaponry, including an RPG, things go straight to hell when a gateway to Byston Well opens up.

It is then that Asap meets Princess Luxe Sakomizu, who has been aiding a resistance movement against her father, King Shinjirou. The titular Wings come in here as attachments to a pair of magic shoes that can open Aura Gates, pathways between Earth and Byston Well. And thus Asap begins his own adventures in Byston Well, having obtained the Nanajin from Shinjirou's forces and putting it to good use.

The series, similar to Dunbine itself, explored the themes such as the cycle of revenge. Asap's friends loathe the Americans for using atomic bombs, and we find out that Shinjirou himself was also from Earth, a would-be kamikaze bomber who was blasted into Byston Well by said atomic bombs. Seeing Japan under US influence is actually what drives Shinjirou's plans, which involve using nuclear weaponry himself to remove said influences from his homeland.

That being said, the story averts the mass killings that were present in Dunbine, and in fact Shinjirou dies a hero's death. This is due to the series also putting an emphasis on redemption, with both Asap's machine and Shinjirou's, the Oukaou, possessing butterfly wings.

The series hasn't been included in SRW yet, although like Dunbine was present in Another Century's Episode with the Nanajin and Oukaou as hidden units in the second game and a revised version of the story in the third.


Here's Asap with the Nanajin, helping out Yuu and Hime from another Tomino series, Brain Powerd.

The other series I owe everyone is Warring Demon God Goshogun, a 26-episode series that ran in 1981 and was somewhat of a comedy series and had a habit to not take itself that seriously. But I'll get to that in a moment.



Goshogun begins with a mysterious meteor striking the Earth and releasing the powerful Beamler Energy, the stand-in for the physics-raping energy source lots of Super Robots have. Using this energy, the world-famous scientist Professor Sanada creates the three-part Super Robot named Goshogun and also its floating, teleporting fotress, Good Thunder. A team is formed to pilot Goshogun, and for once, the brilliant scientist's son ISN'T part of the crew for it!

... At least not at first.

This is because Kenta Sanada, the previously-mentioned son, is actually a little kid. But by god, it's a convention in Super Robot anime and the directors aren't just going to forget something like that! So the story at first shows us how Kenta joins up with the inhabitants of Good Thunder, explaining how is father's genius with Beamler Energy attracts the evil Docooga crime syndicate. To see to it that Docooga doesn't find out, the professor kills himself, forcing the Docooga members to go after Kenta. However, at that point he's saved by the Goshogun team and he ends up being another pilot for it.

Now, as I said before, Goshogun *REALLY* didn't take itself seriously. The subordinates of NeoNeros, the leader of Docooga, all were kinda ridiculous and weren't entirely bad people, one of them in fact wanting to start fast food chains obvoiusly meant to parody McDonalds and KFC while another *HAD* a successful business selling tranquilizers. The series even included an enemy robot based off of the design of the original RX-78-2 Gundam for crying out loud!

Goshogun was never released in America as itself, instead getting combined with a lesser-known anime as Macron-1. The series ended up also getting a follow-up movie, Goshogun: The Time Etranger, which was pretty surrealistic and weird, although it was released in America as itself.

Anyways, Goshogun was first introdced into SRW in SRW EX, but never really was that important to the plot until Alpha 2, when they actually bothered to introduce NeoNeros. Until then, the three subordinate villains mainly did their own thing, occasionally setting aside their differences with you to help out with other enemies, like how their plot wraps up in SRW F Final.


Here's Goshogun in Alpha 3.

Posted by: MorriganAensland Feb 8 2010, 10:58 PM

Damn I'm falling behind.

I guess the smartest thing to do now is do a little bit of recovering of bases since the SRW RP's started up Gundam SEED Destiny's events. But first I need to take care of another pre-Destiny mission for Shinn.

WARNING! WHAT FOLLOW IS BLATANT AND SHAMELESS CANON DEFILEMENT! IT GOES AGAINST THE ORIGINAL VISION OF THE SERIES AS DIRECTED BY MITSUO FUKUDA! AS SUCH IS IS CONSIDERABLY BETTER IN SPITE OF BEING WRITTEN BY AMATEURS WITH LITTLE IF ANY PLANNING! PLEASE DISREGARD THE EVENTS OF THE ANIME AS WE PROVIDE THIS MULTI-PART STORY AS IT DEVELOPS!

After the events of Orb, Shinn decided to enlist in the GDF, partly because he had nothing left in his life and partly because he didn't want to see anyone else go through the pain he did. As a result, he was assigned to pilot the Strike Gundam, the very Gundam he had idolized for so very long. During this period of time he managed to make a few friends and came to meet the former pilot of the Strike, Kira Yamato. Although their relationship had a rocky start due to Kira being involved with the death of Shinn's family, he nevertheless made his peace with him and understood that he could not solve his problems as Kira would.

Anyways, during his stay with the GDF, Shinn began to train to use the Strike Gundam to the best of his ability. And as the conflict between Blue Cosmos and ZAFT worsened, Shinn became aware of the other Gundam involved in the death of his parents, the black Gundam known as the Raider. Although not necessarily wanting to kill the pilot, Shinn still wished to meet him in battle to see what kind of person he was.

He finally got his chance at the second battle of Jachin Due, aka the final battle of Gundam SEED. While Kira and Athrun and everyone else were doing there thing, Shinn (and Lunamaria, using a rebuilt Aegis) ended up confronting the Raider Gundam. Unfortunately the battle was fairly one-sided, with the Aegis getting crippled quickly and the Strike being nearly demolished after the first exchange. It wasn't until Shinn was able to tap into his own SEED factor he managed to start to have the edge against the Gundam. However, before he could end it, Luna attempted to help by, repeating what Athrun did to the Strike when Kira piloted it, had it latch onto the Raider and self-destruct it. Through some twisted quirk of fate, the Raider survived the attack, although Shinn flew into a rage due to believe Luna to be dead.

A few moments later, Shinn damaged the Raider's reactor enough for the machine to explode, the Strike burning itself out in the process as Shinn was left seemingly utterly alone...

... Until Luna, who had miraculously survived, managed to get his cockpit open. Emotions running high from the battle, they ended up confessing their love for each other while Athrun and company finally killed Rau Le Creuset, stopped the giant superlaser, etc.

In the aftermath of the mission, Shinn convinced Luna to go and find her family while he stayed at the GDF. With ZAFT's military in shambles, the PLANT governing body requested GDF protection as well, and not too long afterwards Shinn decided to travel there to make sure the brutality of the open war between Coordinators and Naturals would never be repeated.

... Yeah, tl; dr, more canon raping. More updates to come.