Otakuism

If it hasn’t become obvious yet, I’ve been on a mecha fix lately. Current shows this season are pretty good, but they lack a certain passion to them. Even Gurren-Lagann hasn’t inspired me that much, since it’s basically a rehash of every other super robot show with some things done good and some things done badly. So I’ve been watching some old series to make up for it, and now I’m starting to watch my oldest: Space Runaway Ideon circa 1980. Ideon is the first show Yoshiyuki Tomino directed after Mobile Suit Gundam, and is also one of his more infamous ones, which I exactly why I want to watch it.

Cosmo Yuki: greatest afro wearin’ mecha pilot, or GREATEST afro wearin’ mecha pilot?

The story of Ideon is set in 2300 on the planet Sola in the Andromeda galaxy. Human colonists there have just unearthed three vehicles that appear to be too modern for their age. In the space around Solo is a search group of the Buff Clan, an alien species that looks just like humans, and are looking for a mysterious power known as Ide. Finding life on the planet, the rebellious Karala heads down to the planet herself to investigate. This would be fine, if Karala wasn’t the daughter of the Supreme Commander of the Buff Clan, making her safety paramount to everything else; so a group of soldiers is sent to retrieve her. On the surface both the military and scientists are investigating the unearthed vehicles, with conflicts already rising between the two groups over whether the vehicles are weapons or not. Among them is Cosmo Yuki (thank you Tomino names), our afro wearin’ main hero and the son of one of the scientists. Yes, he seriously has a huge afro. I have no idea how he fits it under the space helmet he wears in battle.

Karala: the stupid girl that starts it all.

The aliens in search of Karala can’t find her, and of course think the humans have already killed her, so they attack the excavation site in revenge. Mass Tomino-style death ensues. Cosmo, his female friend Kasha, and Bes, a military officer, all manage to get into the vehicles and move them. Out of nowhere the vehicles react to each other and getter change- I mean, combine to form Ideon. Ideon then precedes to swat the alien ships out of the sky like flies. For the next few episodes Ideon follows a pattern of Buff Clan attacks, Ideon repels, massive number of casulties. After the colony is attacked the survivors find a spaceship buried underground, similar to Ideon, and begin using it as a base. Karala herself has survived and is hiding with the refugees. Gije, her guardian, is furious and continues attacking the colonists to find her, until he himself is captured, along with Karala, by the colonists. At the end of episode 5, Karala has signaled a ceasefire to the Buff Clan, leading to a momentary peace. But things don’t look so good, especially when the next episode it titled “White Flag of Betrayal.”

Obviously, she’s Sheryl.

Ideon may be an old series, but its storytelling is very tight. One noticeable thing to me already is all the little conflicts introduced so far. First is the conflict between the leading scientist Sheryl and the military officer Bes. The two have a continous sparring match going on over who is responsible for what, with Sheryl continually mocking the violent nature of the military. It’s a microism of the usual conflicts between the rational yet cold planners and irrational soldiers. Then there’s the larger struggle between the colonists and the Buff Clan. The Buff Clan has been characterized very well so far as a complete society beyond being just evil aliens. They are a people with legitimate fears, who when first finding out the colonists have technology as advanced as theirs immediately fear that they’re the ones who are going to be attacked instead.

Bes being badass.

The threat of the “other” is a continuing theme in the battle so far, as both sides are driven by fear, greed, and hate. A good example of this is Karala’s assistant Mayaya, who constantly screws up Karala’s efforts for peace by adopting a “shoot first, ask questions later” kind of policy, which is more the norm than the exception for most of the characters. Another good example is when Karala, Mayaya, and Gije are captured by the colonists, who immediately form a kind of lynch mob lusting for blood. Karala tries to reason with them, but all they can think of is the thousands already dead. Even Cosmo isn’t opposed to killing them, his father dying in an earlier attack. When it comes to light that the only reason the Buff Clan is hunting for the Ide, and in effect killing the colonists, is because they believe in some ancient myth of their society; it acts to only further the rift between the two groups, with the Buff Clan seeming even more alien now. I wish more shows these days could have this kind of complex characterization and multi-faceted conflicts.

I also liked the way the Ideon itself is used right now, skirting the lines between a super robot and a real robot. He’s super because he’s nigh indestructible, no attack even scratching him so far. But the only way the Ideon can fight is by equipping him with missiles and manned guns, so right now Ideon acts more like a moving battle ship than any kind of robot. A very interesting take on the idea. But, of course, this is Tomino who is known for breaking tradition. Obviously the animation in Ideon is very different, but I wouldn’t call it bad per say. There’s been little reused animation so far, and I like the way they animated explosions back then. Feels a little more visceral to me. On the music front, I absolutely love Ideon’s OP song, Fukkatsu no Ideon. It starts out with just a simple guitar, but then speeds up into this kind of disco rock song, with epic lyrics about the birth of the giant god that will destroy everything. Awesome. So awesome that I feel the need to show it:

And here’s the live version sung by Isao Taira, a man who has impeccable hair and who’s voice sounds like sex to me:

So far I’m loving Ideon. Probably the most complex series I’m watching right now, even moreso than Darker than Black. I’m very interested to see what surprises and intrigues it has in store for me.

Story:

In the future the third energy revolution is caused by the invention of the Shizuma drive — an unlimited source of clean energy — and an ideal utopia is created. However, there is still forces of evil in this new world. That evil is Big Fire, a terrorist group bent on world domination. Possessing advanced robots and lead by The Magnificent Ten, a group of extremely powerful super humans, there is nothing that can stand in their way. Except, that is, for The Experts of Justice who protect the world, lead by The Celestial Nine, super heroes just as powerful as the Magnificent Ten. The newest member of the Celestial Nine is Daisaku Kusamu and the robot his dead father left him, Giant Robo, the strongest robot in the world.

Now a new danger threatens the world. A mysterious giant eye has appeared in the sky and is draining the energy from all the Shizuma drives. At the same time Dr. Shizuma, the creator of the drives, is being hunted by Big Fire for assassination. And if that wasn’t enough, Franken von Vogler, one of the creators of the Shizuma drive, reappears after being dead for ten years and declares revenge against the world for the Tragedy of Bashtarle. What was the Tragedy of Bashtarle and it’s relation to Volger? Why is the eye draining the energy of the world? What is Big Fire’s role in all this? Daisaku Kusama and the Experts of Justice are going to have to figure everything out fast if they want to survive the Seven Days of Darkness.

Impressions:

Let me say this first: Giant Robo is one of the greatest anime ever created hands down. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like mecha or not, or if you only like loli’s in your anime. It’s a classic that trancends genres and mere words. It’s taken me three tries just to write this review, because each time I can’t find the words to describe how great this series is. First there’s the characters, who are all incredibly awesome. From the nobly malicious villians of the Magnificent Ten, like the gar Albert the Impact, to even the minor warriors of the IPO who are all based on Chinese heroes, they’re all great and heroic. Daisaku starts out as a slightly naive robot pilot, gets emo a little bit, before deciding to kick reason to the curb and become gar on his own. While I don’t like to use gar too much, I feel like I need completely new adjectives to describe these characters. They’re larger than life, like epic heroes from myth. Hell, a lot of them are based on epic heroes from chinese mythology. The story itself is epic; it has everything. Family betrayal, honor, friendship, noble sacrifice, rivalries, etc. It’s like 50-episodes of action crammed into eight, but you don’t feel like your missing anything at all.

On the animation front Giant Robo is perfect. There’s a reason the OVA took almost six years to complete. They made sure they had the best budget possible when animating an episode. Everything’s top notch quality here. One of the first things you notice with the animation is that it’s a very retro style. The future imagined in GR is the kind of outlandish utopian future that was imagined in the sixties, with all the crazy machines to go with it. The mecha also have those old school looks where they all look a bit crazier. The music in GR is a complete orchestral soundtrack composed by Masamichi Amano, and it’s one of the greatest soundtracks I’ve ever heard. There’s distinct themes that run through every episode, and then there’s stand out tracks like in episode seven when Giant Robo revives. The very reason I still remember some scenes in GR so vividly is because of the excellent music.

Obviously, I think very highly of Giant Robo. In my mind it’s a classic of anime as a whole that really shows the story telling potential of the medium. You don’t even have to like mecha to enjoy GR, because there’s really not that much mecha fighting in it. A lot of the fighting is by the super human members of the cast who have amazing powers, but in japanese tradition they don’t explain why. They just have them and it’s awesome. So if I haven’t made it clear yet, watch Giant Robo. Dare I say one of the greatest shows ever created. Also one of the shows most in need of a sequal. There’s not exactly any plotholes, but it promises another story when there is none. Only bad thing about GR is that there isnt’ more of it. And that says a lot about how good it is.

Tekkaman Blade is an old anime from many ages ago. Ok, so actually it was 1992, but in anime years that’s like three centuries ago. My interest in TB is pretty simple; I saw an image of it on /m/ and thought it looked pretty awesome. Went to rightstuf and saw the first sixteen episodes on dvd for seventeen bucks. No way in hell could I not buy it at that price. Two months later and here I am after finishing it. Yes, I watch things slowly.

So what is Tekkaman Blade? Technically Tekkaman Blade is a remake of a really campy series called Tekkaman made in 1975, but best we forget that since TB is completely different. TB was also dubbed for American release on the first UPN channel and was called Teknoman, so some people may remember it from there. In United Earth Global year 193, just after completion of the massive orbital space ring, the earth is attacked by the Rahdam, insectoid aliens that quickly conquer the space ring and begin raining down death on earth. Their purpose is completely unknown, and they seem bent on wiping out humanity and covering the earth in mysterious spore trees. The battle against the Rahdam is useless, as the humans have no means to fight the laser attacks from the orbital ring, any attempts at flying being destroyed by the Rahdam.

The series starts with the amnesiac D-Boy falling to earth from outer space and being found by Aki and Noal, two members of the space agency. D-Boy — the name is given to him by Noal to signify Dangerous Boy — quickly awakens and demands to go back into space, even fighting his way to the only useable spacecraft. D-Boy manages to get into space along with Aki and Noal and transforms into Tekkaman Blade, a powerful machine form of himself that can fight and destroy the Rahdam. After witnessing D-Boy’s success in battle a special unit is formed around him, the Space Knights, who fight the Rahdam while also dealing with power plays and corruption in the earth military and government.

As Blade fights the Rahdam several new characters are introduced. There’s Tekkaman Dagger and Tekkaman Evil, beings like Blade that fight for the Rahdam, with Evil even being Blade’s own brother. The war reporter/military spy Balzac who joins the Knights and looks like he just stepped out of Vietnam. There’s the common grunt O’Toole, an awesome soldier who takes out Rahdam with nothing but a machine gun. Midway sees the introduction of Pegas, an AI robot created to help D-Boy transform into Blade after his tek-setter crystal is destroyed by Dagger and who also fights in battle. Blade uses his blade to destroy Rahdam, obviously, but can also use Voltekka, a massive energy attack from cannons hidden in his shoulders.

Of course for being a fifty episode series the first episodes of TB are rather episodic. However, there is a nice sense of continuity to things. Blade destroying a Rahdam nest in one episode will lead to a military strike on another area now that it’s clear, and so on. Plotlines introduced early on resurface later with dire consequences, and once Tekkaman Evil is introduced things really get rolling. None of the characters are really annoying to me. D-Boy has a nice “tortured soldier” thing going on, being brooding one minute and hot-blooded the next. Noal is the hotshot rival in the beginning but becomes more the reluctant friend later on. O’Toole is probably the most awesome character, being a normal soldier that takes on Rahdam and defeats them while singing Danny Boy. The episode focusing on him was really good, providing a realistic look at how normal people battle the Rahdam.

TB’s animation is par the course for an early nineties series. Not exactly bad, but you can definitely notice when bad animation is used. The animation style was a lot different then; everything’s a bit more realistic without any moe aesthetics or bishounen good looks. Men were men and women were women basically (except for the one character who is actually a man that talks like a woman). Still suffers from bad eighties fashion in the design area, though. The mecha designs are all cool in their own ways. I really like the idea of the power armors that the Tekkaman use. Right now the first DVD set is selling for seventeen dollars on rightstuf, so a real steal for anyone even slightly interested. So far it’s a good mecha show from the golden days of the genre (or twilight days of the genre depending on who your talking to). I really need to buy the second set soon. And now the first OP, because it’s actually a pretty awesome OP:

What is it with this episode making Kuroi-sensei look so awesome? I know it was trying to show her as a desperate single, but I kept getting the image of a badass women. She’s like a solitary warrior wandering the wilderness of Japanese education. Doesn’t help that that suit makes her look like Bazette “Punch your brains out” McRemitz. It’s alright Sensei, even if you have no one that loves you, you can still play with Konata online, right? Or does that just make things worse?

Dumb sisters are dumb.

Story:

Daisuke Aoki has just become the teacher for class 3-1; a class with some very “interesting” kids. Like Rin Kokonoe, the sexily precocious trouble maker who admits her love for Aoki and puts him in some rather illegal situations on a daily basis. Or her friends, the gothic lolita Kuro Kagami who can’t admit she loves Rin; and Mimi Usa, the rapidly maturing clumsy meganekko of the group. With such a troublesome class Aoki works to become the best teacher he can for his students. Hopefully they won’t put him in jail first.

Impressions:

Finally read all the translated chapters of this controversial title. Kodomo no Jikan’s biggest claim to fame is its portrayal of the relationship between Rin and Aoki, along with the many sexual situations the girls are put into for laughs (man, that sounded wrong). KnJ strikes an innocent tone in its showing of the girl’s sexuality. If anything, It’s an accurate portrayal of kids in the internet age with access to knowledge both clean and obscene. Rin knows what she is doing to Aoki, but at the same time doesn’t “know” the meaning behind it. It’s all just an act to her to get a rise out of Aoki. Hers is a childhood crush taken to its logical extreme. Bravo to Aoki never going farther to reciprocate Rin’s feelings than as a big brother character.

Rin’s character really drives the story. In a sense, the manga is nothing but a long psychological profile of her and her effect on other people, though I’m probably giving it too much credit. Rin’s backstory, as revealed in V.2, is heartbreaking both because we see the effect it has had on Rin, but also because how realistic it is. In this way KnJ strikes an excellent balance between the innuendo comedy and the handling of real life issues facing kids in post-modern japanese society, whether it be from Kuro’s trouble with loving Rin even though she’s a girl or the effect different parenting styles have on children.

However, any real life issues KnJ tries to tackle are quickly overshadowed by the lurid comedy going on. And without the lolicon gimmick, KnJ quickly boils down to a boring will they/won’t they romance that goes nowhere. Part of the problem is the relationship between Rin and Aoki that is supposed to drive the story; but it’s hard to believe in such a romance when the conclusion is so obvious. Of course Aoki won’t give in to Rin’s feelings, leaving her to cope emotionally with the rejection and become a better person because of it. Anything else would just seem laughable, not just because of social taboos but the whole idea of a twenty-something guy dating a third-grader. The manga has settled into a formulistic plot of Rin liking Aoki > Aoki screwing up > Rin getting back at Aoki > Aoki apologizes and learns a lesson in teaching. If it wasn’t for Kuro and Mimi, who provide some very necessary comic relief, this plot would get boring really fast.

While KnJ can be a fun, if perverted, comedy romp, it ultimately boils down to all style and no substance. Take out the setting and context and KnJ becomes nothing but a romance that ended before it started. Not to say that it’s not fun to read that style. The jokes are mostly funny, the art excellent, and the characters interesting and quirky. Just don’t expect the characters to change that much. So, the final word: should KnJ have been released in America? I would say yes. While the content is racy, the context places it in a completely non-pornographic way and hardly glorifies pedophilia. Would it have been a big seller? Doubtful. Not only would the taboos about pedophilia surrounding the book decrease its sales, but it’s just not that interesting a story to stand on its own. Seven Seas still handled the issue wrongly, but that’s all in the past now.

Beach filler with some actual plot? Who’d a thunk it. Obviously Gainax.

So what was the biggest casulty this episode? Adiane’s life, Yoko’s pride, Viral’s lust? No, it was Nia’s hair! Or at least according to 4chan it is. It’s not that big a deal to me. Nia is still moe one way or another, and she’ll get her hair back after the time skip anyways. Yoko’s destruction of Nia’s locks was a nice way of showing Nia’s trusting nature, even in the surly Yoko. Nia becomes an official part of the Dai-Gurren Brigade now by winning over Yoko as the last person of the group. It works from a story standpoint to me.

This is the most screentime Yoko has gotten since Kamina’s death. In the time since Yoko’s position in the group has clearly diminished, usurped by the arrival of Nia and Simon’s garness, and here we see her lashing out because of it. Obviously Yoko never really hated Nia, just her pragmatic and more realistic approach to life forced her to play the devil’s advocate in Nia’s case. As Nia has shown herself to be a good person and even loyal to the group, that suspicion has waned until it disappears completely here. Nia is another person in the group that Yoko is willing to risk her life for. Yoko’s rescuing of Nia was quite nice, showing that she is still useful despite the lack of a Ganmen. And it was hilarious how everyone was dissapointed when Yoko’s swimsuit covered more than her normal clothing. Do you really need to wait till the beach to get an eyeful of Yoko?

Another general bites the dust with the death of Adiane by Dai-Gurren’s guns. About time we saw them used for something. Interesting to hear Thymilph’s name as her last words. Really wonder what the exact relationship between them was. Kind of sad that she doesn’t give a passing thought to Viral, who was only a lackey to her. Viral himself seems quite distraught over her death, but whether it was because he liked her or just another instance of the Gurren-Lagann beating him is up to question. Seems I have to call off my prediction of him joining the Gurren brigade. Viral is setting himself to be the main villian in the later arcs, what with is inability to die and burning hatred of the Gurren-Lagann. It’d be more fun watching him than the haughty Helix King who sees the gurren brigade as an ant. Cytomander the Flamboyant is up next week. Looks like he’ll be killed pretty quickly. Or let’s hope so. I want to get into space already.

I don’t know which pair of eyes to look at.

Guy singing Ai wo Torimodose!! (Fist of the North Star OP aka. You wa Shock!) while driving. Definitely an hero.