An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Category: Mecha March

Attack of the Plot Ninjas! – Bubuki Buranki Spoiler Review (S1 & 2)

So, I suppose I should start by explaining that title. You see, I’m something of an old hat at National Novel Writing Month – a challenge to write 50,000 words (the minimum definition of a novel) in the month of November. In recent years it’s presented more as a vehicle for actual storytellers, but back in the 00’s when I first encountered it, it was a much looser group with a big focus on getting participants to create all those words in such little time, like that was the big challenge.

One piece of advice that was passed around in the day was that, if you ever felt like a scene was stalling, you should just have ninjas attack. No rhyme, no reason, just ninjas, because surely you would get a lot of words down describing the ninja attack and then making sense of why and how ninjas suddenly appeared. By the time you explained your way out of the outburst of nonsense, you’d be many words ahead and ready for the next crazy thing to propel you forward. Bubuki Buranki feels for all the world like it was written by a teenager adhering to that rule with the kind of wild zeal that only youth can provide and then produced and edited by consummate professionals who had to somehow make all the outbursts work without disrespecting the “source material”.

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Cast In The Name Of God Ye Not Reviewed (or; It’s Showtime Somewhere!) – The Big O Spoiler Review

So, after a certain little show came out , it was rather popular for mecha shows to have a psychological or philosophical bent, rather than just acting as vehicles to sell toys or model kits. Not that they couldn’t still push merch in a lot of cases, but lots of folks wanted to cash in on the success of what remains one of the most dominant anime franchises. We’ve seen entries like this before, most particularly RahXephon, the 2002 attempt to do… exactly what its predecessor did.

In 1999, however, we got a series that did clearly aim somewhere in the same spectrum, but that was also clearly doing its own thing. The Big O clearly owes some to Evangelion, but it’s also drenched in film noir and presages Demonbane more than it does RahXephon.

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Vampire Space Wizard Mecha – Valvrave the Liberator Spoiler Review

“The Tale of Sephiroth Goku” is an odd little piece of work. Effectively a parody of anime produced in 2011 by a very bored Lets Play commentator as the story of his “D&D character from [his] favorite animes”, it’s an oddly fun to listen to pastiche of direct references, bizarre genre conventions, and dead horses (and unicorns, having never been real) to beat. The whole thing is less than the full ten-minute runtime of the video that contains it – most of it is in the last four minutes – but it jams in a hilarious amount of plot summary and reference.

In 2013, Kakumeiki Valvrave (Valvrave the Liberator) appeared, apparently as an attempt to bring the Tale of Sephiroth Goku to the screen without actually violating any copyrights. As an attempt to properly represent a stream of consciousness nonsense from the internet it’s… wait, I was supposed to take this thing seriously? And it’s got two seasons?

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Super Robot versus Real Robot – Aldnoah.Zero Spoiler Review

There are, on the whole, two major wings of the Mecha genre. The “Super Robot” subgenre consists of shows where the Mechas and their pilots have magical powers and capabilities that often seem to run more on rule of cool than on anything resembling reality. One example would be Gurren Lagann, which frequently tells sense and logic to sit down and shut up, because the robots are going to do something awesome. That’s not to say that Super Robot shows can’t be serious or even dark. Neon Genesis Evangelion is also very much in the “Super Robot” bracket.

Then you get the “Real Robot” shows where mechas, even if technically still made less impractical than in reality as we know it, are treated more like standard war machines. They’re made of metal and powered by engines and nothing’s going to sprout a new ability because the pilot believes in himself. The mechas probably don’t have unique names or anything like that, and the protagonist can at least in abstract theory get a new one if they total the one they’re driving, even if they’d have a lot of customizing work to do to get it back the way they like it. Full Metal Panic lives pretty comfortably in this space, as do several of the more classic Mecha entries.

So, what happens if you put these in the same setting, forcing a Real Robot protagonist to fight against a variety of Super Robot bosses with their named mechas and might-as-well-be-magic powers? As you might have surmised from the title of the review, you get Aldnoah.Zero.

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Growing Harem Chronicle – Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle Spoiler Review

So, Fantasy Mecha is a thing. It’s certainly less popular than SF or Cyberpunk Mecha, but it is at least an established mash-up. Battle School also has its own established place, one that I’ve talked about a good deal. And, of course, into any other genre a little harem may fall. Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle is the shameless mash-up of all of this, a melting pot of mediocrity onto which light must, at this juncture, be shone.

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Isekai & Invention – Knights & Magic Spoiler Review

Without correcting for overall quality or removing material from the context of its genre, I can safely say that, in some ways, Knights & Magic is the most fascinating fantasy isekai show I’ve seen. This is not because of any sort of deep story or well-rounded character like Rising of the Shield Hero nor clever comedy and a deconstruction of the normal expectations like KonoSuba. Rather, it’s because this show is a broad-scale biopic of a historical figure in a fantasy universe that wears the skin of a fantasy isekai while telling its story in a completely different way. Is it a good thing? That remains to be seen, but it is a thing worth remarking on, so here we are.

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Retry of Star Driver – Captain Earth Spoiler Review

So, anyone who’s followed this blog for a while probably knows that I was… not a fan of Star Driver. For those of you just joining us, the long story short is that I found it to be a very pretty show that was done no favors by its cardboard heroes, confused villains, and flashy but very poorly choreographed action scenes. It wasn’t all bad, but for a show about protecting a girl from an evil organization in possession of a host of alien mechas, it was surprisingly boring, and I’ve often brought it up as a model of what not to do in an action show, as all the visual spectacle in the world couldn’t polish the structure that was underneath.

My first time through Captain Earth, I was eerily reminded of Star Driver. They used some shared conceits, had some similar elements of their story and episode structure, and a couple characters who at least looked the part of outright clones. And, it turns out, there’s a reason for that; Star Driver and Captain Earth were made by, essentially, the exact same people. The studio, the director, the guy on the script… all the same. Four years had passed (Star Driver releasing in 2010 to Captain Earth in 2014) but it seems like the band got back together to tell basically the same show all over again. The question is, then, did they learn from their mistakes or did they just reprocess their old work and slap a new name on the masticated remains of what already didn’t work?

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Who The Hell Do You Think I Am? – Gurren Lagann Spoiler Review

Now, here’s a show I’ve alluded to before – the whirlwind of illogical, enjoyable energy known as Gurren Lagann. Part of me wants to just jump right in, because it’s that kind of show, but given the contexts I’ve brought it up in before, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least address something of the production history.

You see, Gurren Lagann (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann if you prefer) is, technically, a Gainax anime. But to an extent that’s like saying the studio behind Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was Topcraft. Which it was. But Nausicaa is largely considered a Ghibli film because much of the talent that worked on it went on to become Studio Ghibli. Similarly, while Gurren Lagann was created under the auspice of Gainax, it is in some respects Trigger anime #0. Much like you can see many of the themes that would be endemic in Ghibli’s work (particularly Hayao Miyazaki’s) in Nausicaa, it’s easy to see that loads of Trigger’s favorite tropes and styles were first developed here in Gurren Lagann.

So, if at some point in this review, I mention how an element is very much like Trigger, or even call Gurren Lagann a Trigger show, know that I am fully aware that it technically belongs to Gainax, and am speaking more to the fact that many of the people we think of as Trigger were here too.

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Not Enough – The Price of Smiles Spoiler Review

On a distant planet, in the mecha-riding future, a princess ascends her country’s throne in a time of crisis, having to take the reins and defend her people against an invading empire while, perhaps, a greater threat to the survival of all looms just out of sight. Along the way, though bitter losses are incurred, we also learn that the Imperial aggressors and the noble defenders may not be so different, ultimately seeing that they’re all just human, flawed and largely trying to do what’s best for them and theirs.

This sounds like it could be really good. It’s reminiscent of shows, books, and games: to me, most pointedly Valkyria Chronicles or Fire Emblem. It’s a timeless framework that can be endlessly revitalized by putting new flesh on those old bones, and at least has the potential to reach a high level of quality. Potential, mind you, not guarantee. The Price of Smiles stands as a testament to the fact that even if you use good ingredients, you still need skill and effort to get a pleasing result.

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A Tribute to Tokusatsu – SSSS Gridman Spoiler Review

“Tokusatsu” is a Japanese term for effects-heavy live action film-making. Most often, it’s associated strongly with a very particular few styles. Flashy costumes, suitmation monsters, and very often a cheesy but beloved kind of attitude. Tokusatsu outings include the classic Godzilla films, which have always been favorites of mine despite not really being within the normal scope of this blog, as well as TV shows such as Super Sentai (known in the west for its stock footage being used to create Power Rangers), Kamen Rider, and the ‘Ultra Series’ franchise spawned by the original Ultraman. The Ultra Series in particular is kind of the distillation of Tokusatsu sub-genres, featuring transforming heroes and kaiju (giant monsters) doing battle.

Why do I bring this up? Because SSSS Gridman is Trigger’s mecha-flavored love letter to all things Tokusatsu, and the Ultra Series in particular (seeing as it’s called out by name), and it is at least as insane as you would expect from that.

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