DIVDING DRIVARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

“Goldion Hammer, operation approved!”

Gutsy Geoid/Galaxy Guard Chairman, Koutaro Taiga

 

1997 vintage, people. So seriously, there’s nothing I can talk about. I mean, it’s the King Of Braves GaoGaiGar. It makes a good watch amongst all the angst and Youth Emotional Hurdles Syndrome in today’s anime. It makes a good watch even if you’ve been watching happy stuff all this while.

The main plot is such; Earth is under attack (check) by alien forces called Zonders (check). They’re bastardly assholes (check) who use captured, unsuspecting  or emo-ing humans to fuse with their evil creations and set them loose on us as gigantic building-smashing Zonder Robo(check).

Our defender is GUY SHISHIO, A TRUE HERO! who also happens to be a cyborg, piloting an alien machine to fight the Zonders(check). He is part of an organization no one knows about (check) and the organization uses a puppet company as a front (check). However, even fused with the alien machine he is not a match for a Zonder Robo, and so must perform mid-battle combination with other machines to form a large robot (check). However, he knows nuts about saving the people turned into Zonder Cores, and this is when a side-line character which the story has been focusing on is suddenly revealed to possess super powers allowing him to purify the human Zonders(check). Yay!

As (mainly) a kid’s show, death is taboo in it. If you’re watching this to see if there’re freshly dead people in it, you won’t get it until the very end (Tokyo turned into an alien hive, and no human deaths…).  And the ultimate attack of GaoGaiGar, which carries enough force to shatter the poor Zonder Robo on impact, conveniently allows for retrieval of the human-hosted Zonder Core intact; especially when the point of impact IS the Zonder Core? Dude, I wanna live in a world like that too.

While is might appear the norm to people nowadays, GaoGaiGar must have been quite a bomb back in its day. Not because it was supposed to contrast with the super emo Evangelion, but because of how the show took Super Robot elements, refined them or examined them, and gave them back to the viewers sparkling clean, just like how the animators took to great pains to stress the mechanical aspects of GaoGaiGar’s Final Fusion, as though the viewers couldn’t remember that GaoGaiGar was 50% Guy, 40% Galeon and 10% bullet train, armored road digger and B-2 bomber thingy.

Mid-battle Combination? Throw up a super barrier that keeps the foe’s itchy fingers out!

Auto-systems for the combination machines erased? Just call in some pilots for ‘em!

Collateral damage? Invent a device that makes a clean, disposable fighting field!

Huge explosions? How ’bout a shockwave sponge; look, we’ll throw in upsizes on the things too.

GaoGaiGar is also one of the few shows that makes the trademark Rocket Punch of Super Robot shows look like a massive, reuseable railgun round (layman terms: devasatingly awesome). GaoGaiGar’s Broken Magnum regularly smashes Zonder Robos and is usually stopped only by a Zonder barrier, and usually those of higher-end enemies.

GaoGaiGar is also not an invincible one-robo-army-’o-doom. It frequently gets beat by mid-bosses and elaborate physics-defying traps laid by said bosses. This usually marks the occasion of another new tool or technique coming up, but more often than not it’s just an upgrade in power to old stuff.

Now, we all know that GaoGaiGar is a super robot show from the pre-2000s. It’s inevitable that it has to follow some sort of monster-busting routine. However, unlike what you’d expect, most of the monsters are felled by creative thinking and some hard work using the same tools rather than a new screwdriver rolled out every episode. And while the monster-busting is the majority of the fighting, you’ll be relieved to know that the last few monsters were the top dogs and not easy peas. GaoGaiGar was almost toast on several occasions.

And don’t say that it’s all fight and no tales. GaoGaiGar has a pretty rich storyline despite having a concept as a beat-’em-all robot show. Maybe not 49 episodes of developing love, but definitely 49 episodes of maturing personalities.

So, if you can get past the not-up-to-modern-standard animation (actually I think it’s better than some, t.b.h.), GaoGaiGar is something you should watch through to the end. Not for the fighting, but for its other aspects.

In our right hands, visuals. In their left hands, music. Humanity, I bring you… CULTURE!

Gale: Who… who are you? Where… am I?

Man: You don’t need to know who I am. You do need to know, however, that Amie Cassidy is  now in the ICU. You are in the West Branch Hospital. Do you remember what happened?

Gale: Amie… in the ICU? I… I need to see her now… see her now…!

Man: Lie down. You’re not going anywhere with third-degree burns all over your own body.

Gale: Who… did this…? W… Why…?

Man:  Amie might never be able to make a full recovery. I… offer you a chance at revenge. Will you hunt down the people responsible for this?

Gale: Consider t… the job… m… mine…!

T.I.T.A.N. Project: OPERATION OVERLAND ~ Night Of Remembrance

That’s right. The Singapore Wind Symphony Concert held at Temasek Polytechnic Convention Hall is finally over. Wonder who though of combining a short Flash CS3 video with the AWESOME MIGHT OF SONG equated to a unique concert-going experience, but there’s no denying that our eyes enhance what we hear, and vice versa.

With that said, this means that my Fridays(sort of no lectures there) and weekends are finally free again. Time to clean out the rust on my files and grab the Altarlion, because AFA ‘o9 is coming and I SURE AS HELL AM READY TO SACRIFICE MY LOVELY DAUGHGTERS 50-BUCK NOTES TO BANDAI FOR THEIR NEWEST MODEL KIT/ROBOT SPIRITS/GACHAPON KEYCHAIN SET.

Meanwhile, amuse yourselves as I thus declare the Light/Lelouch shipping to be ABSOLUTE CANON, NO EXCEPTIONS.

*ahem* Genteelmen? FUTAMI.

Nina: Tell the technicians to clear the deck! I’ll open the back hatch and shoot down the FAF-32s with the 95mm autocannon!

Steve: Those are jets at Mach 4.5! They’ll get a missile in faster than you can shoot them down!

Nina: They’ll blow the T.I.T.A.N. carrier apart if we don’t do something! Between fifty-five deaths and our chance at victory, I’ll take the chance.

I’m a member of the 119th Scorch Hounds A.S.B. The word “failure” is not in my vocabulary.

T.I.T.A.N. Project: Steel Warriors ~  The Federation Marches [Part 1 Of 5]

No more corn. Also, no more time.
- Singapore Wind Symphony concert is in one week’s time.

- Smart for whoever was in charge of semester planning to squeeze three terms worth of lessons into two.

- Files used for Gunpla and model kits are rusted here and there. Require immediate cleaning.

- No time for even simple Gunpla straight-assembly.

At least someone was kind enough to recently add 50 episodes worth of GaoGaiGAR to Megavideo Megafail, as observed by other people.

Now with over 9000% more EPIC!

Kai: Can you see it? Right behind Jupiter…

Maryanne: I don’t see any- Oh. Oh, oh.

Kai: They’re back. Our brothers, our sisters… our kin are back. Now we can reb…. rebuild… the Earth together…….

Maryanne: What… hey, Kai! Dammit, the air leak in his suit isn’t sealing even with the cast patch! Are you reading this, Base Command?! I need immediate pickup! Hello? Someone! Anyone! PLEASE! I NEED HELP!

T.I.T.A.N. Project: The March of Terra [外伝]: Side of Humanity ~ Welcome Home

When it comes to the awesome stuff, I’ll let the awesome do all the talking.

KIIIIIIING! KIIIIIIIING! KING GAINER!

“I guess this is the mindset of the people of Domepolis…”

Exodus Specialist Gain Bijou, Overman King Gainer

Well, truth be told, I don’t know what to say.

The first time I got wind of Overman King Gainer, I immediately linked it to Eureka 7. It was until much later that I learnt that the only similarities both series had was that they both had the same character designs, with explained the uncanny resemblance. Nevertheless, the link stuck in some small buried form because after watching both, I felt that King Gainer was a bit lacking. Not lacking as in “this makes sense… NOT” lacking, but “hey i just blinked and did X shoot Y” sort of lacking. You see, the action is TOO FAST.

The story is such: Gainer Sanga is your average teen living in a not-so-average world; in the distant future, Earth is uninhabited.

To be specific, large portions of it are uninhabited; back in the past, an environmental disaster of epic proportions occured due to mankind’s rapid advancement in civilization. Realizing their mistake of taking too much from the land, the survivors gathered their comrades and left their homes to live in the most inhospitable areas ever in order to let wildlife and nature recover in the equator and other areas, in specially constructed cities called Domepolis (plural Domepoli); think the Sahara Desert or freezing Siberia. The overall management of the Domepoli are headed by the London IMA (International Management Authority, according to the Sage Wiki) and the enforcement of laws in the Domepoli are tasked by Saint Regan, a branch of the IMA.

This is where the meat of the story comes in. Saint Regan is the law enforement arm, but the supplying of the Domepoli (seeing that the limited space in the structure and the harsh environment outside allows for pathetic crop-growing opportunities) with essentials and other supplies are handled by private firms. The story starts with one Domepolis where Gainer Sanga, an orphan, and the Siberian Railroad Company, a large private firm with a monopoly over what is most likely a large number of the Domepoli in Russia.

Of course, people have unpredictable emotions; after an unstipulated amount of time possibly spanning at least a century or two, people have begun to desire to leave the Domepoli in movements called Exodus, to go back to their ancestral lands (the Exodus the series focuses on is on its way to J- I mean, “Yapan”). The London IMA and the private firms, presumably profiting from the people’s reliance on them, are fiercely reluctant to allow such Exoduses, and spread propaganda about the environment-harming effects of Exodus on the environment, as well as putting down any movements they might find.

The entire series puts the viewer in a roller coaster from the very first minute; Gainer Sanga is a lone kid and a pro gamer of all pro gamers who spends much of his time hooked to the internet (or whatever passes for that). He still, however, goes to school and such, and this is when the roller coaster flies off its tracks a la Final Destination-style. Moments into his school day, Gainer is arrested by the Siberian Railroad Patrol, an arm of the Siberia Railway Company, for involment in an Exodus. He is thrown into a cell alongside other innocents, and one not-so-innocent Gain Bijou, a real Exodus member. When Gain breaks out Gainer goes with him, and he gets sucked up into the entire mess when he gets to pilot an Overman, a mech of days past. The Overman, who Gainer names King Gainer(ego much?) is key to helping the pro-Exodus people of that Domepolis escape in huge moving blocks of the city by completely showing the Siberian Railway Patrol people who’s the boss of who. The show continues with “monster of the Week”-like encounters with the Railway Patrol, but as it progresses the series gets a bit more intense in terms of action and reveals some hard truths about the past of the planet.

The cast of Overman King Gainer, while diverse, focused on only a few people; namely, Gainer, Sarah, his friend and a pro-Exodus member, Gain Bijou and his 1337 skills as an Exodus specialist, and Princess Anna, daughter of the duke of the Domepoli they are escaping from. Most characters hardly show any development, but the plus side is that all of them are pretty colourful to begin with, which solves that particular part of the show. The few that do develop have humorous scences and touching scenes to accompany that dialouge, making it all the more better to watch.

In terms of animation Overman King Gainer was, for the most part, cool and fine. No troubles here, and fight scenes that mattered ( for example Gainer/King Gainer V.S. Cynthia/Dominator) were given the utmost attention to make them truly breathtaking.

The backstory is fine, utlizing a fairly well-known but hardly-used plot involving the environment setting civilization back by a few notches. The show could have used a bit of time from their monster-of-the-week episodic encounters with the Railway Patrol to elaborate more on the origins of the Overmen though, as it is clear that they are not common items as most people and pilots drive Silhoutte Machines, bolt-and-nut real robots with ammunition weapons and metal joints. What makes the Overmen a step up from these is their ability to utilize a Photon Engine, which basically allows them to create force fields and projectiles among other things, from sheets of light emmited by the engines termed “Photon Mat”, or so I’m told by the English dub of the anime. The Overmen also use biomechanical fibres called Muscle Engine, which mimics real human muscle and of course, gives the Overmen much higher performance than other clanky robots in the series. While some Overmen are man-made and mass-produced in some way, the show makes mention of “early Overmen”, clearly machines of incredible power and a certain self-autonomy. The final boss of the series turns out to be one of these, and the mid-boss of the series was the cast’s first encounter with an “early Overman”. No other information has been presented about the past of the Overmen since then, however.

Despite being a bit rushed at the start and near the end, Overman King Gainer is a should-watch series, one notch up from if-you-have-time. It might not compare up to Eureka 7 or Mobile Suit Gundam where the story and character development is concerned, but the lighthearted tone of the story for the most part and the way characters wise up to their new situations quickly will leave you wanting to know more, rather than having to dread sitting through the next episode of bitch-slapping from the captain. The only problem is, sometimes things are so poorly explained and happen so fast, you might want to keep a ready finger on the rewind button if you’re watching the DVD version.