It’s time for the resident robot show of summer and well, this one actually holds up pretty well.
So yes the robots are CG…
But some of the designs are cool.
But the action is really cool
And this leads exactly into what you think it does.
So yeah this show is extremely promising. The action is satisfying and if that alone continues, it’s a successful robot show. The show has already been licensed by Sentai Filmworks, and is being simulcasted on CrunchyRoll. Check it out, it’s worth your time.
I love robots shows. I err towards supers because I prefer the overly ridiculous stuff that comes with them, but that distinction between reals and supers doesn’t usually matter that much. They tend to mix and match, and thus here we are with Captain Earth.
Captain Earth, which probably won’t contain anyone destroying the environment out of spite, is this season’s new robot show. It comes to us from the same people who made Star Driver. Star Driver wasn’t exactly a great show in story telling, but it was goddamn beautiful to look at, and Captain Earth continues that. The show is outright gorgeous. The animation is fluid, the colors are rich, the lighting is pretty, the robot designs are good as are the general mechanical designs. Character designs leave a little to be desired in that they also brought over Star Driver‘s ridiculous tits. So far, the fanservice has only been the one character, but it won’t stop there. It never does.
Other than that, there’s actually not a lot to say. That the first episode is efficient and standard is probably the best way to put it. The main character, Daichi Manatsu, has his back story divulged through a mixture of flashbacks and present day events that lead him gloriously into the cockpit of a robot so he ca colorfully fight other robots from another organization probably headed by evil jerks in suits. There’s also something about glowing rocks from space. He meets a mysterious naked girl, has a pendant from his dead father who was also a Captain. Captain is the name for pilot along with all the other jargon the show throws blatantly into your face over the course of the first episode along with various mysteries and boobies. It’s all very normal
It might sound like I’m down on the show because of the simplicity, but I’m not. This is a robot show. I’m here to watch a big colorful fight with people yelling the names of super moves as they punch lasers at you. Whatever facilitates that is enough plot for me, and it’s not like what we’ve been presented with is bad. It’s basic setup, but it’s done well. Daichi’s father dies in a particularly spectacular way, Daichi himself gets the passion needed to pilot a robot well, we establish enough characters to keep things vague enough to be interesting. It’ll work even if it doesn’t break too many molds.
Captain Earth is airing on Saturdays late night. Give it a shot. The colors might just be enough to bring you in.
Giant robots are one of the classic ideas in Japanese media. The two go hand in hand as friends only second to how robots go hand in hand with the toy industry. As a reflection of that, a Japanese government backed report on the history and influence of robot anime, especially on the toy industry, written by critic Ryusuke Hikawa, Sunrise Inc.’s Head of Cultural Promotion Koichi Inoue, and writer Daisuke Sawaki has come out. The report is three chapters across 90 pages each with a different focus. First the cultural effect and response, including the robot strength in the 70s and faltering in the 80s and the generations growing up with these shows who’d go on to scientific and engineering jobs. Second is how the toy industry has been influenced and has influenced robot anime. Finally is a huge list of robot shows from the very beginning with Tetsujin-28 to the modern day.
The report has yet to have been translated, but you can download it in PDF form from Media Arts here. Fan books aren’t that abnormal, but a government issued one is pretty intense. I’d like to imagine a bunch of middle aged men in the Diet building sitting around sweating and going, “Don’t you wish, instead of all these papers and debates, we could just watch some Mazinger for a while?” But, as I said, giant robots have been a Japanese cultural phenomenon across the whole world, so wanting to talk about it makes sense.
(Thanks to ANN for their story about this. Originally from The Asahi Shimbun)
Who do we think of as being the first to introduce the, “Anything above 0% is still a chance to win” cliche? I think of it being Gurren Lagann, but that might be naive of me.
Anyway, the super robot show from a place you probably didn’t expect. It’s not that weird. The Middle East still loves the hell out of some UFO Robo Grendizer, so a studio, Alter Ego it looks like, just decided that they can make their own. It looks a bit cliche and the animation doesn’t look top notch, but it’s probably going to be a throwback to 70 super style and 80s “save the city” drama which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’ll be interesting to see super robots handled by another culture that just happened to also grow up with a little Nagai in the morning. Also, the robot design is pretty nice and I love scarves on robots. Keep an eye out.
Discotek being a successful business while releasing almost nothing but shows I want to see is very encouraging.
Last time they came up it was because they were releasing the original 70s Mazinger Z and the original Gaiking. Since there’s no such thing as releasing too many super robot shows, now they’re going to be putting out the entirety of Diebuster or Aim for the Top 2!, the sequel to Gunbuster, according to their Facebook. Look forward to forward to the release this May.
With all this Jojo’s news going around lately, It’s almost like we’ve forgotten about our favorite super robot genre. Can’t have any of that, so I’m glad to announce that 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generations has been released today.
As some of you may know, the Original Generations was a spin off series made entirely about the original characters that Banpresto has made in the Super Robot Wars series. It was basically Banpresto saying, “Liscense Getter Robo? Nah. We have all the robots we need.”
A lot of important headliners are returning for OG2 including personal favorite Kyosuke Nanbu (voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa) piloting his Alt Eisen.
I don’t think anything will ever top the way he segues into Revolver Bunker a the end.
With the game released today, we have a whole mess of new gameplay footage. Unfortunately, we can’t embed them because the site doesn’t have the code and they’re up to a massive 11 hours long. Each.
http://twitch.tv/teakdoc/b/343578271
http://twitch.tv/teakdoc/b/343858007
http://twitch.tv/teakdoc/b/343678613
(Thanks to the Super Robot WarZ blog for the video links.)
These behemoth videos do have a lot of downtime in them, but they do show a large part of the game. Most gameplay aspects are kept intact, and the battle system works the same way as it did in OG Gaiden. But do you come to Super Robot Wars for the intense strategy? Well, maybe, but I think we can all get behind Banpresto’s awesome battle animations.
The best method of attack, never stop hitting the enemy.
This is the G Compatible Kaiser’s Rival, G Bankaran. He sure knows how to Fist of the North Star his way through a robot. It helps that he does it while holding the other robot up by the neck, making it even more awesome.
If you want to keep up with the all attacks videos that are sure to come out, you can follow their release at BassGSnewtype’s youtube channel.
So it turns out that we don’t know how time zones work and JoJo’s premiered a few hours ago, not a few hours from now. The response I’ve been able to gather so far is positive, so hopefully it’s going to be good when someone gets the chance to sub it. We’ll probably end up doing for that what we did for Aquarion EVOL and just talking about it every two episodes or so.
Until that time, keep yourself occupied with a little of Go Nagai’s sexy times because the recently opened Oppai-Missile Translations is scanlating Mazinger Angels, a re-imagining of Mazinger Z where Sayaka Yumi, Jun Hono and Hikaru Makiba fight off the forces threatening Japan as a Charlie’s Angels like team but with super robots instead of whatever that show had. They even have a Bosley to answer to and get assignment from.
It’s also totally hot. Sayaka is fully introduced with a panty shot and then proceeds to beat up a guy in such a way that she gets another panty shot. No I’m not putting that up on here. But don’t be put off. The manga still has that great robot fun. This first chapter has the girls fighting Baron Ashura who is two separate people this time.
Introducing Baron As and Baroness Hura.
And every Angel gets their own special breast missile based on the rocket punch of the series they came from.
Ultimate Boobie Barrage!
Yeah, I’m also a little weirded out by the idea of tits with drills, spinning knife drills, and axes in them, but robot fun is robot fun. If you’re into that goofy, not to serious, somewhat but not overly sexualized stuff that crazy Go Nagai does, Mazinger Angels may just be up your alley.
Oh, yeah, Diana A, show off that ass. That’s i- I need to stop writing this now.
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