Its time to bring another big giant robot series, this time it’s The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird, an early 90s  super robot show from Japan where it was known as Taiyō no Yūsha Fighbird and is the second of the Brave series – a collection of super robot shows made by Sunrise to sell toys for Takara.  As such they feature cool looking robots that transform and combine.

Transforming robot and flaming sword = Awesome

That I’m posting about Fighbird now while it’s fresh in my mind and while I’m still desperate to buy all the merch which is is the sign of an anime doing its job.  The plot shameless excuse for robots fighting is that the positive energy beings who make up the Space Police have come to Earth to protect it from the Negative energy being Draias.  The lead good being posesses an android created by Professor Amano and becomes known as Katori Yutaro.  Katori has no concept of a lot human ideas which usually ends up entertaining and being an android, gives him super human butt kicking ability – excellent.  When Draias’ henchman lead by the human traitor Dr Jango bring out the heavy guns/ giant robot beasts, Katori merges with Amano’s fighter jet to become Fighbird and then usually gets his clocked cleaned until he merges with another smaller jet to become Armament Fusion Fighbird and uses the FLAME SWORD!

Fighbird has backup in the forms of Ace Baron who is a 5 mech combiner and the Guard Team who conveniently make themselves at home in the vehicles of  emergency services.  It’s always fun to watch Police Inspector Satsuda puzzle over his missing patrol car missing as Guard Star goes off into battle with Guard Fire (Fire engine) and Guard Rescue (Dr. Yoshiko Kunieda’s ambulance).  When the going gets tough, the guard team combine into Guardion and even better, he later becomes Super Guardion! Their cries of Battle Up (insert character name) are good transformation scenes too.

Humans, there’s always humans….

Newsflash, humans, especially the kids in a robot show aren’t super annoying! Jeepers I can barely believe I typed that.  Prof Amano builds the Baron team of utility vehicles which become Ace Baron, the Fire Jet and later on the Fire Shuttle as well as an assortment of inventions every episode with some wonderfully mixed results.  Kenta his nephew is great as the energetic kid who flies off with Katori into battle but remembers he’s still a kid and gets scared but without falling into annoying tears or getting angsty like Gundam kids.  Man I wish I had his Wrister watch that transforms into a mini robot. That sadly puts Fighbird ahead of every incarnation of Transformers, half of Gundam and a number of other shows.

Haruka is Proff Amano’s niece and is more level headed and typically feisty, someone has to be the straight man amongst the comedy of a mad inventor, an alien who knows nothing of Earth and a kid that just wants to fight and she does the role nicely.  Calling your pet monkey champ gets style points too in my book.

As previously stated, I like the Inspector, he’s misguided in his efforts to bust Prof Amano but his dogged determination is good and its great he gets to help out at times and has an episode about him near the end.

The Doctor, ok she’s not great but not bad either. Dr Jango is a good villain as he has a great rivalry with Prof Amano and Draias is superb. Whenever he gets involved in a fight, you know the good guys may save the day, but he’ll win the fight. He kicks ass and 1 on 1 you don’t fancy our heroes chances.

Burnin’ Fighbird

Fighbird’s intro tune is a catchy number, I liked it so much I’ve imported the Brave series soundtrack (complete with dvd of the intro and end sequences – awesome)

The Good, The Bad, The Fighbird

There’s a lot of good to Fighbird, music is excellent, and not just the opening either, the action,combination themes and general BGM is all good stuff.  The mech design and characters are all good and make me want to see more and buy the toys.  Trouble is, if you aren’t a fan of filler episodes, this show could have been amazing if condensed into a smaller series.  From about ep 6 you could skip, to 19 and not miss anything.  After that though its solid with what you think are throwaway characters ending up as recurring characters and schemes getting more sinister and in some cases just entertainingly ridiculous.  As with any show Fighbird gets an upgrade or two and while Granbird is not as cool, I do like Grand Fighbird.

While I can’t say its the best of the Brave Series, it is the first I have finished which tells a lot in itself.  I’ll keep the blog updated as I finish each.  I’m currently going through Brave Police J-Decker and trying to source the remainder of Da Gaarn (fan subbers stopped). I was leaving GaioGaiGar till last but now I have the dvd boxsets of that so may not be able to resist.  It’s not a show for everyone but if like me you area big kid (or actually just a kid) who likes robot action shows this is well worth tracking down any way you can (unless it has been released in your language in which case buy it – Heaven knows I would if there was a legal version with English subs).

Why? well I like the world it is set in and the characters in that. There is both magic and psychic/espers.  It is set in Academy City, a hi-tech city where those with superhuman powers are studied, and students with potential to develop powers train to develop them.  Psychic powers can be manifested in many different ways, be it controlling electricity, turning invisible or teleporting themselves or other things (and many other things). Magic on the other hand, was scientifically created so normal people would have powers to rival the psychics.  The world has a great balance, if Espers use magic, it causes them brutal internal injuries and if magics users use psychi powers, the same applies.  The higher ups in each side would be happy to see the other side eliminated which provides the series with a range of different styles of encounters with people of different talents.

Touma

Your typical generic super unlucky guy, but it is not as unexplained as in harem series like Love Hina or Tenchi. In fact, the series gives a reason or his misfortune.  Touma’s right hand (the Imagine Breaker) is able to neutralise everything, including luck.  Not that he knows this at the start of the show but he soon finds out both psychic and magical powers are rendered useless against his outstretched hand. Of course this means he can only ever defend, or so you’d think.  Touma’s punch is legendary and if it’s for the cause of protecting what he holds dear, he does not hold back. His life of misfortune reaches new levels when a walking index of 103,000 of the Church of England’s forbidden magical grimoires named Index falls onto his balcony. Her magical robe disintegrates on his touch and unable to use magic, she uses the only weapon at her disposal, her teeth!  From there on Touma ends up as Index’s guardian and takes part in some good stories full of great characters.  It should be mentioned that Touma behaves like a person in an RPG, no not looting every body in sight but in talking to and helping everyone and as a result gradually builds up a number of admirers but the show isn’t about that. It’s about him getting in over his head and somehow pulling through with the help of his determination, his friends and his trusty right hook.

Index

First off, I mark out for any series mentioning England, even if the Church of England in this aren’t portrayed as the best organisation out there (although they aren’t the worst either).
Index follows in the steps of Lina Inverse as being a walking threat to the World’s food supplies. Unlike Lina though, the only way Index can unleash her wrath is to bite people, repeatedly. Touma is usually covered in bite marks whenever he upsets her. In most cases, despite housing the spells of the CoE, Index  can only use a small number of defensive spells unless her self defence systems kick in under extreme conditions (in which case run). Despite her powers, she’s basically defenceless against guys with guns and espers.  Probably a bad place for a magician but then again, it’s a great place for the Church of England to keep her as it’s hard for magicians to get into Academy City and Touma is a great guardian seeing how he can defend against most things.

Only my railgun

One of my favourite characters is introduced early on, Mikoto Misaka, who has pretty much absolute control of electricity, allowing her to fry anyone making an unwanted move on her or to magnetically attract iron particles to form weapons or even magnetically stick herself to a wall, of course the downside is that when her temper blows, the neighbourhood grid is going down.  Her speciality is charging up and then firing a coin railgun style. The animator’s always go to town on that attack, making sure it looks absolutely devastating.  She got her own spin-off show Toaru kagaku no railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun) and the intro song “Only my railgun” is a great tribute to the attack.  The series itself is a little heavy on the school girls eating sweets hanging out which isn’t really my  thing but there’s lots of electric shocks and from 4 or 5 episodes in it gets a little better in the stories however the railgun comes into play often enough that overall I enjoyed the series and did buy the theme song single while in Tokyo.

Finishing up

There are a load of other characters in this franchise, many with their own motives for helping and hindering things, rarely will people do things just because.  Especially in the second series.  While the animation generally ranges from good to very good, the music is sadly nothing to write home about, the intro’s and endings falling into my “meh” category of not bad and not bring on the next intro.  Of course it helps that for large parts of the series I really wanted to see the next episode which is always the mark of a good series. It’s not ground breaking but it is well done.   Some people will prefer A Certain Scientific Railgun for the girls, me I think Touma is more fun and look forwards to a third series as the second series really ups the scale of the encounters from the first series and sets the scene for bigger things to come.  It would be interesting to read the light novels the anime is based upon and should you get a chance to see or read anything from the series I suggest you give it a try.

Hopefully this is old news to anyone visiting a site called Big Giant Robots but if you somehow have missed it thus far, then you should check out Super Robot Wars Original Generation: The Inspector (hereon abbreviated as SRW).  Why? well it features a diverse range of the nicest looking mechs of the year in lots of action sequences that are BEAUTIFULLY done in glorious HD with fights taking place over land and sea and air GI Joe is there! (my mind always plays the legendary opening theme to GI Joe the movie when thinking that phrase), not quite fitting into the song, there’s also space combat too.

It also has a huge cast that covers just about every type of character stereotype there is, from brooding guy to bubbly big chested girl and genetically enhanced kids… someone for everyone and whether you are after action, comedy or fan service, this show has you covered.

It is a follow on from the Super Robot Wars Original Generation series which sadly never made it over to the UK and is desperate need of being repackaged as a cheap thin pack in the US which was itself based on a series of games in Japan (and a couple in the US). Because it is a follow on, those who haven’t seen the original may worry that it’ll be hard to follow.  Seriously, don’t worry, it is enjoyable without knowing the backstory, anything critical they explain although if you don’t pay attention you may miss it.  With such a large cast, the show tends to rush through a lot of things but then the first series as well was high on action and low on slow deliberate story telling – the makers leave that for Gundam and instead concentrate on giving you as much action as they can and I won’t complain. It’s highly entertaining.

For those that do want to know what has come before, well to summarise everything would take me a long time so I’ll link to someone elses.  See the link below for a great introduction to the Super Robot Wars universe including what happened in the first series because knowing is half the battle (tehe more joe goodness), then head over to Crunchyroll.com and enjoy the series.

http://www.mania.com/guide-to-super-robot-wars-original-generation_article_125709.html

Watch the show
http://www.crunchyroll.com/super-robot-wars

And no I don’t know why I have GI Joe on the brain today. I guess I ‘ll have to add Action Force/GI Joe to the list of things I need to write about ^_^

The main story is that Shu is sent on a job to deliver cargo, which turns out to be a girl code named HW9 (Human Weapon 9) that is smuggled out of an underground lab.  She has a normal temperature of 40 degrees and has been modified to be super human in terms of speed, strength, recovery powers and senses.  Everything except stamina… Without medication every 5 hours she develops a huge fever and would have died but for the super awesome crazy doctor they call Doc, who develops a suppressant for her condition.  Even with this though, under too much strain, she starts turning to glass.  Indeed the 8 HW’s before her all turned to glass and shattered as do the ones after her.  An interesting side effect is that whenever a man touches her, they get a shock, only girls can safely touch her.  Anyway the bad guy wants his experiment back, the good guys want to protect her. City Hunter did the same story a number of times but this spreads out the body guard episode to 12  enjoyable episodes.

The Good

It should be noted that Doc and his assistant Monica are legendary.  They are an amazing combination of comic relief while still being incredibly important to the story.  Without Doc, the show would have struggled for sure. He is an unashamed perv in a slightly frightening way at the begining but any scene with him and Monica in is good, she is awesome herself as she loves to cosplay but seems remarkably adept at everything she cosplays as. In that she actually has real nursing and real commando skills and quite possibly others.  The Doc is nothing short of a genius and his past when revealed actually provides reason for his skills, impressive.

Porilyn is another homage to City Hunter which had parts of Shinjuku under the control of a cross dressing man.  Porilyn runs Ragstown and is good friends with Shu and is acting on behalf of a sponsor when he hires Shu to deliver HW9.  Much as in CH, he ends up being useful information source although he also has his uses as a sniper and comic relief due to his cross dressing ways.

Sara, aka HW shows she has some fight but is limited by her condition.  I like her and with more episodes she could really shine, also the any man that touches her gets a shock is played well throughout.

The Bad

There are two young girls in the series that it could totally have done without.  Manami is the loud obnoxious girl who talks big and fails utterly to back it up and if she wasn’t a girl would be in my top 3 anime characters I want to punch.  The other girl Ayaka is quiet and I guess could be useful if the series was longer as she seems ok with a computer and isn’t a female Scrappy Doo like Manami but in this, all she contributes is to get the cops suspicious of them.

The Final Verdict

After all is said and done, I loved watching this show. It is clearly inspired by my favourite series but is done well enough that I don’t mind. I just wish they had learned from CH that you don’t need kids or teenagers to make a series but at least they managed to make sure the lead and a lot of the supporting cast were adults which is under utilized.  While I wouldn’t call this a 5* series, it has good pacing, girls aside has an interesting cast (even the gruff old police chief and his rival in the SWAT team are handled really well and don’t seem like simple background characters.  Overall a very solid 4* show.  If they were to ditch the two girls and do another 100 episodes I’d be very happy indeed.  Should it ever get released in the UK I will pick it up right away.

In the meantime, you can check it out at Crunchyroll.

http://www.crunchyroll.com/glass-maiden

Back on the crusade to bring more giant robots to the site and my choice this time is another blast from the past.  Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs was along with Macron-1 and Robotech, a staple of my early morning viewing when I was a child.

The show is your basic futuristic western. The Star Sheriffs protect the New Frontier from Outriders, vapour beings from another dimension.  Because they turn into a puddle of vapour when shot, there’s a lot of killing of bad guys which wasn’t something you’d see in many other shows of the time.  Their boss Nemesis even goes as far as getting his forces to kidnap all the Wilderbeasts (think buffalo) just because he thought it would amuse him.  How can you not love a bad guy with so much power he invades another dimension and kidnaps an entire species just for fun (oh and he’s voice by Peter G1 Optimus Prime Cullen).

Big Giant Robots

Ramrod aka Bismark is a spaceship that transforms into a giant cowboy robot, his head is shaped as if wearing a cowboy hat and he has his gun in a holster at his waist – nice.  He also has an abundance of cannons built into his chest which are used simultaneously to obliterate enemies once they are stunned long enough to not dodge.  The packaging on the Complete Collection DVD would have you think that Ramrod, also voiced by Peter Cullen is the star of the show. That’s cobblers. The interactions between the characters is so much better and for the record, Ramrod is piloted, has no personality and only speaks during the same transformation used in every episode  – it’s good yes, the reason to watch or buy, no. Peter Cullen does deserve praise if only for voicing the Heroic robot, the Commander of the Star Sheriffs and the Commander of the bad guys which must be some sort of record for key roles in a good dub (he always does a number of bit parts too). I say good because I’ve heard the dub of Transformers Headmasters and I think there’s about 3 people did the voices for the lot lol.

The Star Sheriffs

One of the great things about this show is that the team is made up of sheriffs from different countries and are proud of it, wearing their country’s flag on their helmet and armour (although the Union Jack and the US Flag are deliberately mis-coloured for ease of animating).  The voice casts for the sheriffs are all superb and sound like they are having a great time with the different accents they get to use and it really brings the characters to life.

Saber Rider is a wonderful blend of the best of England and Scotland.  He has a great English accent and a Scottish family and plays bagpipes – wears the Union Jack and is the veteran leader of the Star Sheriff (despite not being that old at all) and is known as Top Sword as he is the best swordsman in the galaxy. He rides a mechanical flying horse named Steed and uses a saber (duh) and a hunting rifle. Even as a kid I knew there was something up with the way Saber Rider delegated everything to Fireball and sure enough in the Japanese version Saber wasn’t the leader but he’s definitely the brains behind the team whichever version, he’s dull but there weren’t many British commanders of big giant robots back then, wait there still aren’t… He also gets big props for calling everyone chum ^_^

Fireball – the youngest world champion car racer ever and the real hero of the show – he pilots Ramrod and drives a 6 wheeled racer called Red Fury Racer/Turbo (he calls it both inside one sentence in one ep.)   Regardless of the name, it looks good when drawn properly (and any car with a chain gun that comes out of the roof and rocket launchers out the sides is cool in my books.

He has the Japanese flag on his uniform but displays no sign of any Japanese behaviour other than that of typical anime hero, well except using chopsticks in one episode.  He was the first anime character I ever cosplayed as, of course back then, I didn’t even know what cosplay was, I just wanted a red suit of armour like his.  I don’t know if any pictures exist, it was terrible, foam pads on a red tracksuit but it made me happy.  Why Fireball when as I know now and yet my brother knew back then, Colt is far more awesome, well Fireball gets to pilot Ramrod and I’d love to say it’s because he gets the girl in the end but the truth is he gets to press the red button tha transforms Ramrod and everyone knows my love of pushing buttons hehe.  Actually with hindsight I don’t think I even had that habit until I saw this show.

Colt – The man, phenomenal ability to go from clown to badass cowboy in 0.2 seconds.  His helmet has a cowboy hat rim to it and when he is not wearing that, he wears a real one and never leaves it behind.  He has the US flag on his armour and a superb cowboy accent.  He flies one-man fighter named the Bronco Buster and was a bounty hunter before he joined the Star Sheriffs.  His mentor in the art of gun slinging looks suspiciously like Clint Eastwood. He chases girls and gold with equally reckless abandon but when he draws his gun you know vapour beings are going home.  He also has the coolest theme tune and has great arguments with Fireball and April which are often highlights of the shows.

April Eagle – chief designer of Ramrod and daughter of Commander Eagle (head of the Star Sheriffs) has a French flag on her armour but like Fireball displays absolutely no trace of her native county’s behaviour or accent.  She has a pink robotic horse named Nova early on which isn’t used again and she usually stays behind in Ramrod to swoop in and save the boys bacon. Trained in karate, she’s not afraid to put anyone in their place but still has odd moments where she’s the helpless damsel in distress.

Changes

Originally a 1984 anime Star Musketeer Bismarck,  the mind blowing list of changes is available on wikipedia, I suggest checking it out to get an idea of just how much was changed, from replacing episodes and renumbering almost the entire series to creating an extra 6 eps of the show to replace existing episodes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saber_Rider_and_the_Star_Sheriffs

Music

Also changed was the music, and the Japanese and US versions of this show couldn’t be more different and for once, the US comes off far better! It varies from the rocking futuristic western the show is to fun to epic. Colt’s theme is just awesome, when you hear it, you know good things are coming – it could be comedy or it could be action but Colt always delivers and his theme lets you know its coming. A huge thank you to Dale Schacker for creating a soundtrack I still listen to and love. It’s genius, especially the bull whip at the end of the intro, inspired.

Toys

Saber Rider didn’t make a dent in the UK so toys never came out, it was bigger in Europe though (especially Germany who got the DVDs long before we did grrr) and I did see some of the toys when on a holiday in France.  This would cause one of longest running and biggest rages of my life as we visited a town (don’t ask me which) and I saw a toy of Ramrod in a toy shop that was closed because it was a Sunday. My parents refused to go out of their way to visit the town again just to go to a toy shop to buy me a toy I couldn’t afford.  They had no idea just how rare this toy was, how important to me it was and just how much grief this would bring them.  I spent the rest of the holiday in a huff and would not see any Star Sheriff toys again for another 8/9 years until, thanks to the internet, I finally found a yahoo listing for a Bismark DX – for $300! Naturally I couldn’t afford it and that re-sparked the fire again. It would be another 8 years before I finally got my hands on the toy, thankfully for a mere $200 while on holiday in the US but still, when I think I could have had it when I was 9 for a fraction of that I still weep.

For a few pictures of it see here  http://www.flickr.com/photos/85964213@N00/sets/72157624024108482/

What do you think Top Sword?

The animation in Saber Rider is usually good for its time, peaking at very good for scenes they want to make the Sheriff’s look extra awesome. The exception seems to be some scenes with the Red Fury racer which make it look like it was drawn by me but on the whole good. More consistent than a lot of the shows its age.  As mentioned, the music is great, sound effects are ripped from the usual sources used for Transformers (you will hear Prime’s gun), GI Joe etc.

The only negatives are some throwaway episodes and flashback eps.  Sadly the story doesn’t always make sense due to some episode re-ordering which is inevitable but after initial wtf, it makes immediate sense.  Does it matter? to some maybe.  Me, I’m always happy to overlook this shows flaws because the upside is that its always fun.  The nameless Outrider troops are always comical (I love their dodgy accents) but at least unlike the droids in the Clone Wars, they are always shown to be a lethal threat to innocents and non-sheriffs, which makes the Star Sheriff rescues all the more enjoyable.  The big robot fights are your typical 80s/90s affair but Ramrod is one of the cooler looking robots out there IMO and having Prime’s voice during transformation always helps.

By now you’ve read how much of an impact this had on my childhood so I’m about as biased  as they come and obviously going to immediately recommend it to EVERYONE.  Naturally it isn’t for anyone that wants long drawn out story arcs or massive character development but it is a whole lot more fun.  It isn’t available in the UK but you can import it as it is region ALL and plays perfectly on the PS3 – Thank you World Event Productions!

Overall, a perfect 5 for anime robot lovers, probably rates about a 2 to normal viewers who probably stopped reading a long time ago as this was never going to be a show for them and is as much an ode to my childhood as it is a blog about the show. That is how intertwined this show and me are.

Now I was not totally new to Manga, I had seen some before but never really knew it was a specific genre all its own. Things like “Battle of the Planet” and others had been on TV and I had always loved that Japanese style. But don’t forget this was before the Internet, there was no way of finding out any of this stuff. Looking back at it now I wonder how I ever managed… but you had what you had, and I was luckier than most.

As it turns out I had seen the Studio Ghibli classic “Castle in the Sky” year before and loved it. But with no way of ever really finding out anything about it, other than its name and the fact I loved that style. If I had seen “Totoro” or “Spirited Away” at that age I would have been forced to find out more about these amazing films.

But I digress, just looking at the cover I knew I had to watch it!

The first viewing

Nikobe was insistent we had to watch it straight away, no time for the normal “Street Fighter II” on the SNES. This was the most important thing that day, and I have to say he was right.

We watched it in silence, right from the beginning it was no ordinary film. Even now it has a style all its own. The visuals were astounding, the sound work amazing, everything about this film was polished and first rate. Unlike anything I had seen before this was animation as I had always wanted it, and it had a strong message that.. in places on that first viewing.. I didn’t understand.

When it finished we watched all the way to the end of the credits. Partly out of respect, I have always tried to stay right to the end. If someone can spend so much of their life making something, the very least I can do is stay to see their name appear on the screen for 20 seconds. But also because we were both dumb struck. What was that we had just watched? Did all that really happen just then? What happened at the end again? Did they solve it? Was that Akira? So Tetsuo can do that thing with his mind, and so can the other kids? Sol is fantastic, can you really make space lasers like that? And he could fly.. is that the mind thing again? Where did those creepy kids go? Are they kids at all? That bit with the flying thing in the lift was cool, what about the bikes at the start.. yep!… how about that bit…… and so on. I think it is probably fair to say we descended into just listing out the cool bits of the film at this point. In my (and Nikobe’s) defence. We were 13 at the time.

The upshot was.. we watched it again. I don’t think we even discussed it. While we were saying how cool it was we just rewound it (yeah.. remember doing that?) and watching it from start to end again.

Eyes open

Akira is a very abstract film in many ways. It has a lot of idea you need to get into your head and no explanations at all. You either love it or hate it, and if you can’t keep up then you have a problem.

After about the fourth of firth viewing (I had my own copy by then) it all starts to come together. Now you are over the shock of just how amazing this film is you are down to its story and production, and this is one of those very rare films that does not disappoint. The sound track is excellent, and every frame is filled with stunning art work.

I can only hope that everyone sees this film as their introduction to Manga and Anime. This film is a true masterpiece, just don’t expect every anime to be this good.

Where to now

So once you have seen this where do you go next? Fortunately this was the time Manga really took off in the UK. I started collecting “Manga Mania” from about issue 4 and saw a whole new world. I just fell in love with Anime and Manga and wanted everything I could get.

At the time “Manga Mania” had just started the complete strip of “Dominion: Tank Police”. That was my first introduction to Masamune Shirow and started a love of his work that would eventually lead me to “Ghost in the Shell” another of my favourite film, and I believe sets the standard by which all Sci-Fi should be judged. But his earlier work was showcased and I really enjoyed it. “Dominion” of course, but “Appleseed” was just as good.

Many others came and went, and I can’t say that many others really grabbed me until I saw Adam Warren’s “Dirty Pair” or Kenichi Sonoda’s “Bubblegum Crisis”. Among all the manga that I thought was OK, there were some that really stood out, these alone were worth getting the magazine for. But all of them were interesting and new.

A fortune on video

So when ever I had the money (not often) I would have to make the trek to one of the larger towns and check out the videos. There was an influx of anime to match the growing demand.

For me this was a blessing and a curse, because along with all the good films there were utterly crap ones. Not just bad, I mean really terrible. Manga Entertainment who were one of the main importers had the most wild quality control. By now I had managed to convince Sideswipe he would like this stuff, little did I know he would go on to become the ultimate collector and otaku (Thanks!). So we would go and look at the videos and buy a few, most of the time we were disappointed but sometimes hit gold. It is thanks to him I found out about Lupin III, and I was able to find Tenchi Muyo and Gunsmith Cats. These were the things we lived for.

This lead to one of the other tricks that really annoyed us all. They would release the first video, not telling you it was the first in a series of 100 episodes (I’m looking at you Slayers). This is what finally put me off, I still love it and look for the best bits but I hated being drawn into these cons. Sideswipe however has never really got out of that trap, and I am hoping at some point he will put up some pictures of his front room.

My pride and joy

From my love of Anime and Manga sprung my love of Japanese culture. That has lead me on to watch Japanese films, something that I don’t think I ever would have done without my start in seeing Akira. I might never have seen classics like “Seven Samurai” or “Battle Royal” without it.

Thank you Nikobe for getting me started, and thank you Sideswipe for taking it to 11!

But there is one other thing Akira has given me. Two amazing posters that have sat in my closet untouched for about 15 years. Sideswipe and I went to a little exhibition, we were a little disappointed but I came away with three things. A cell from Akira itself (which got damaged when it was taken off my wall.. different story) and a pair of limited edition numbered prints. There were only 1000 made in the first run and were supposed to retail for £100 each.. I managed to get them for £15 because the person selling them had no idea what they were.

At some point this year I will finally get them on my wall. I promise!

I’m no expert, I’ve twice visited Japan, the first time was a hectic 9 day self-tour of Tokyo, Hakone, Kyota & Osaka. The second, a more leisurely 9 days in Tokyo as part of the Manga Tour of Japan which I definitely recommend although you should definitely have a few more days in Japan afterwards. http://www.japanjourneys.co.uk/manga.htm

Anyway, this isn’t a proper tourists guide to tokyo, more a anime/toy collectors guide and a memory jog for the next time I go but hopefully you may find it useful. Please feel free to let me know if anything has since closed down.

I’ll leave the best till last so scroll down for Tokyo.

As for when to go, Sakura (Cherry Blossom) season is usually late March/early April, summer is hot and icky I was told by my Japanese teacher, personally I’ve only been during cherry blossom season and can vouch for the prettyness which isn’t something I say often and that the temperature was slightly better than the UK for the time.

Hakone

If you go on a day trip up to Hakone you can see Mount Fuji, there is a great cable car ride you can take which takes you up the active volcano there.  There is a train you can take down which I recommend you take as it is unlike any other I’ve been on. Crazy tight turns and having to reverse the direction it is pulled from along the route. Great views.

Hakone also has my favourite place which was the Samurai Museum. Run by this great old guy who greeted us and then while were looking around the small museum, he shocked the life out of us by jumping out from behind a corner having changed into in full samurai gear.  He posed for pictures too, most awesome.

There was a great castle here but I missed going in it by half an hour because of cramming everything else in (and getting on the wrong bus earlier which was how I ended up at the Samurai Museum LOL). There’s a fancy art gallery I didn’t go in.

Osaka

Osaka Castle is awesome.  The most impressive of the castles I visited and absolutely huge gardens. It isn’t the original but a remake. I wish they’d do that with more of the ruined castles here in England. Oh look at the remains of a castle isn’t anywhere near as impressive as a whole freaking castle!

Universal Studios Japan is here, I chose the castle instead though as I only had one day in Osaka.  There was a Full Metal Alchemist attraction to celebrate it’s opening so I’m guessing there should be a few non Universal anime attractions there too.

I didn’t spend long here so nothing else to add sorry.

Kyoto

Kyoto is just site seeing central, you visit one shrine or temple and can see another and can walk to that. You keep doing that and before you know it you are miles from your hotel. I didn’t have time to do anything other than that and I know I barely scratched the surface. Just make sure you have enough memory for your camera here. SD cards were harder to come by and more expensive than in Tokyo or Osaka.  Have more than 1 day here. There really is a lot of sites to see, I didn’t even get to go to any of the shops here.

Tokyo Sights

• Stay in or near Shinjuku, from that station you can get pretty much anywhere, it is the most amazing labyrinth though so if you get lost at Clapham Junction station you may want to make sure you go with a tour. Sadly it does not have the blackboard used in City Hunter.
• You have to do the Tokyo Tower for obvious reasons.
  

  Not full size but no midget either. The Iron Giant is awesomeness incarnate

• The Asakusa shrine will look familiar to anyone who’s seen Tenchi Muyo and regardless, is a great site to visit with the Senso temple practically next to it. A nice weapons shop here and some stalls with various anime tack and lots of Japanese food.
• Shinjuku park is a really nice park to have a little picnic in. It’s also fairly big.
• The Studio Ghibli museum is a must if you can get the tickets.  On the roof is a statue of The Iron Giant.
• The Tokyo sword museum was cool but too small and out of the way to really recommend unless you are really into your swords. No swords for sale, not even a paper knife. They do work restoring ancient scrolls here, security is TIGHT.
• The Imperial Gardens – HUUUUUUGE and very impressive.
• Harajuku has the great Meiji Shrine, a good toy shop and a good tourist shop for buying tacky souviners. If memory serves, the park is supposedly best on Sundays.  The main thing is watching the antics people in the park – they set up stereos and do live music, everything from j-pop to elvis. For normal (non-otaku) people there is a bunch of designer shops there.
• The full 1:1 scale Gundam is no longer there but there is still a Statue of Liberty and Toys R Us on Odaiba Island (Shiokaze Park) along with a nice mall and a great Hawiain Burger bar.

Tokyo Shops

This is an otaku’s blog so I’m not going to be posting where to find designer labels, well not unless the designer works for Shonen Jump

• Akihabara is the place for current anime & manga merchandise and games. Cosplay cafes and electronics shops. Check out the shops in the big tower next to the station, one had TF animated prototypes for sale before Animated was out and a few floors up was the Revoltech store. There was a fantastic shop with a load of Japanese G1 Transformers at not so nice prices on the end furthest of the high street from the station. Also had the Dragon Ball Z bathroom scales which I regret not buying to this day as an amazing piece of tack.
• Nakano Broadway is THE place to go for hard to find old anime merch. The shopping mall looks naff until you go up to the 2nd and 3rd floors where it has a number of awesome shops. Whether it be toys (one of the Mandarake’s only sells robot related toys), anime, manga, soundtracks, video games, cosplay outfits or animation cells – you can get it here. To get there there is a train station of the same name. Easy.
• Don’t bother going out of your way to find a Toys R Us, it was more expensive than the Animate across the street for toys or games in Sunshine City. If you want to visit a TRU, I suggest the one on Odaiba island for sight seeing purposes.
  

  A shop that only sells merchandise of Shonen JUMP characters... Now THAT's my kind of shop.

• The Shonen Jump shop on the site of the Tokyo Dome had some pretty rare stuff if you like Shonen Jump manga/anime and you may be able to get tickets for a baseball game or whatever’s going on at the dome while you’re in the area.
• There is a great American restaurant in the Takashimaya Times Square complex in Shinjuku which is perfect if you fancy a big steak.
• Also in the same complex is Kinokuniya Books which has a huge english section with one of the biggest ranges of English manga I’ve seen. It includes English language releases that were released in other regions. I picked up all of the Slam Dunk manga when in the US it had stalled at vol 5.
• HMV is just around the corner from there and is a great place for your J-pop/rock needs and has some soundtracks.

Things to Remember

I’m not going to do a list of useful phrases, there’s too many and to be honest, I barely spoke to anyone out there, just pointed and nodded. Rude in the extreme but Big Mac is the same in any language

• Make sure you have a map of the train system in English.  You will need it to match up with their map which will be in Japanese and more likely than not, will have prices instead of stops on. Instead of zones they work on price in yen (public transport is dirt cheap compared to the UK and vastly superior, don’t bother with taxi’s)
• Forget travellers cheques – far too much hassle.
• Cash, you need it, and you need a lot of it. Credit cards are only taken in large stores. You will need wallets full of cash. Luckily Japan is a really safe country and you won’t get mugged (well shouldn’t unless you’re exceptionally unlucky or stupid. I had £1000 cash at the start and split it into 3 wallets, 2 stashed in my backpack – emergency, large buys and normal person’s use and then pulled out whichever would be necessary. Sneaky but effective. Note, that was nowhere near as much money as I could have spent but was perilously close to the maximum weight allowance.
• Do NOT put your cash in the shop keepers hands. They have a little tray or basket, put your money in there.
• The Japanese wear face masks if they have the slightest trace of a cold. At least cover your mouth/nose if coughing or sneezing.
• Sumimasen = sorry, general get out of jail free word for any idiotic foreigner behaviour you might do (such as the above). Also can be used as excuse me to indicate you’d like them to get out of your way if they are blocking somewhere.
• Do NOT cross the street when the traffic lights are red for pedestrians even if you can see there isn’t a car for the length of the road. You will get evil looks and probably a few snide comments you won’t understand.
• When you enter a shop, quite often you will be greeted. This is normal. The same on leaving so don’t worry. Nod politely if you want to be nice.
• PS3,PSP and DS games are region free, console accessories like joypads and arcade sticks are also region free.  Blitz Akihabara! The Macross Frontier games on PSP and Initial D Extreme Stage on PS3 are must haves. Reminds me there’s a new PS3 Gundam game I need to import…
• There is no need to carry spare drinks around, wherever you go, there will be a vending machine nearby. Probably a Lawsons too (equivilent to a 7-11/corner shop).
• Even Lawsons sell anime tack. Usually the random luck mini boxed toys with gashapon machines as well. There is no escape!
• (item name) Kudasai – I know I said no phrases but I used this a fair bit as a lot of shops keep everything in glass cabinets (which is odd considering the low crime rate but perhaps also helps explain it). Tell them the toy or game name e.g. Goshogun or Mazinger please and point in the right direction and they will be able to help.
• You have to visit a Gera Gera manga cafe – think internet cafe, with more manga than you’ve ever seen in your life, as well as a selection of anime and games you can use there. Open 24/7, people that miss the last train often spend the night here.  The inspiration for my collection which is a topic for another day…
• Mandarake and Animate are two of the best places I found for buying anime, manga and toys and associated stuff (soundtracks,games,tack). There will be at least one Animate in every city, keep a look out.
• DVD’s are region 2 so they will play on UK players, however they will NOT have english subtitles. Same applies to blu-ray, no subs.
• CD’s and DVD’s are, relative to the UK and especially United States, incredibly expensive (£25 for a CD is common!). Don’t let that deter you though, it’s cheaper than importing unless you want to import knock offs in which case you might as well just download them. Feel pride in supporting the content makers.
• If your airline allows, take 2 bags, one inside the other on the way out so you have 2 bags to load up with toys and merch to bring back. I take old clothes so if necessary (and it has been both times) I throw out some clothes so there is enough room for toys. Remember to keep some clothes though to cushion and pad out your luggage to keep toys safe
• Die cast toys and hand luggage don’t mix and you may be subject to a painstaking search of your hand luggage contents but they do look exceptionally awesome going through the X-ray machine!
• Baseball batting practice is a good way to kill some time, coin in slot and then a series of balls come flying at you at whatever speed it says on the door so you don’t need to worry about not knowing any Japanese. I don’t know jack about baseball and I enjoyed it.

Note: I’ve not mentioned karaoke, there were plenty of karaoke bars but I can’t advise which are good as I didn’t use any as it hurts me never mind anyone else when I attempt to sing.

If you can find it, I recommend the book, Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo.  It has useful maps of the main otaku shopping areas. It’s out of date for the smaller shops and the Bandai Museum is no longer there but asides from that it has some great information on the culture that won’t age and is well worth a read.

Accompanying the awesomeness of being one of the first super robot shows I saw, it was given a soundtrack comprised of covers of then contemporary music. To this day I still hear the voices of Kathy and Jason as they shoot robotic skeleton warriors whenever I hear “Hit me with your best shot”. Other 80s songs covered included Beat It, The Reflex, Electric Avenue and more.

Click to view Macron 1 European Intro

A Bit of History

At this point I will admit that Goshogun isn’t particularly well loved in Japan but they had had Mazinger Z and countless other super robot shows. Us UK cable TV viewers had Transformers, Voltron, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Macron-1 and Robotech and I’m not sure that some of those weren’t after Macron-1 (my memory sucked when I was 7 too).  Anyway, I loved and still love robot shows and being one of so few I saw in my highly impressionable youth definitely helped make this all the more memorable.

The Cool

Feel the Power!

Macron-1 had some nice bits of editting, where you’d see the action split screen for each fighter jet and with some other little bits that at the time weren’t used in other series and gave the show a fresh look that coupled with the background music helped the show stand out from Voltron and Transformers. Robots aside, the main pilots Kathy, Scott & Jason have some great interactions and the customary kid Nathan isn’t the worst kid in a robot series by a long way.

The english dub is actually very good but your milage will vary on the translation depending on if you see the US or European versions of the show, more on that later…

Unavailable Everywhere, and Different Too

One of the few things I can state that I would definitely do if I could go back in time would be to video tape and protect the tapes of this show with my life. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.  Macron-1 had a couple of VHS tapes released in the UK which I managed to snap up over the years. I also managed to track down a few tapes from America only to find out that replacing the music and changing the names of everyone and everything was barely touching it compared to the brutal butchering Goshogun received Stateside.

Goshogun Butchered

Remembering this was before Wikipedia (dark ages indeed), imagine my shock when I watched the first of my US tapes, happy that I was finally getting more Macron-1 only to find that midway through, they cut to scenes from another anime altogether! Parallel Universe it seems… I have nothing against Akū Daisakusen Srungle but it had no right being inserted into Macron-1. As such I am supremely sorry for all Americans that had to sit through this version of the show.  It doesn’t make sense and is sadly the likely reason why it isn’t well remembered Stateside and isn’t available on DVD.  The bad news continues as the show isn’t loved enough to be fansubbed and the rights for it have no doubt expired decades ago.

While he is certainly not revered in Japan to the extent of my love for him, MacStar, sorry Goshogun did receive a magnificent die cast figure in the Brave Gokin toy line.   I managed to track him down on a visit to Akiharabara and can only feel sorrow for the poor shop clerk that had to listen to my broken Japanese excitedly shouting Goshogun kudasai and pointing towards a locked glass display cabinet.  The figure was absolutely fitting of my 20+ year wait for a toy of of MacStar-1 and even if you don’t like the anime, the robot is superb and looked glorious going through the metal detectors at Narita airport

The 3 mini jets combine into a robot and also are able to be stored inside Macstar who is a die-cast figure with enough articulation and a great likeness. He comes with all his weapons and is easily one of my favourite 3 toys.

At least I know I am not the only one who thinks this robot is in the top tier of robot toys, check out this review for an in depth look check out
Collectiondx.com

(Some great toys there)

Goshogun : The Time Etranger

There was a movie sequel made but it took everything that was good about the show (badass robot obliterating masses) and umm, ignored it. Well that’s being harsh, it followed on years after the series ended and chose to not ignore the ending of the series or just cheaply bring back Macstar. Instead it was a re-union of the characters. While the lack of super robot in a super robot show is mind blowing, this is actually a good film although it took me a couple of watches to fully appreciate it.

In Closing

Even by standards for the time, Macron 1 has a large amount of animation re-used in battles but that isn’t anywhere near enough to make me not recommend this to anyone who likes their super robot shows.  It’s a fun show with plenty of action and laughs and I did I mention the cool looking super robot?

If anyone comes across a download of the entire series in either the raw Japanese version of Goshogun, or the European version, link me up. If you have the entire series on dodgy DVD, VCD or even VHS let me know. If you have the US version, well I can always fast forward…

Mazinger Z is the original, big giant robot piloted by a human. A world without Mazinger Z is unimaginable. And now, the king of big giant robots is back in this hi-def re-telling and it is seriously awesome. From the adrenalin pumping intro you know you are in for a treat and it does not disappoint in the action stakes.

Most Insane Begining Ever!

The first episode blew me away, it dumps you straight in the middle of the fight to end all fights.  I have to admit, I haven’t seen all of the original Mazinger Z and while I marked out like mad as everyone I recognized appeared in the first episode, I still didn’t know everyone and was left thinking there is no way anyone could just pick this up.  Then the episode ended, without finishing the epic battle and without telling us how we got to this point.  I was hooked, I wanted more, much more.

Thankfully there is more,  it’s listed as a 26 episode series and from episode 2 onwards tells you how they got to the fight in the first episode.  Essentially the first episode is just a way to say, there is more awesome coming than you can imagine, now wait and find out how we got there.  Characters are introduced properly for new viewers and every episode we are treated to multiple bouts of often simple but glorious robot carnage while finding out the history of the characters.

The Plot

Dr Hell, a madman craving world domination, along with his subordinates Baron Ashura (a half-man, half-woman combination) and Count Brocken (a head that controls a headless body) and the relatively more normal Viscount Pygman, commands the Machine Beasts excavated from Bardos Island to attack the Photon Power Lab and take the Photonic Energy which is developed from Japanium Ore.

Standing in his way is the hot-blooded teenager Kouji Kabuto who pilots the super robot Mazinger Z, constructed by his grandfather Juzo and made from the strongest metal Chogokin Z.  Kouji has help/hinderance from the rest of the Kabuto family and the Kurogane 5 (who are almost as odd as Dr Hell’s minions, a collection of humans with modified bodies and/or advanced weaponry) .

The whole show is heavily influenced by Greek mythology, Bardos Island is believed to be Rhodes, the Mycenaean Civilization looks very stereotypical for a Roman construct and it uses the Gods Zeus, Hades and Poseidon.  Here it goes a little mental though.  Zeus is revealed to be a commanding officer of an extraterrestrial army using the Earth as a strategic point in battle against an unknown enemy! Mazinger Z’s name is an alternate name given to Zeus when in his combat armour and the super robots appearance is based upon this.  As the series progresses, you see much more of the history of the Mycenaean Civilization and even some crazy time travel.

Rocket Punnnnnnnch

Shin Mazinger does everything a good super robot show should do and then some.  Watch it by any means necessary and when it is available, buy it.  I know given the chance I will.   Some shows I watch and know that I’ll never watch again, others, well I know I can’t wait to watch Shin Mazinger again. In fact, I may just have to check out the rest of the old series and the movies I haven’t seen.

1. The computer is a cheating git, pulling off moves you have no way of doing yourself. Proof
2. I was once good at this game, now I am nothing but a noob
3. Cammy remains the best character

Chun-Li and Ryu get all the attention but for me (and most fans I know) Cammy is always the stand out favorite. Maybe its because I am British, maybe its because she is a complete psycho. But she at least has a back story and some characters traits that make her a little more than the 2 dimensional Chun-li.

Brief History

First appearing in Street Fighter II : The new challengers her story wasn’t really filled out until SF II Alpha. At the end of the series all her memory is erased. By the end of Alpha 3 it becomes clear she has been created by Bison as one of his “Dolls”.

Ok.. maybe her story is not so amazing. But it is at least a little more fun than most of them.

She made a brief appearance in the original animated film where you we get to see her psycho side emerge as it becomes clear she is being controlled by Bison.