Sixty Years Since Mighty Atom: 1997
Feb. 4th, 2023 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerGetting away from “titles I first saw at my university’s anime club” for at least a day’s viewing, I opened a series received from Discotek in time for this personal tour of anime, if after having put myself in the awkward position of “using shady methods to sample series they’ve scheduled to release in the next few months.” In any case, I can think of a reason or two why it took me a few years to pick up on the giant robot series GaoGaiGar. Once I did know about it, the enthusiasm of others for it was clear. I went so far as to start finding “fansubs” of it, but have to admit that after getting those video files one at a time I stopped after watching the fourth episode, supposing “formula” had set in (with the “it gets really good” promises still many episodes off) and every giant robot-versus-monster of the week battle from then on would be held in an uninteresting arena for the sake of “not getting too extreme with collateral damage for parents who might be supervising viewing.” (Years afterwards, anyway, I would be able to watch through a later giant robot series, and its sequel, featuring a “generic battlespace”...)
Those episodes sampled did still feed some sense of obligation into deciding to try out an official DVD release, and the first disc went just past where I’d left off. At that point I kept watching, developing an impression I’ve tried to describe before that it was like “being nine years old and watching the best episode of Transformers ever.” (Robots designed by the company that had made the Transformers being added to the show had something to do with that.) As the “anime boom” of this century’s first decade went flat, though, the release as it had begun trailed off and the show was only completed after a delay and in a “subtitle-only” box set. I did manage to finish the show, and watched it again a few years afterwards, but perhaps a sense of it being used as a stick against later mecha series in an age when no new example of the genre could seem to escape withering criticism took its own particular toll.
As for coming around to the series again, I was able to take in its “cartooniness” with audience-identification kids, an aspirational-figure hero, and amusing adult authority figures just fine. I took some notice of “morphing” effects in the animation. For a little while I wondered if things would get to the point of the full GaoGaiGar only being assembled at the end of the first episode, thus inviting me to watch another one. That first adventure ended on a different cliffhanger, though, and I headed on to getting these thoughts together. While it would be fine to go through the series and see what extras Discotek has added, I am pondering my old reactions to its follow-up OVAs that have been licensed at last, which still leaves me feeling obligated to make up for having sought out fansubs. Those past comments about GaoGaiGar getting “really good” when production shifted to trying to appeal more to the older audience that had picked up on it had left me wondering if the “Final” OVAs had gone to the point of sheer sex-appeal-and-violence excess.
Those episodes sampled did still feed some sense of obligation into deciding to try out an official DVD release, and the first disc went just past where I’d left off. At that point I kept watching, developing an impression I’ve tried to describe before that it was like “being nine years old and watching the best episode of Transformers ever.” (Robots designed by the company that had made the Transformers being added to the show had something to do with that.) As the “anime boom” of this century’s first decade went flat, though, the release as it had begun trailed off and the show was only completed after a delay and in a “subtitle-only” box set. I did manage to finish the show, and watched it again a few years afterwards, but perhaps a sense of it being used as a stick against later mecha series in an age when no new example of the genre could seem to escape withering criticism took its own particular toll.
As for coming around to the series again, I was able to take in its “cartooniness” with audience-identification kids, an aspirational-figure hero, and amusing adult authority figures just fine. I took some notice of “morphing” effects in the animation. For a little while I wondered if things would get to the point of the full GaoGaiGar only being assembled at the end of the first episode, thus inviting me to watch another one. That first adventure ended on a different cliffhanger, though, and I headed on to getting these thoughts together. While it would be fine to go through the series and see what extras Discotek has added, I am pondering my old reactions to its follow-up OVAs that have been licensed at last, which still leaves me feeling obligated to make up for having sought out fansubs. Those past comments about GaoGaiGar getting “really good” when production shifted to trying to appeal more to the older audience that had picked up on it had left me wondering if the “Final” OVAs had gone to the point of sheer sex-appeal-and-violence excess.