Where do I start with the mecha franchises? Part 3: Gundam (non-UC)

There are fewer entries outside the UC canon, and I've seen most of them. Like many anime fans my age, my first Gundam was Wing, back when it ran on Toonami in the early 2000s. I got sucked into y fandom and mailing lists (back on ye olde YahooGroups) and even wrote fanfic. (No, I'm not telling; it may be on the internet somewhere, but I have no idea.) I haven't watched Wing since it aired on TV 20ish years ago, and I'm nervous about doing that, but I'll get around to it someday, now that I'm old and crotchety.

Some of the non-UC series are divisive among a particular type of US fan. Wing, for example, is the one with the pretty boys that caters to girls. When Orphans was airing, I had to block a dude on tumblr who kept commenting that it sucked on my posts.

Many of these series are available through streaming sites, some on multiple sites as of June 2021. The ones I know of, I'll include. Which one to start with depends on the type of story you like, so I'm listing them in order of how much I like them.

My favorite: Iron-blooded Orphans

This is a 50-episode series that ran in 2 seasons from 2015 to 2017. (There was a gap between them.) Of all the non-UC series, this is the most original-Gundam-like, and its tone is very similar to 08th MS Team. Most Gundam shows involve child soldiers (because the target audience is teenagers), and they're portrayed as normal. This one shows how fucked up that is.

Our protagonists are teenagers who are indentured to a military contractor, CGS, on Mars. As part of their indenture, they are implanted with cyborg hookups on their spines which connect to their robots and allow them to pilot better. The procedure is painful and frequently deadly. The oldest and leader is Orga Itsuka, who is all of 19 at the start. CGS is contracted to escort a rich Martian girl to Earth, but shortly after she arrives, they're attacked by Gjallarhorn. The adults of CGS send out the kids and use them as decoys while they run away. When Orga finds out and gets back to base, he and his cadre of older kids take over the company. They rename it "Tekkadan," the iron flower group.

Orga's mission is to give his family a peaceful future, which they have to fight for, because society literally considers them garbage. Some characters are referred to in the series as "human debris." Orga's quest leads him to make deals with the devil because he sees it as expeditious. He runs into a space yakuza group and joins them. There are strong anti-capitalist themes. There is mention of child abuse and child sexual abuse. It gets extremely dark (for a Gundam show, for sure) more than once, and there's a high protagonist body count.

I highly recommend this show. It's a real 21st-century one. The story and script are by Okada Mari, and it was directed by Nagai Tatsuyuki.

Where to watch: hulu, Netflix, crunchyroll, funimation.com; Amazon Prime (for an extra fee); Blu-Ray

Also good: 00

Gundam 00 is a 50-episode series that originally aired from 2007-09. It's set about 300 years from now, in the real-world timeline. The protagonists are four Gundam pilots in a group called Celestial Being, whose purpose is to stop conflict as it happens. They're kind of terrorists, you could say. But they're very powerful, so the other factions on Earth unite to oppose them. There's a magic supercomputer that calculates where conflicts will crop up, so CB can be on site to intervene. Then some super-powered people called Innovators (the Newtype analogue) show up.

Season 1 is better than Season 2, and the movie is ... absurd. (Sentient crystals from Jupiter.)

Where to watch: hulu, crunchyroll; Blu-Ray

Worth seeing

G Gundam (1994-95; 49 episodes)

Every four years, there is a Gundam fight tournament to determine who is president of the world for the next four years. One group wants to rig the tournament so they win, and they have an overpowered super gundam, which is Devil Gundam in Japanese, but Dark Gundam in the US dub. The mobile suits are piloted in a unique way: the pilots wear clothes that sense their motion and translate it into robot motion. So the robots do the martial arts that the pilots do, which makes for interesting fight scenes.

There are a lot of Problematic(tm) things, like the national stereotype Gundams. Tequila Gundam wears a sombrero. There's a windmill for the Netherlands. These are mostly not main characters, but they still exist.

Chibodee Crockett, from Neo-America, uses his shield as a surfboard and has boxing gloves. Nobel Gundam from Sweden is Sailor Moon. The French Gundam has roses. It's absurd, which is part of its charm.

Where to watch: crunchyroll; Blu-Ray

Gundam Wing (1995-96, 49 episodes)

Five pilots from the colonies at the Lagrange points are sent to Earth to destroy the Earth Alliance, which oppresses the space colonies. They don't know about each other, but the old scientists who sent them and gave them Gundams know each other. They form a little sentai squadron and go around being terrorists. The Earth Alliance has mecha, too, and they fight each other. But there's a side faction on Earth that wants to take over for its own reasons, and things get complicated.

Where to watch: hulu, crunchyroll; Blu-Ray/DVD

Gundam Seed (2002-03, 50 episodes)

There are genetically-modified superhumans called Coordinators, who escaped to space colonies to avoid hate crimes from the Naturals. There are a few factions on Earth, including one Naturals-supremacist group. War breaks out between Earth and space. One space colony is neutral, and they get pulled into the war when space forces attack.

To be honest, I haven't watched this since it came out, but I liked it at the time.

Where to watch: hulu, crunchyroll, funimation.com; Blu-Ray

They're ok, I guess

Gundam Seed Destiny (2004-05, 50 episodes)

This picks up where Seed left off, but it focuses on a new character. The new character is fine, but the heroes from Seed are brought back as overpowered gods, basically, after fans wanted them back. *yawn* It's not terrible. Parts of it are actually rather good. But it goes downhill about halfway through.

Where to watch: crunchyroll; Blu-Ray

Gundam AGE (2011-12, 49 episodes)

I watched this when it came out and don't remember much about it, beyond that it existed. The 3 seasons of this are each from the perspective of a member of a different generation of the same family, which is kind of neat. Unfortunately, the execution was kind of a mess. The best part is season 2, because the protagonist is the coolest. Or maybe it was parts of season 3 because of the pirates? Like I said, I don't remember this very much, and wikipedia has you covered.

Where to watch: not available streaming in the US; Blu-Ray

Do not watch: Reconguista in G (2014-15, 26 episodes)

This show is just bad. I watched all of it, and I can't tell you what happened, even with the wikipedia article open. The biggest problem is that there was way too much going on in way too little space. If it had had 50 or 52 episodes, it would probably have been fine, but it's difficult to keep up with all the factions and characters and backstabbing and side changing when there's an entirely different plot every other episode.

On the plus side, the mecha and character designs are pretty cool. The mecha and character designers from Overman King Gainer were involved.

Where to watch (if you must): crunchyroll; Blu-Ray

Haven't seen

I haven't seen Gundam X or Turn A, so I can't comment on those, and neither appears to be available for streaming in the US.

Other

There's a meta series which starts with Build Fighters that takes place in an alternate-here, where a magical space particle lets people imbue their gundam models with magic energy that lets them fight while the model builder pilots it. It's Angelic Layer but with gundam models, and its entire purpose is to sell model kits. Even more so than the usual gundam series.

That said, it's a lot of fun. The protags are middle schoolers who enter a tournament. There are powerful groups that have dedicated money to improving their build quality (Gundam Academy) and all the stuff you'd expect from a tournament show. The characters are archetypes, but they've got a bit more depth than just "the protag" or "the rival" or "the nerd." It's fun, and it lets Gundam nerds geek out (both on and off screen) about the various kits used. There's even a bit of kitbashing!

This isn't a good place to start if you want to understand all the in-jokes. If you don't mind not getting the references, or you just really like tournament shows, fire it up!

Where to watch: crunchyroll

Where do I start with the mecha franchises? Part 2: Gundam (UC)

 The first Gundam series aired in 1979-80 and had 43 episodes. The show inspired a lot of future anime and manga creators, and there are a lot of references to it in shows like Genshiken and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. For something as superficially mundane as a show about giant robots in space whose purpose is to sell plastic models and model kits, the cultural impact it had is immense. There is a full-size model of a Gundam in Odaiba. It used to be an RX-78, as seen in the previous link, but it was changed to a Unicorn recently.

Gundam's influence reaches outside Japan, inspiring Guillermo del Toro to make Pacific Rim. This is the cutest damn video of all time, when during PacRim promos, a Japanese morning show took him touristing and to see the Odaiba Gundam, which he didn't know they were doing. The look on his face when he sees it! That is a man having a religious experience. (Obligatory PacRim side note: I love that movie, and the sequel doesn't exist.)

So, what's Gundam about, other than giant robots in space? Each individual series has its own plot, naturally, but there are a few essential elements to make something a Gundam show, other than the robots. There is a conflict between usually a large federated space navy and a smaller faction. Sometimes the space navy is the good guys; sometimes it's the bad guys. But neither side is ever all-good or all-bad. There are corrupt bigwigs in the space navy, and there are peaceniks in the rebel factions. The lead character is an ace pilot; sometimes there's a group of ace pilot leads. The lead antagonist is an ace pilot. They pick each other as their rival/nemesis/whatever. At some point, one of the leads gets stuck behind enemy lines and this changes his outlook on the war. Fighting continues; eventually someone wins.

There are a handful of conventions that originate from 0079. The (or A) main antagonist is a blond who wears a mask and pilots a red mobile suit. This is because of Char Aznable, the Red Comet in 0079. Some Char-clones don't strictly fit the mold, but that's fine; a Char is a Char. The hero Gundam is primary colors (red, yellow, blue, white). There is a post-human type of person who has super skills with piloting and sometimes psychic powers.

Gundam and Macross are about the same age as franchises, but there are way more Gundam shows than Macross, and I haven't seen all of them. (There's a LOT! And some are really bad, and some are extra bleak.) The easiest way to break it up is to divide them into UC timeline and non-UC timeline. I'll start with UC. The UC timeline is the largest, with over 30 TV series, movies, and OVAs spanning the years 0068-0260.

Universal Century

Humanity has built colonies in space, mostly at La Grange points. They call them "sides." Side 3 declared independence from the Earth Federation, called itself the Principality of Zeon, and launched a war, which killed half of humanity. Eight months into a bloody stalemate, the EF Space Force (EFSF) is at Side 5 picking up their new battleship, White Base, with Zeon ships hot on their tail. Amuro Ray is a high school student whose dad is a class-A jerk and an engineer on the Gundam project, and he gets sucked in to piloting the ship and drafted into the EFSF. The ace pilot on the Zeon side is Char Aznable, who has plans of his own. This is how Mobile Suit Gundam (aka 0079) starts.

The general through plot is that Zeon Zum Deikun wanted to make/keep peace with the Feddies, but he was assassinated. The Zabi family takes charge of Side 7 and uses Zeon's name to promote their cause. Because of the pressure of living in space, some humans have evolved into Newtypes (yes, what the long-running Japanese anime magazine is named for). The Zeons want to harness the power of Newtypes to make space free from the Earth-bound government. The Feddies think Newtypes are dangerous and want to eliminate them.

The One Year War is fought to a truce in the year 0080, but politics and all that means that wars happen again and again, in 0087, 0088, 0093, and 0096. The One Year War provides a setting for a lot of side stories, most of which I haven't seen. And I will confess that I primarily know Z, ZZ, Char's Counterattack, F91, and Victory from playing the Gundam Musou games. I hear that F91 is terrible, and Victory is depressing, but not as bad as War in the Pocket (which I have also never seen, because I hear everyone dies.)

0079 exists as the 49-episode TV series and 3 compilation movies. The compilation movies get you the gist of the story, and if you want to start with a UC series, you could do worse than the movies. These are all available on Blu-Ray in the US, and the TV series is streaming on Funimation.com as of June 2021.

My favorites of the UC series are the 08th MS Team and 0083: Stardust Memory. Of the two, 08th MS Team is better as far as plotting and pacing go, but Anavel Gato of 0083 is my favorite villain.

The 08th MS Team (1996-99) is a wonderful entry point. It's a 12-episode OVA series (there's a 13th episode that was a 10-year-anniversary special, but it's not good; it's from the POV of the most annoying character) about a half-dozen Federation soldiers and their fight to defend their part of Earth from Zeon. Shiro Amada and his team are sent to reinforce a base. The local Zeon commander has a mobile armor (a really big robot, which isn't particularly mobile, because it's that huge), which is piloted by someone Shiro knows. Once this is discovered, Shiro is arrested for treason (which is the plot of the mid-series recap movie Miller's Report.)

It's moderately gritty, but not, like, Full Metal Jacket levels. The OP animation gives you a good idea of it, though it's a little cheery. This show also serves as the basis for my favorite AMV of all time, which the creator to the best of my knowledge has never uploaded, so there are only low-res uploads on YT. SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE THING AHOY. Tenth Man Down (It also introduced me to Nightwish, so double win.)

This is available in the US on Blu-Ray and DVD via your favorite retailer.

0083: Stardust Memory (1991-92) is a side-story which is never mentioned in the rest of UC canon (for reasons explained at the end of the OVAs.) Zeon ace pilot Anavel Gato steals the prototype Gundam GP-02A, and Feddie pilot Kou Uraki is assigned to get it back from him using the GP-01. The engineer from Anaheim Electronics, Nina Purpleton, had a relationship with Gato in the past, and that causes Trouble, of course. Gato's fleet has a plan for the GP-02A, which is equipped with a nuclear warhead.

As I recall it, the pacing is a bit off, but I like it anyway. The OP and ED songs are extremely 1991. Shoji Kawamori (of Macross) did the mecha designs.

This is also available on Blu-Ray in the US via your favorite retailer. (The DVDs are 4x as expensive, so I suspect it's out of print.)

Where do I start with the mecha franchises? Part 1: Macross

 A person I met at a con recently asked where the best place to start with Macross and Gundam is. That's not an easy question! Let's dig in.

Macross

The Macross franchise started in 1982 with Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, which ran for 36 episodes. If you're my age, or maybe a little younger, you may have seen the heavily edited version called Robotech in your cartoons. I won't be getting into the gigantic licensing nightmare between Tatsunoko/Big West and Harmony Gold & Carl Macek, because it's very complicated and I don't know all the details. But fans rejoiced in April when they announced that the license dispute was resolved, and we'll be (eventually) getting legit Macross over here.

So. SDF Macross. In 1999, a city-sized alien spaceship crashes on a remote island on Earth (the setting for 2002's Macross Zero). Naturally, human scientists want to reverse engineer the hell out of it, and they make transforming fighter jets using the technology they found. They rebuild the ship, but at its launch, the alien Zentradi attack. It turns out that the ship has space-folding technology, so they use it to escape ... and bring a whole mess of civilians with them. And then the fold tech breaks. The story revolves around the inhabitants of this new spaceship colony getting back to Earth under conventional power while not being blown up by the Zentradi (all male) or the Meltran (all female). To keep the population entertained, an idol contest is held, and Lynn Minmay is one of the contestants. Her songs become surprisingly popular among the Zentradi, which causes a major cultural shift. It seems like the statute of limitations on spoilers for a 30-year-old show should be up, but I won't say any more. The plot is on Wikipedia if you want all the spoilers.

I don't know how readily available the 2002 AnimEigo DVD release of SDF Macross is, but that was the last legitimately licensed Macross in the US. Hopefully this will change quickly!

If you can get your hands on it, honestly, this is a fine place to start. You could probably watch Frontier or Delta and enjoy them, but the big reveals at the end might not mean anything to you, other than "something huge is going on here."

The other Macross with a real US license (lapsed or not) is Macross Plus (1994-95). If you don't have the stamina or level of interest to watch a full 36-ep series, this OVA series (or its movie compilation) is a good place to start. The music is by Yoko Kanno, and Shinichiro Watanabe (of Cowboy Bebop) directed. The easiest summary is that it's Top Gun with transforming fighter jets and a holographic AI idol singer named Sharon Apple. It had a US release by Manga Entertainment in 1999, which may or may not still be in print.

There are a few other entries in the franchise, which I'll touch on here, but all the information is available on Wikipedia.

Macross 7 (1994-95; 49 episodes) is one of those shows that people love or hate. It starts off really rough (like season 1 of Babylon 5 rough), and it's a lot more goofy than the rest. The action is on the 7th Macross fleet in the year 2040. There's a band called Fire Bomber, and for some reason, their music creates some sort of harmonic resonance that makes the enemies attacking them stop attacking. The lead singer and guitarist is Nekki Basara, and he doesn't want to fight. But to get their music to the enemy ships, Fire Bomber has to go out in transforming fighter jets. Basara pilots his with a guitar, and he doesn't fire ammo; he launches speaker pods, which take his song directly to the enemy pilots.

You really shouldn't think about it too hard. (Well, you shouldn't think about any of this too hard.) I like it because it's goofy and knows it, and I like Fire Bomber's music.

Macross Zero (2002) goes here; it's an origin story that only makes sense once you've seen Frontier and Delta.

Next up is Macross Frontier (2008, 25 episodes), set in 2059. The Macross fleets are expanding across space, and pop idol Sheryl Nome visits the Frontier. Ranka Lee is a contestant in an idol contest, and she and Sheryl are linked in a way that neither suspects. The attacking enemy this time is the Vajra, and Ranka and Sheryl sing at them to make them go away.

Delta (2016, 26 episodes) is set in 2067. There is a mysterious plague on some colony worlds that sends people berserk. But an idol group's music can calm them. There are mysterious ace pilots from another part of the galaxy who want to overthrow the government of UN Spacy.

Naturally, the creators want the new series to be attractive to new fans who weren't alive when SDF or Plus or 7 came out, so the stories are fairly well self-contained, except for a lot of callbacks to earlier series (pineapple fucking salad). In Frontier, Ozma Lee is a Fire Bomber fan. The bassist of Fire Bomber is the daughter of 2 ace pilots from the original series. One of the members of Delta squadron is a granddaughter of the ace pilots. And a lot of things make more sense if you've seen everything up to that point. There's an overarching plot for all of it.

What should you expect from a Macross show?

• transforming fighter jets
• cool dogfights with the Itano Circus
• pop music that makes the enemies stop fighting
• a love triangle (usually between 2 women and a man but sometimes 2 men and a woman (Plus, 7 sort of)) that involves at least one idol singer and one ace pilot. I don't think they're ever resolved, and one of them you could resolve into an OT3 without breaking canon.
• it's really cool when the ENTIRE DANG SPACESHIP transforms (because of course it can)

Next time: Gundam (in what may be a multi-part series; I have a lot of opinions.)

Apropos of a conversation on twitter...

I made a spreadsheet with the list of anime I need to watch or rewatch, and it's a lot.

Take a look for yourselves, and talk to me about what's on your list!

Current anime season roundup

I'm watching a lot of shows this season. Let's see if I can remember them all for this post.

Returning
Valvrave the Liberator: Picking up where it left off in summer, Valvrave continues the story of the space colonist high school students who think they can be a real government and outwit the other governments made up of real politicians. I'm finding that I hate it less than last season, because the increasing levels of WTFery seem to have plateaued. I mean, once you have space vampires and space nazis, an evil space illuminati isn't that much of a stretch. Also, there's more L-elf, who is actually competent and knows what he's doing, and he's in charge. They also appear to be pandering to fangirls with L-elf and Haruto. Watch it on Crunchyroll.

New
Gingitsune: Gintaro is a fox spirit in a shrine. Makoto is the priestess (in training) at the shrine. She can see Gin and other holy spirits. Her father invites the son of his teacher's fellow student to live with them, and when Satoru arrives, a young fox spirit is with him. I think this show is a lot of fun, mainly because I want a sarcastic fox spirit with a giant floofy tail of my very own. Makoto has traits that remind me of Tohru from Fruits Basket (relentlessly cheerful; helpful, if clumsy). Watch it on Crunchyroll.

Gundam Build Fighters: Bandai & Sunrise made a show about building plastic model kits (plamo or gunpla), because they knew fanboys would eat that shit up and also buy their plastic model kits. The trick is that they handwaved a magic game system where people put their models and fight other people's models, and the fighter's strength is based on how good the model work is. I'm not making this up, I swear. This show is targeted at avid Gundam fans, and it includes mecha from all the series. I'll be happy if I can buy a GP-02 model kit because of this show, though I'm reminded of the large stack of gunpla I need to build...

Kill La Kill: Ryuko Matoi arrives at Honnouji Academy to find out who killed her father and stole the other half of his magic scissors. Honnouji is under the control of Satsuki Kiryuin, who is working to take over all of Japan and turn it into a weird fascist system. School council members get special uniforms that grant them superhuman abilities. Ryuko finds a special uniform under the ruins of her family home. It is very strange, and every episode has homages to old anime. It treads a fine line between self-awareness of the trope of female armor that isn't really armor and fanservice pandering. (I think it falls slightly on the self-aware side.) Watch it on Crunchyroll.

Samurai Flamenco: Model and sentai-show fan Masayoshi Hazama decides to put on a costume and become a vigilante. He meets police officer Hidenori Goto, who tries to convince him to give it up and let the pros handle it. Hazama doesn't listen. He befriends an idol singer who is also a sentai-show fan, and she teams up with him. It's very silly. Watch it on Crunchyroll.

Anime you should watch: Gankutsuou

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, written by Natsuko Takahashi and Tomohiro Yamashita, directed by Mahiro Maeda/GONZO, 2004

This retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo is set in the year 5053, in France. The art is very stylized, and GONZO was experimenting a lot with colors and textures in the animation.

A mysterious man calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo appears to young Albert Morcerf while Albert is on vacation on the moon colony, and the Count works his way into the Morcerf family's confidence when they return to Paris. The Count's secret identity is Edmond Dantes, who was Albert's mother's lover and who was unjustly imprisoned in the Chateau d'If.

In the Chateau d'If, Dantes met a demon, Gankutsuou, who made a deal for his freedom. Dantes is free, and he's seeking revenge.

I haven't actually read the classic novel, so I don't know how closely it follows the original. I don't think there are any literal demons involved in Dumas' version, just the usual figurative ones. This version focuses on Albert and his friends, and the new relationship between Albert and the Count.

It was originally released in the US by Geneon, who were among the casualties of the anime bubble burst. Funimation rescued the license and has released it in a value pack. You can watch all 24 episodes on Crunchyroll or hulu.

Anime season recap: summer 2013

The season has ended, and three shows I was watching concluded.

Attack on Titan: Recommended, with the caveat that it's brutal and bleak and bloody and giants eat (or squish) everyone you love. The animation quality is absurdly high. Not all of the plot threads are resolved: what is under the remains of Eren's house in Shiganshina? What secret about the titans will he find there? I hope there's another series in a few seasons that answers those questions.

Genshiken Nidaime: Recommended if you liked original flavor Genshiken. This follows the current run of the manga, with Ogiue as club president and Ohno working on graduating, plus a handful of fujoshi who join the club. The cross-dressing subplot is handled ... (in comparison to other recent anime) not too horribly, but it may make some viewers in the trans* community uncomfortable.

Free!: I won't recommend this (the story isn't anything to write home about), but it's definitely fun, if you enjoy bishounen reverse harem shows.

Anime you should watch: Kids on the Slope

Kids on the Slope, manga by Yuki Kodama, anime by Shinichirou Watanabe/Fuji TV, music by Yoko Kanno

High school freshman Kaoru Nishimi moves to a small town in Kyushu to live with relatives. He meets notorious bad boy Sentarou Kawabuchi and their classmate Ritsuko Megae, whose father owns a record shop with a rehearsal space in the basement.

Kaoru's family insisted he study classical piano. He's a very serious boy, studious and a bit uptight. Sentarou gets into fights and likes playing jazz drums. As the two become friends, Kaoru starts to loosen up (a bit) and learns to play jazz. Much of the story revolves around a budding romance and the trio's daily school life.

Set in 1966, KotS also shows the conflict going on in society. Sentarou's role model, Jun, has gone to Tokyo to study, but he gets involved in a student protest movement. On a smaller scale, the trio's classmate Seiji wants to start a rock band like the Beatles, and he asks Sen to drum for him, which sparks a conflict between Sen and Kaoru.

US-based readers can watch all twelve episodes on Crunchyroll.

Anime you should watch: Giant Robo

Giant Robo, Yasuhiro Imagawa/Studio Mu based on manga by Mitsuteru Yokoyama

Professor Shizuma invented a power source that eliminated the need for fossil fuels or nuclear power. Unfortunately, when he and his colleague Franken von Vogler were researching it, they nearly destroyed the world in what became known as the Tragedy of Bashtarle.

Vogler disappeared in the Tragedy of Bashtarle, but ten years later, he's resurfaced and joined the Big Fire group, who are working to recreate the Tragedy. They have superhumans, robots, and monsters.

Working against BF are the International Police Organization. To counter the supernatural elements of BF, they have the Experts of Justice. There's also Daisaku Kusama, who has no superpowers, but he does have a giant robot. (And short shorts.)

There are spies, mecha fights, kung fu fights (including a drunken master), and hijinks. It's a lot of fun and very much in the style of 60s super robot shows.

It was licensed in the US by Media Blasters, which no longer exists, but you can still find copies on Amazon for relatively cheap. If you want to try before you buy, someone has uploaded the US dub opening to YouTube. (FYI: The dub is terrible and makes it sound awful.)

Anime you should watch: Ouran High School Host Club

Ouran High School Host Club manga by Bisco Hatori, anime directed by Takuya Igarashi/Bones

Haruhi Fujioka attends prestigious Ouran High School on a scholarship. On the first day of school, Haruhi stumbles upon the host club, a room where six attractive young men play host to their classmates. (It's like a hostess bar except with boys. And no alcohol.) Haruhi accidentally knocks over a very expensive vase and has to work in the club to pay it off.

This show is a lot better than it really ought to be. It's all the high school tropes smashed up together: the trouble-making trickster redhead twins, the gentle giant, the shota boy, the Serious One with the glasses, and the Class President. But the anime plays everything up for fun rather than taking itself seriously.

The Alice/Haruhi in Wonderland episode is brilliant. The rival Lobelia Academy's Takarazuka club makes for great comedy, too.

You can watch it here.

Anime you should watch: Macross

Super Dimensional Fortress Macross et seq. Noburo Ishiguro, Shoji Kawamori, Ichiro Itano/Studio Nue/Tatsunoko Productions

People of a certain age may remember a show called Robotech that played on TV in the afternoons after school. Robotech was based (very loosely) on SDF Macross (and some other giant robot shows).

The original series, SDF Macross, began in 1982. In 1999, a spaceship crashes on Earth. UN forces work to understand the technology. In 2009, they've figured it out, and they're about to launch the ship when aliens, the Zentradi--giant humanoids--, attack. The SDF launches, but it accidentally takes along a big chunk of the city around it, civilians and all. Roy Fokker is head of the Skull Squadron, which includes Hikaru Ichijou.

The civilians make the most of living in a giant spaceship (that also transforms), and they hold a pageant, where Lin Minmei (Lynn Minmay) sings. The Zentradi are horrified at Protoculture (music, kissing).

I'm not sure how best to summarize a franchise that's been running for thirty-one years. There are giant robots that transform into fighter jets (the original VF-1s are based on the F-14 Tomcat). There are aliens. There's pop music and love triangles. There are space battles. There's the Itano Circus.

Macross Plus is about a pair of test pilots who hate each other but love the same woman. The idol singer is a computer program named Sharon Apple.

In Macross, Zentradi ace pilot Myria Fallyna marries human ace pilot Max Jenius. They have many kids. They take command of Macross 7, a colonization fleet. She's the mayor, he's the ship's captain. Their youngest daughter Mylene plays bass in a rock band, Fire Bomber. The guitarist, Nekki Basara, prefers to sing at the enemy than fight them.

Macross Zero tells the story of how aliens got to Earth in the first place.

Macross Frontier tells the story of the Frontier, another colony fleet, which encounters the vajra, a hive-mind enemy of sorts. There are tons of references to SDF Macross, including episode titles. Ozma Lee, one of the main secondary characters, is a Fire Bomber fan, so the formations of his squadron (Skull Squadron, of course) are all named for Fire Bomber songs.

To properly enjoy the Macross franchise, you have to let go of seriousness. It's a show about pop music saving the world at the same time as it's a show about giant transforming robot-planes blowing up aliens.

Finding it to watch is another story. Because Harmony Gold bought the rights to original Macross in the US and then mashed it together with two other shows to make Robotech, and they claim the rights to all Macross everything. You can still find Do You Remember Love? and Macross Plus on Amazon, but any other DVDs with English subtitles are bootlegs and you shouldn't buy them. There are ways to get around these things, but you're on your own for that.

Anime you should watch: Voices of a Distant Star

Voices of a Distant Star, written, animated, and directed by Makoto Shinkai, 2002.

Back in 2002, digital animation was slowly increasing in popularity in Japan. CG backgrounds or CG battleships and hand-drawn people were becoming more common and starting to look less god-awful.

Then one day, everyone started talking about this guy Shinkai, who was releasing a 30-minute OVA he'd done entirely on his Power Mac G4, with friends supplying the voices. It was a hit.

In 2046, aliens attack Earth, and Mikako becomes a pilot to defend the planet. She keeps in touch with her best friend/boyfriend Noboru via text messages from her phone. As she goes further into space, the messages take longer and longer to arrive. They try to stay connected over increasing distance--and age.

As a story, it's somewhat psychological, exploring emotional distance through literal physical distance. As to the animation quality, the blending of CG with hand-drawn elements is much better than its contemporaries, and it's almost seamless. (For an example of bad early attempts at blending CG and hand-drawn animation, I give you Blue Sub No 6.)

ADV brought this out in the US, and ADV went belly-up in the great US-anime-company bubble burst of 2008. (Technically, they split into multiple branches like a hydra, since ... well, it's complicated.) Copies--even used--are running upwards of $60 on Amazon right now, so good luck if you want to own a copy.

US-based readers can watch it streaming on Crunchyroll.

Anime you should watch: Here is Greenwood

Here is Greenwood, manga by Yukie Nasu (1987-91), OVA series directed by Tomomi Michizuki/Studio Pierrot, Asia-Do (1991-93)

Kazuya Hasukawa arrives at Ryokuto Academy late, and the only room left is in Greenwood dorm with Shun Kisaragi, a very feminine-looking young man*. The heads of the dorm are Shinobu Tezuka, who has a rich family and a strange sister, and Mitsuru Ikeda.

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Kazuya has to deal with the very eccentric people living in his dorm, like the motorcycle fanatic and Shinobu and Mitsuru (they're best friends and roommates; they count as a unit). His older brother married the girl Kazuya had a crush on when he was younger, and now the brother is the school doctor. Kazuya moved out of his home and into the dorm to get away from his brother and the girl he crushed on for years.

The six OVAs revolve around Kazuya and the guys in the dorm. One episode is about an inter-dorm competition for prize money, wherein the guys of Greenwood make a movie called "Here is Devilwood," a very tropey fantasy thing starring Shinobu as the evil wizard. The last two are about Kazuya meeting a girl his own age and falling for her and their budding romance.

*It's been a while since I watched this. The way Shun is introduced to Kazuya (he pretends to be a girl living in the boys' dorm For Reasons to haze the newbie) is problematic. Shun is not intended to portray a trans* person (he is decidedly a man). This may turn some people off. Decide for yourselves.

Getting a copy in the US is [currently] easy. Copies are available on Amazon for very reasonable prices, new and used. This may change in the future. Media Blasters' license expired, and Central Park Media relicensed (and redubbed) it. I'm not sure what the current license status is, because CPM went bankrupt in 2009.

Anime summer 2013

It's a new anime season, so there are new shows! Here's what I'm watching, and also what I tried and gave up on.

Tried and abandoned

I give you the links, so you can watch an episode or two and decide for yourselves.

Gatchaman Crowds This reboot of the classic 70s series "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman" didn't do it for me. At all. The main character is an archetype that I want to stake in the heart, set on fire, and shoot its ashes to the sun for good measure. She's irritating as hell. She has a notebook fetish. She goes around loudly announcing that she's in Gatchaman. She's Haruhi fucking Suzumiya, whom I also wanted to stab in the throat. Ain't got time for that.

Devils and Realist So, a few years ago there was this show that was pretty popular called "Black Butler," where the heir to a family enters into a contract with this demon who's been working as his family's butler for a long time. D&R is in that vein, except where as Ciel accepted Sebastian's service, the lead of D&R is a realist, who believes only in science. Which could lead to a lot of humor, except it doesn't. Complicating things, William is the reincarnation of (that) Solomon and the elector of Hell, and Dantalion is a nephilim who wants to rule while Lucifer is sleeping. It is a ridiculous, confusing amalgamation of Old Testament lore. (Also, Solomon had yellow-blond hair and blue eyes. Not particularly likely...)

Uchouten Kazoku Yasaburo is a tanuki living in Kyoto. He just wants to have fun, but his father was powerful in tanuki society, so there are high expectations on him and his brothers. Cute concept, but it really didn't do anything for me. (Tanuki are also known as raccoon dogs, and in Japanese lore, they're shapeshifters and tricksters.)

Still watching

Attack on Titan Continuing on from last season.

Free! a/k/a "the bishounen swimming anime." This offering from KyoAni, purveyors of such fine moe-blob (ware: TV Tropes link) animation as K-On! and Clannad, is about four young men on a swim team. They all have feminine names. They used to swim together in middle school, then the red-haired one went to Australia to go to a school for swimming. The other three (the genki blond, the cheerful brunet, and the weird black-haired one) stayed together. The genki blond decides they should restart their high school's swim club to make the black-haired one happy. (He really likes swimming. He wears swim trunks under his clothes, and in a running gag, whenever he sees water, he strips and jumps in.)

The red-haired one's sister, who has a masculine name, offers to be their manager. She frequently comments on the boys' deltoids, traps, and assorted upper body musculature. It isn't particularly deep, but it's fun.

Genshiken Nidaime This is the second TV season (not counting the OVAs) about a college anime club. It's like the first season, except there are mostly new people. I'm vaguely uncomfortable with the way two of the characters treat the male crossdresser (a new character, who is a straight man but likes reading BL and wearing women's clothes), but they're actually fairly realistic from what I've heard. (One wants her to just stop crossdressing and be a boy; the other treats her like a girl except when she wants to look up her skirt.) But I really don't expect careful explorations of gender issues from anime.

All the characters are fucked up in some way or other, in ways which will be familiar to anyone who has ever attended a college (or high school) anime club.

Anime you should watch: Gundam: The 08th MS Team

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, Takeyuki Kanda, Umanosuke Iida; Sunrise/Bandai.

Shiro Amada is sent to Earth to help fight Zeon. He joins up with his new squad, and they work alongside local guerrillas to drive out the Zeon occupiers. Zeon has a terrifying huge new mobile armor, piloted by Aina Sakhalin.

The Gundam franchise started in 1979 with MS Gundam: 0079, in which the Principality of Zeon attacked Side 7 (space colonies are called Sides here) in order to find out more about the Federation's weapon capabilities. They discover the Gundam (RX-78). The Side is evacuated, and Char Aznable, Zeon ace pilot, chases the ship, White Base, to destroy it.

There are a lot of different, unrelated Gundam timelines, but UC (Universal Century) is the original. The UC Gundam series include 0079, 08th MS Team, 0080/War in the Pocket, Z, ZZ, Char's Counterattack, 0083 Stardust Memory, Unicorn, and Turn-A. The basic plot behind the UC timeline is this: Earth became overpopulated, so people started colonizing space. They built Sides at Lagrange points. The Sides were all basically united under the Earth Federation, until Zeon zum Deikun decided to declare independence for Side 3. The Federation didn't like that, so there was a war. (It's a bit more complicated than that, but there's your 30-second summary.)

08th MS Team takes place in 0079 in Southeast Asia, while White Base is fighting Char elsewhere. The series was released direct to video (which, in Japan, doesn't imply terrible quality; frequently the opposite: OVA series have higher budgets and more time to do the animation) in 11 episodes and an (entirely unnecessary) epilogue between 1996 and 1999. It stands alone from the rest of the UC series quite well and can be watched without further knowledge of the timeline, though knowing about the internal conflict in Zeon between the Zabis and Zeon zum Deikun's family helps.

In my opinion, this is the best Gundam series. It's self-contained, and it's paced well. The animation has held up over time: a lot of shows from the late 90s look very dated, but this doesn't. (Much.)

Unfortunately, after Bandai USA closed up shop, this went out of print in the US, so good luck finding a copy at a reasonable price. Amazon is currently listing the DVD set at $120 new, with some used copies as low at $50. (When it was in print, it sold for about $35.)

You can get a taste of it in this awesome fan-made video set to "Tenth Man Down" by Nightwish.

Anime you should watch: Eden of the East

Eden of the East, Kenji Kamiyama/Production I.G

Akira Takizawa wakes up completely naked, in front of the White House, with a gun and a cell phone. He has no memories of how he got there or why he's at the White House, naked, with a gun. The cops notice him and start chasing him around DC, where he runs into Saki Morimi, visiting the city as part of a graduation trip.

Three months before the show opens, there was a terrorist attack called "Careless Monday," in which missiles struck ten uninhabited parts of Japan. When Saki and Akira are returning to Japan, they learn of another missile strike.

Saki's friends created an image search engine cum social network, called Eden of the East, and through Eden, they learn that Akira isn't who he claims he is.

Akira is part of a game to "save Japan." He's one of the Seleção, chosen by Mr. Outside. His cell phone connects to Juiz, who uses the funds attached to the player's magic phone to make their orders happen.

Over the course of the show, the strange secret conspiracy becomes more and more dangerous. Players who run out of money before winning the game are killed. Saki tries to unravel the mystery around Akira, and she and her friends get in over their heads.

You can watch it at Funimation.

Anime Wednesday: season's end update

The current anime season has ended, and I thought I'd give y'all my thoughts on the shows I introduced here now that they're complete (or at a stopping point).

Hataraku Maou-sama! (complete at 13 episodes): This was fun and silly and cute. There is an overarching story, which revolves around Emilia the Hero wanting to fulfill her duty to kill the Dark Lord and the Dark Lord basically wanting to pay all his bills. When more people from Ente Isla show up, it gets harder for Emi and Maou to maintain the equilibrium they reached.

Also, Lucifer as a NEET is hilarious.

Suisei no Gargantia (complete at 13 episodes): This is a well-plotted story, and it has a satisfying ending. There were a couple surprises I didn't see coming, or didn't expect quite the way they were done, (and a couple I did), but the plot arced in about the way I expected it to. The main conflict was Ledo learning what it's like to live as a human rather than a soldier. He also uncovers some lost knowledge about what happened when people left Earth, which sets off emotional turmoil. I don't really want to spoil you. It's good, and you should watch it.

Attack on Titan: BRUTAL. The story gets a little WTF around episode 6, but it's explained, and the explanation works. The soldiers react realistically to seeing their friends and squadmates get eaten by giants; they're not all stoic and all. Still brutal, still gorgeously animated. Definitely worth watching if you can handle the BRUTAL.

A friend commented that it wasn't the blood spatter and giants' eating people that bothered her, but the characters' reactions to it--bugged-out eyes, panting or gasping, general horror--that did. Unlike a lot of shows I've seen that involve basically killing a lot of people, Titan shows people reacting to losing their friends. It's a reminder to the viewer that the faceless mooks aren't actually faceless.

Valvrave the Liberator (will resume in fall?): Oh god this show is so dumb. I swear the people who wrote it were drunk or on some really good drugs. That or they had every trope ever written on cards stuck to the wall and threw darts at it to see what happened next. Vampire aliens, space nazis, secret military plot to use high school kids as pilots of secret space alien mecha, the illuminati, a girl who wants to be a idol singer, fridged female love interest, genki girl whose dad is the prime minister and whom everyone likes, juvenile delinquent guy, hikikomori, hapless bishounen class president...

I'm mainly watching to find out what dumb thing they're going to do next. I haven't been able to predict many things, primarily because the plot looks like it's doing this thing and then suddenly a wild PLOT DEVICE appears out of nowhere and makes you go WTF? Though it was really obvious that PM Dad was going to be killed in the space nazi fleet and that JD guy was going to pilot one of the mecha.

If you decide to watch it, don't say I didn't warn you.

Anime you should watch: Broken Blade

Broken Blade, manga by Yunosuke Yoshinaga, anime directed by Tetsuro Amino, produced by Production I.G and Xebec.

Rygart Arrow is an un-sorcerer: unable to move quartz even the smallest amount, unlike everyone else on the continent of Cruzon. This makes him completely unable to control the quartz-powered mecha he tried to learn to pilot at Assam Military Academy.

Rygart receives a letter from his former classmate King Hodr, informing him that he needs to come to the capital of Krisna because war is about to break out, and they've discovered a strange mecha (called golems here) in a mineshaft. It appears to be a remnant of a vanished civilization, and none of the people who can control quartz can get it to move. Queen Sigyn, an engineer, thinks Rygart is the key to using it.

The Athens Commonwealth has begun invading. Their strike teams are made up of powerful sorcerers, and they overwhelm all defenders. The leader of the strongest strike team is Rygart and co's friend from the Academy, Zess.

Unlike most other mecha shows, this is fantasy. I was intrigued to find out whether a mecha fantasy would even work, and I was glad to learn that it did. The way the golems work is interesting, and the ways they break are also interesting.

There are a lot of political machinations going on, and there's plenty of interpersonal drama going around.

The only thing that keeps me from whole-heartedly recommending this is the completely unnecessary fanservice. (By definition, fanservice is unnecessary, so that's a little redundant.) There are multiple lingering pans over Sigyn's ample bosom. It's not all the time--and Sigyn is generally shown to be extremely competent at her engineering job, if a bit scattered--but it diminished my enjoyment ever so slightly.

The series was produced as six one-hour movies. The animation quality is therefore higher than the average 12-episode TV series. US-based readers can watch it at crunchyroll.

Anime you should watch: Irresponsible Captain Tylor

Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Kouichi Mashimo/Tatsunoko Production, 1993.

Justy Ueki Tylor is assigned to the Soyokaze, an aging spaceship of the United Planets Space Force. He's the type of person who somehow manages to stumble along despite being completely oblivious to everything. He's just lucky.

When Tylor enlisted, he thought he'd get a desk job and have a peaceful life. He's barely finished the qualifying exam when war breaks out with the Raalgon Empire, and he's thrust into the middle of it. Tylor's superior officers don't think much of him, because he's so feckless and lazy, but he manages to get the job done (or, in one memorable episode, doesn't at all).

Tylor and his crew get involved in hijinks, both on their own accord and because the admiralty is trying to kill Tylor. When the Raalgon capture him with the intention of executing him, the stakes get higher.

The 26-episode series is not available streaming online, but copies are available for purchase from RightStuf, whose Nozomi Entertainment branch owns the US license.

Anime you should watch: Rideback

Rideback, manga by Tetsurou Kasahara (2003-09), anime adaptation (2009) by Atsushi Takahashi (dir), Hideo Takayashiki & Ken Iizuka (writers) (Madhouse)

In the not-so-distant future, the Global Government Plan has taken over the world, creating a military dictatorship. Rin Ogata's mother was a famous ballerina, and Rin was on the path to becoming a famous ballerina herself until she severely injured her foot during a performance. When she gets to college, she discovers the Rideback club, a group of hobbyists who ride transforming motorcycles, and she gets to dance again.

(Screencap from nyaatorrents.org)

Rin takes quickly to Fuego, the Rideback she's assigned in the club, and she competes in the obligatory race. (The manga ran in a seinen (teenaged boys) magazine.) The plot thickens when the BMA, an anti-GGP organization, begins staging protests, and Rin's younger brother gets involved.

Unfortunately, the anime adaptation was only 12 episodes long. When it ends, the broader hints of a dystopian setting are only starting to become visible. With the current state of the manga industry in the US, odds that we'll see the 10 volumes released in English are very low.

US-based readers can watch it free at Funimation.