Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1992)

(www.plasticpals.com) Back when the original animation series Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still was new on VHS, I rented each episode in succession and was enjoying them up until episode 6 ended on one hell of a cliffhanger. Unfortunately for me and many other fans, the 7th and final episode in the series wasn't out — and wouldn't be out for almost three years! In the meantime I lost track of things amidst the likes of Neon Genesis Evangelion and school.I've just spent the last week watching the whole series, more than a decade after its completion, and I'm pleased to say Yasuhiro Imagawa's mid-'90s re-imagining of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's '60s manga series hasn't aged a day. The animation quality is top notch, and the accompanying orchestral score is still one of the best to grace an anime, with even each credit roll getting its own unique composition.The story is set in the near future with the third energy revolution only 10 years old. Petroleum and nuclear power have been replaced by the seemingly perfect Shizuma Drive; a non-polluting energy canister-type device that now powers virtually everything on the planet. Mixed with the high tech are turn of the century design motifs like air ships, and characters which seem to have time-travelled from a fantasy medieval China, inspired by Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms manga. This concoction is a bit bizarre but works, and though the late episodes throw new characters into the mix at an insane pace, the early episodes manage to sketch in the key players well enough that you'll care about them.The only catch with the Shizuma Drive is the Tragedy of Bashtarle: a catastrophic explosion that wiped out nearly a third of the world's population during a botched experiment with the drive's prototype. The accident was blamed on Professor Vogler, one of the scientists who worked with Dr. Shizuma on the drive. The series starts as the late Professor's spirit reappears to take vengeance on the world, backed by the terrorist organization bent on world domination; Big Fire. The only thing standing in their way is Interpol's Experts of Justice; super-human special agents that take on Big Fire's Magnificent Ten in wild kung-fu-inspired fight scenes. Among the Experts of Justice is Daisaku Kusama, heir to his father's masterpiece, Giant Robo.Despite its title and genre, there are surprisingly few fights involving Giant Robo, let alone giant robots. The main characters do most of the fighting in hand-to-hand combat that would make the X-Men blush. There's enough Giant Robo to satisfy fans, but the story doesn't really revolve around him, or the ones that appear in brief cameos in the introduction. Giant Robo is an excellent example of direct-to-video productions, and despite the somewhat rushed and dissatisfying ending, the road there is worth taking. Some characters and seemingly important elements get tossed aside in the finale without a second thought, such as Big Fire's robot Poseidon. This is probably due to director Yasuhiro Imagawa's plan for a saga comprised of many such episodes, with this particular series taking place near the end. It's a damn shame the eluded-to series that would have preceded and continued the adventures of Daisaku and his giant robot never materialized.

It may have escaped other reviewers but ALL the characters of this show are take from other series.Giant Robo OF COURSE is JAIANTO ROBO, but also BIG FIRE himself is BABIL JUNIOR (residing in the ruins of the Babel Tower with his three guardians...the panther, Rokuros and Poseidon) and even Lord Alberto's psychic daughter...she's Sally the Witch from 'Maho Tsukai Sally' (a 'bewitched'-influenced jap cartoon show of the late 60s). Several of the Magnificen 10 were villains in a early animated show about an antediluvian teen awakening in the present and reactivating a giant mecha from the seabed (I just can't place the name of that series but I have seen it in my youth).All the references and homages of course work just for the Japanese and for the few (lucky?) countries which were flooded by the barrage of ALL the early Japanese cartoon series (I live in Italy and during the late 70s-early 80s we imported almost ALL of the anime which existed to that day...as a result the regular 30-ish male Italian has a passing knowledge of anime to rival that of a non-Japanese 'otaku'...limited to that peculiar period).Well that's it, search the web and find all of the in-jokes and special appearances that literally FILL the animated series.Last hint...director naka-joe's original character appeared of course in a boxing series but you have to take 25-30 years off his current appearance to find out 'where does he come from'.

Giant Robo is like a casserole; some bits are incredibly tasty, and some bits you have to push to the side of the plate. I love most of the incidental characters, especially the bad guys. The scenes where members of the Experts of Justice are facing off against, members of the Magnificent Ten and Big Fire (even the names are cool) are well done. When Ivan the Terrible shoots across a room and his scar glows red, all you can say is "Wow!" Also, several of the non-fight scenes are very well directed, with a lot of atmosphere. There are multiple instances in each episode where one of the good or bad characters does something that just makes you exclaim with joy at its coolness.The problem with this film is that it dwells far too much on big stuff: Giant Robo, cities blowing up, big black orbs trashing out Shanghai, etc. Some of you will say "What do you expect from a movie called Giant Robo?" I have no answer to that. I guess this is what many people want to see. For me, long drawn out animated devastation loses its appeal after about five minutes, especially when they show the same bit of demolition multiple times (i.e. Bashtaralle getting blown up over and over again). Also, the little boy who controls Giant Robo just put me to sleep.This would have been much better if they called it the Experts of Justice, and left out all the big stuff, including Giant Robo. But judging from the other comments, there is apparently an audience for animated cities getting trashed, so who am I to blame the filmmakers.

Giant Robo should have really sucked. It had a retro-futuristic style (think Astro-Boy), it has some really cliched characters and the story doesn't start out in any exceptional way. Except... as the story progresses, these things start to change. Characters lose their one dimensionality and start to have human motivations. Plot twists drive shake everything the narrative has led you to believe. There are times when it appears the story just can't get any bigger, but it does! What makes this series great is giant cast of characters (each with unique abilities, some of which are very original), the twisting of convential anime plot lines and that it doesn't rely purely on shock value or huge explosions to keep you interested. Having seen a lot of the MD Geist-style anime (read: very very bad anime in regards to plot or characterisation), it is great to see a series that doesn't insult my intelligence.There are some negatives to this series - the whiny boy who controls Giant Robo, the voice acting for some of the characters (I saw a dubbed version), there are some really cheesy moments and some anime conventions are still followed religiously (eg the girl (Ginrei sp?) is mostly useless... except when she isn't). A big let-down is the additional episode on the final tape - because there are 7 one-hour episodes, a filler episode called "Barefoot Ginrei" was after the final episode. It doesn't really add anything to the story, and the fact that Ginrei's feet aren't the only things that are bare may have been the reason it was included.Despite this, Giant Robo deserves any accolades it gets. Go out and see it.