Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

I personally do not know a single person who has watched the Giant Robo OVA. The retro character designs and animation and that fact that the Original Giant Robo was a live-action show in the 1960s is quite a put-off to most people. But if you can get over these minor issues, what awaits is an epic tale of a twelve year old boy and his best friend growing up in between a massive battle royale between the forces of not-so-good and not-so-evil.

Giant Robo!

Only the best friend happens to be the most powerful Giant Robo in the world. It’s designed Egyptian style too.

Punch, Giant Robo!

A quick background about this OVA series – the OVA started in 1992 with the first two episodes. The third episode was delayed and took some extra time. The fourth took even longer. Episode five was relatively quick, but six came out a full year after five. Now, the grand finale was of the OVA, episode seven, came out three (3!) years after that! Each of these episodes are about 40 minutes long, save for the last ep which was 1 hour, and end at absolute cliff hangers. So imagine the excruciating wait for each episode the fans had to suffer. I do not know the reasons for the delay but in the end, we still got a great product.

Setting
The OVA is just one story arc in the entire GR saga but I don’t think any more were ever made. Entitled “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, the story is set in a world where a completely renewable energy source, the Shizuma Drive, has completely replaced all other energy sources and solved all the current fuel issues plaguing Earth. There are two factions, the “good’ International Police Organisation and the “evil” Big Fire Organisation, who have been battling it out since god knows when. Both organisations have Experts with superpowers so there’s loads of cool fighting.

The Shizuma Drive - pollution-free and everlasting energy

Story
I’ll try to avoid spoilers. The storyline of GR is really fantastic, there are endless, logical plot twists and the pacing is just right. The seven episodes each represent a single day, so the story actually concludes in seven days.

Our protagonist, twelve-year old Kusama Daisaku’s parents worked for the BF organisation and created the strongest fighting machine, Giant Robo. However, they had second thoughts about using their machine for carnage. So they were murdered. Before that, the dad coded GR so that he would only respond to Daisaku’s commands. And so, Daisaku escapes with GR and joins the IPO. At the beginning of the OVA, he’s the biggest Narutoish retard you’ll ever see. But fitting the theme of growing up, by the end of the series, he’s a proper man you’ll cheer for.

Go Go Daisaku! From rubbish to hero

Basically, Dr. Franken von Vogler and his team of scientists screwed up big time in the process of creating the perfect energy source. Boom, a country was destroyed by the blast. One of his colleagues, Dr Shizuma, then continues the research and succeeds. Ten years later, Dr Vogler returns with a doomsday device, set to destroy the world for revenge. He’s backed by the BF Organisation, who think they can rule the world with his help. The IPO has to stop them at all costs!

This is not Gantz.

This sounds lame, and the first two episodes aren’t that fantastic. But as the plot twists kick in, what seems to be right isn’t, and what was wrong becomes right. Wait, that’s wrong. Because nothing is right and nothing is wrong. It’s all grey. All this time, Daisaku wails like a little girl deprived of her heroin.

He does a fine job of wailing though. His seiyuu must be the best I’ve heard at bringing out raw emotion.

Every episode ups the pace and pressure. By episode four, the final battle begins. Do the math, that means the final battle lasts for 3 hours. 3 hours of plot twists, non-stop action and heroic deaths. Two guys can be fighting in one corner, while Robo and his nemesis duke it out in the other, and at the same time, a mass battle between semi-grunts of both sides commence. Don’t forget Daisaku arguing with the enemy on what is right and wrong, while his best friends get chopped to pieces. The totally seamless action makes it really exciting.

Cast
Daisaku needs help. Aiding him are a massive cast of characers, some original, some taken from historical figures. There is a strong Chinese flavour here, with majority of the IPO being from China with Chinese names. The HQ of the IPO is Ryouzanpaku aka Liang Shan aka the famed Water Margin. Yes, that’s the story of the 108 stars of Destiny that the Suikoden series is based on. Some of Daisaku’s comrades are the actual Water Margin Characters themselves, such as Taisou, Tetsugyuu and Gokakyuu. All Japanicised of course. All have superpowers to some extent, but it’s not like the X-men kind, rather a more retro type. Examples are Taisou’s energy ball attacks and Gokakyuu’s big fan attacks.

The IPO has the only decent looking female - Gin Rei. They also have lots of sibling characters.

More importantly, the characters are all very memorable and multi-dimensional. Each of them are powered by different motivations and some die, but die memorably. Everyone of them teach Daisaku and us, the viewers, important lessons on life.

The bad guys are cool. In fact, they are cooler. The organisation has one goal – world domination. But this OVA has baddies who are hell-bent on revenge and want to destroy the world. So the pro-world baddies fight the pro-destruction baddies, while the good guys fight both of these. The famous strategist from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Saga, Zhuge Liang, makes an appearance as the advisor of the BF Organisation too.

Villians galore! Some are nice guys who just have bad taste.

Interestingly, the weakest character is Daisaku. His power is shouting into his communicator/wrist watch. And he has about… 3 commands. “Crush, Giant Robo! Go, Giant Robo! Get up, Giant Robo!” GR’s AI is amazing.

I wish I had a 10000 tonne Robo summoning wrist watch.

Music
Amazing soundtrack! The main theme especially, is really the orchestral kind that makes you want to stand up and join in the fight. It reminds me of Xenogears’ main theme, Flight and FF7’s Highwind theme. I can’t find the GR music anywhere though, does any kind soul here know?

Conclusion
Don’t be put off by the retro character designs and the dated animation. If you claim to be a true anime fan, then you cannot miss this classic.

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