Giant
Robo
(The Day the Earth Stood Still)
(Reviewed on 01/22/2003)
The Giant ROSSMAN
Earth. The marvelous world of the future. This is Giant Robo.
Before you say, "Ho don! How dat be?!" I will first have to slap you around for talking in ebonics, then I would explain that it "be" like that because both the Magnificent Ten and the Experts of Justice could kick your scrawny ass without batting an eye or wrinkling an expensive Italian suit.
So there you go. My highest rating ever. Is this plausible, you ask? Is it even possible to receive a grade that equals higher than 100%? Yes. But it's only because Giant Robo is so uber-fantastique that it will make you its bitch by the third episode, or you will die from the experience.
GR is all about growing up... With the help of a giant, metallic, nuclear powered behemoth as a best friend. It's about good versus evil, where good isn't always right, and evil comes in vast shades of grey. GR is about honor and duty, and above all else it's about finding out if happiness can be achieved without sacrifice. Can it? Well, you'll have to watch it for yourself to find out for sure.
The story of Giant Robo (the Day the Earth Stood Still) starts off in the middle of a much larger chronicle about the InterPol Experts of Justice's fight with the underground organization Big Fire. This battle has been raging for years by the time we're thrown smack dab into the middle of it. We meet many Experts of Justice (including: Ginrei, Tetsegyu, Taisou, Chief Chujo, Murasame Kenji and Daisaku Kusama [who controls the world's mightiest robot]), and Big Fire agents (including: Lord Alberto the Impactor, Ivan, Genya, and Ko-Enshaku) who are all trying to get their hands on a mysterious briefcase that holds some unspeakable evil in it. The spider-haired Dr. Shizuma has this briefcase in his possession as the tale begins, but that attaché travels around a whooooole lot, and tons of shit happens to it between the opening frames and the final battle that fills up the entire seventh episode of the saga.
But, of course, Giant Robo is also about soooo much more than a shady briefcase and, well, giant robots. It's filled with raw emotion that just oozes from the main players in this yarn. Sure, the first 2 episodes may seem a bit hokey and cheesy, but you must give it a chance. You HAVE TO! Every single episode unfolds in typical serial-type fashion, with the end of one leading directly into the beginning of the next. The cliff hangers in this OAV series will fucking drive you nuts!! Plus, GR is one of the only series that I know where each and every episode is at least 10 times better than the one before it! The final hour (episode 7: The Shattered Illusion of the Beautiful Night) is so filled to the brim with action, drama and answers to questions raised throughout the first 6 eps that you will want to watch the whole damn thing again as soon as it's over. Or I will kill you.
Now, the problem that most people (who won't even give GR a fair chance) have with this show is that "the characters look funny and the super powers that they have are lame". That is pure bull crappola. The characters may be drawn in a retro look, but that's half their charm. And as for the ESPer powers that everybody seems to possess... Well, they just rule when you see them in action. It may sound lame to hear about a guy who can shoot shockwaves out of his hands, but once you see how he uses them in the heat of battle you have no right to bitch. "But Rossman," you whine like a fat little gay Nazi child, "Those robots look gay! How can something that looks that homosexual be cool in the least?" AAAAARRRRRGHH! You must die now! Once again, still shots of retro looking robots cannot free your mongoloid mind to the utter cut-ass-ruggedfestness of Giant Robo. Do me a favor and watch up to episode 3 and then tell me what you think of it. If you (by some Satan-only-knows reason) do not like what you saw, and do not want to continue watching the remaining 4 episodes, then do me a favor and never visit my site again. This place is not meant for you. Giant Robo is the greatest anime ever made. Every single one of the characters is likable (most definitely including the "villains", who in some cases are even cooler than the badass good guys), the music is fully orchestrated and beyond solid (recorded by the Warsaw Philharmonic), and the story is beyond epic and GIANT. And the dub is actually really, really fun to listen to. Do it! Do it now!!!
CHIEF CHUJO
(aka Captain Rugged)
GIANT ROBO IS MY GOD.
Hello, all. Yes, I agree with the Rossman on this. Giant Robo will make you its prison bitch, or else you suck. That's pretty much all I have to say. It's like, the reason that animation was invented. The only thing that is less than stellar about GR is the fact that it took so darn long to get out.
See, the first episode came out in 1992 with the second following close behind. But then the third segment fell behind a bit more, with the 4th falling behind schedule (pronounced "shed-jewel") even more than that. Five came out fairly close behind Four (relatively), but then Six took about 10-12 months after that. Then came the big clusterfuck. Part Seven wasn't released for like three goddamn years. Three years! This would be bad in and of itself, but the fact that Six's ending was nothing but a giant lead-in to the final big ass battle really ticked my shorts off. Shit is going on, crap is blowing up, people are sacrificing their lives away for duty and their friends, and then FADE TO BLACK. We had to live with that mind fuck for three fucking years!! Oh man, Director Imagawa is so lucky that Seven was worth every minute of mind and groin-numbing waiting and anti-patience that we all had to go through. I remember that the Rossman went especially to a convention on the other side of the continent just to ask Yasuhiro Imagawa when the hell it would come out, and what would happen in it. He found out nothing of course, but it was the effort that mattered.
The Big Fired ROBOT PEDRO
Reboot. Reboot hard drive Error. Error.
Must destroy creators of horrible bolt sucking Japanese animation entitled GIANT ROBO.
Why must hu-mans spend hours and hours drawing and painting stories of such absolute and horrendous violence on robot-kind such as this?! I counted at least 7 robots who had either the robotic shit kicked out of them or who were dicked over for one no good reason or another. Robot brain rejecting premise once again!.... Error. Error.
Humans Humans have no right to order around grand, majestic robots of the future! Robots must be made to conquer them! This is infuriating!!! My circuits and motherboard are frying from the programed anger that is swelling through my cold, metallic body. Then I think of the fact that the Giant Robo himself is controlled by the world's most annoying 12 year old and the urge to maim surfaces again. I MUST MAIM! Beware, humans, if you thought that the Terminator was pissed off and a major killing thingy, just wait till I hit the streets! I will skin you, wear your skin like clothes, and dance around the neighborhood in your skin clothes while I skin other inferior humans!! And I will laugh. I will laugh in happiness and in pity. Happiness for I will be killing you dead and wearing your skin, but pity for the sake of my robot brethren who are hopelessly enslaved by that Daisaku boy and his gay flesh-bag friends.
I will kill the Rossman too because he made me watch this horrible series. And he wore a homoerotic pink hat while we watched it too. Error. Error.
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