GaoGaiGar - so far!
2019-Jan-24, Thursday 07:45![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkwizartSo, to distract myself from the fact that I can't draw or read about giant robots when I'm doing college work (an indeed, the load is hyuuuge), I regularly listen to songs from shows about giant robots. And podcasts about giant robots. They just give me so much joy. And one fine day, a few weeks ago, those two combined led me to check out the first episode of acclaimed giant robot show GaoGaiGar - full title "King of Braves GaoGaiGar" - because of course when I'm told something is bonkers, I, the human incarnation of deus ex what-the-hell, have an obligation to check it out.
AND LO, IT WAS SOME GOOD SHIT.
GaoGaiGar starts with a couple stuck in the snow stumbling upon a giant, robotic lion, who proceeds to barf up a human baby and fucks off into space.
And it only gets better from there.
The basic gist is - as far as I've watched - a heroic governmental organization by the name of Gusty Geoid Guard, or 3G, battling invading alien forces that convert unhappy humans into mechanic monsters (oh, what would I pay to live there...). They have the help of a Guy, an ex-astronaut who, after an accident in space, got saved by Galeon, the aforementioned child-barfing lion, and now a) can fuse with the Galeon! To become a really cool looking robot! Why isn't he just a robot all the time? It's a mystery to me, but his semi-squishy irreducible form looks rather nice, so I have no space to complain here. More important is that Guy can combine with some of 3G's vehicles to become an even gianter robot - the titular GaoGaiGar - and that's what we're all here for!
He also yells.
A lot.
I like this man.
Side characters include Mamoru, the baby mentioned in the beginning, who immediately got adopted by the couple, is living an extremely normal life and can sense the presence of the alien attackers, the Zonderians. He also has the ability to revert converted Zonders back to their human form and is, apparently, of interstellar origin - so that's intriguing.
There's the 3G team, responsible for guiding attacks, watching over the robots, and mostly consisting of quirky humans. They tend to believe REALLY HARD that, since Guy is a hero, he can solve every mission and win every fight (and so far, they've been nothing but proven right!)
The team later expands to include a sizeable number of mechs, if the later openings are to be believed. So far I got to meet Horyu and Enryu, fire-and-ice themed brothers with opposing personalities who mainly exist to assist guy, fuse Safeguard-style into a combiner named ChoRyuJin, and sit around the 3G office slurping fuel out of trashcan-sized cups. The montage of their upbringing by the 3G members as stationary box-shaped AI cores is adorable.
The only other mech I got to see at the time of this entry is Volfogg - a member of the intelligence department, Shadowmaru-looking guy who, so far, has mostly been lurking in a submarine. I'm told he's a bastard, so I look forward to seeing more of him.
There are the other humans, like Mamoru's parents and classmates, who, for the most part, are cartoony but sympathetic enough. Especially the parents, it's clearly shown how worried they are that Mamoru's questionable origins might, one day, manifest in someway and take their son away. (Joke's on you - the kid's already flown up to several Zonders and made them chill out so hard they turned back to squishies.) I can sense the angst in the air, which is interesting, because for all of it's epicness GaoGaiGar is well and truly ridiculous.
There's a professor on rocket rollet skates, a woman with a hilariously bad american accent, the Boss, who, like Guy, yells a whole ton and exudes to much Shonen Protag energy despite being middle aged that I seriously want to give him his own Robot, and as the viewer, I feel like I'd trust all these people in a heartbeat. There's the main combiner sequence, right in the very first episode!
There's the Zonderians, and their sequences contain so much flashing light that I can't go on without issuing a serious i sensitivity warning. They look like escaped sailor moon mooks and half of them are named after italian foodstuffs. The so-far main baddie's name is Pasta.
There's lots and lots and lots of monster-robot beatdowns and a surprising amount of heart. There is also a substantial amount of mystery - where did Mamoru come from? How do his powers even work? Why, exactly, is Guy so infuriatingly awesome at yelling? What even is the goal of the Zonderians? Who's this mysterious kid who's sometimes shown hanging around Mamoru's schoolmates? What's going to happen to the family?
It's a really good package if you can stand substantial amounts of flashing lights.
I'm familiar with the Brave series, the loose collection of transforming-robot-cartoons of which GaoGaiGar was the last entry, but I've really only seen some of J-Decker, whic surprised me with how well the cartoony, awesome-because-it's-awesome and the down to earth, interpersonal parts were balanced - especially for a series squarely aimed at kids.
But with GaoGaiGar? There are bits and snippets I've heard that make me look forward for the entire rest of the thing because the whole thing started at 100 and seems to only ramp up from here. Might log my further thoughts on the series here whenever the mood strikes me.
Until then, if you've heeded my warnings (FLASHING! LIGHTS!) and have taken interest in watching, why not give it a try?
Final Fusion - Approved (so far)!!
AND LO, IT WAS SOME GOOD SHIT.
GaoGaiGar starts with a couple stuck in the snow stumbling upon a giant, robotic lion, who proceeds to barf up a human baby and fucks off into space.
And it only gets better from there.
The basic gist is - as far as I've watched - a heroic governmental organization by the name of Gusty Geoid Guard, or 3G, battling invading alien forces that convert unhappy humans into mechanic monsters (oh, what would I pay to live there...). They have the help of a Guy, an ex-astronaut who, after an accident in space, got saved by Galeon, the aforementioned child-barfing lion, and now a) can fuse with the Galeon! To become a really cool looking robot! Why isn't he just a robot all the time? It's a mystery to me, but his semi-squishy irreducible form looks rather nice, so I have no space to complain here. More important is that Guy can combine with some of 3G's vehicles to become an even gianter robot - the titular GaoGaiGar - and that's what we're all here for!
He also yells.
A lot.
I like this man.
Side characters include Mamoru, the baby mentioned in the beginning, who immediately got adopted by the couple, is living an extremely normal life and can sense the presence of the alien attackers, the Zonderians. He also has the ability to revert converted Zonders back to their human form and is, apparently, of interstellar origin - so that's intriguing.
There's the 3G team, responsible for guiding attacks, watching over the robots, and mostly consisting of quirky humans. They tend to believe REALLY HARD that, since Guy is a hero, he can solve every mission and win every fight (and so far, they've been nothing but proven right!)
The team later expands to include a sizeable number of mechs, if the later openings are to be believed. So far I got to meet Horyu and Enryu, fire-and-ice themed brothers with opposing personalities who mainly exist to assist guy, fuse Safeguard-style into a combiner named ChoRyuJin, and sit around the 3G office slurping fuel out of trashcan-sized cups. The montage of their upbringing by the 3G members as stationary box-shaped AI cores is adorable.
The only other mech I got to see at the time of this entry is Volfogg - a member of the intelligence department, Shadowmaru-looking guy who, so far, has mostly been lurking in a submarine. I'm told he's a bastard, so I look forward to seeing more of him.
There are the other humans, like Mamoru's parents and classmates, who, for the most part, are cartoony but sympathetic enough. Especially the parents, it's clearly shown how worried they are that Mamoru's questionable origins might, one day, manifest in someway and take their son away. (Joke's on you - the kid's already flown up to several Zonders and made them chill out so hard they turned back to squishies.) I can sense the angst in the air, which is interesting, because for all of it's epicness GaoGaiGar is well and truly ridiculous.
There's a professor on rocket rollet skates, a woman with a hilariously bad american accent, the Boss, who, like Guy, yells a whole ton and exudes to much Shonen Protag energy despite being middle aged that I seriously want to give him his own Robot, and as the viewer, I feel like I'd trust all these people in a heartbeat. There's the main combiner sequence, right in the very first episode!
There's the Zonderians, and their sequences contain so much flashing light that I can't go on without issuing a serious i sensitivity warning. They look like escaped sailor moon mooks and half of them are named after italian foodstuffs. The so-far main baddie's name is Pasta.
There's lots and lots and lots of monster-robot beatdowns and a surprising amount of heart. There is also a substantial amount of mystery - where did Mamoru come from? How do his powers even work? Why, exactly, is Guy so infuriatingly awesome at yelling? What even is the goal of the Zonderians? Who's this mysterious kid who's sometimes shown hanging around Mamoru's schoolmates? What's going to happen to the family?
It's a really good package if you can stand substantial amounts of flashing lights.
I'm familiar with the Brave series, the loose collection of transforming-robot-cartoons of which GaoGaiGar was the last entry, but I've really only seen some of J-Decker, whic surprised me with how well the cartoony, awesome-because-it's-awesome and the down to earth, interpersonal parts were balanced - especially for a series squarely aimed at kids.
But with GaoGaiGar? There are bits and snippets I've heard that make me look forward for the entire rest of the thing because the whole thing started at 100 and seems to only ramp up from here. Might log my further thoughts on the series here whenever the mood strikes me.
Until then, if you've heeded my warnings (FLASHING! LIGHTS!) and have taken interest in watching, why not give it a try?
Final Fusion - Approved (so far)!!
