Fantasy Dimensions

Do you like Code Geass? Do you like Busou Renkin? Do you like burly men dripping with sweat, passion, courage, and justice? Guess what! YOU LOVE GaoGaiGar! Not only do you love it, but you love it a whole lot! GaoGaiGar is one of the very few mecha animes where you could say a die hard non-mecha fanwould love it. It’s just that great!

This is a test of our new review format. Don’t know how well it’ll work, but let’s give it a try:

First off some details:

Name
English: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar
Japanese: 勇者王ガオガイガー

Studio: Sunrise (Code Geass, s-CRY-ed, My-Hime)
Original Air Dates: February 1st, 1997 to January 31st, 1998
Number of Episodes: 49
Genre: Mecha
Additional Info:

• An OVA does exist named GaoGaiGar FINAL, released between 2000 and 2003.
• Part of the Braves series by Sunrise, although it is not an addition to any story.
• Considered by many to be one of the best mecha ever based on the amount of manlyness in the show.

Review

GaoGaiGar is a story of courage, passion, justice, and courage. Unlike most mecha, GaoGaiGar doesn’t focus on any emo characters. Even the robotes themselves have a personality and their personalty is best described as “balls to the wall”. The series is very good at taking characters and making them very manly and interesting. Even the females are interesting.

The series spans 49 whooping episodes. It contains only two arcs, the first arc and the second arc. The real story doesn’t start until the SECOND arc. The first arc goes about defeating the machine king and his ability to turn humans into zondors. The second arc is about well… you’ll just have to watch.

The first season has about 17 episodes of really power ranges style episodes. It’s really kind of, boring. I hate to say this about such a great anime, but it’s true. It’s boring. It lacks style and contains nothing of any interesting composure. Most episodes introduce a way for GaoGaiGar to become more powerful. After GaoGaiGar powers up enough we are then introduced to some really tough enemies and that’s when the series goes from “yet another Sunrise mecha show” to “MAN THIS IS THE BEST ANIME EVER”.

It’s not lie that this anime has a ton of BURNING JUSTICE. Seriously, everyone on it will not give up or hesitate in the name of justice. It’s a really excellent series in that respect. I’m going to cut this part short and say the STORY, GRAPHICS, ACTION, and everything else is TOP NOTCH.

The only gripe is that the “FINAL FUSION” scene happens every episode and takes 2 minutes. It’s similar to the Gundam Launch animation in every Gundam series. However, the GaoGaiGar Final Fusion is very… I don’t know manly but uninteresting after 30 episodes of it. The series also has the first 20ish episodes that go nowhere and do nothing other then act like this is the Power Rangers.

Taking the two negative things out of the way, the show is just awesome. The characters are fully explored, their resolve to win is massive and the story is just overwhelming. I really respect this series.

That is about all there is to say. If you like mecha or if you like people doing some really badass things then check it out. If you don’t like mecha then you may want to give it a three episode test and pick up the first DVD. It is really a great show.

Pros:

• Interesting characters with lots of depth and resolve.
• No emotional characters that let their emotions get in the way of getting anything done.
• No boring segments outside of the combine sequence.
• Sunrise mecha polish.

Cons:

• Final Fusion takes forever.
• Series would have been a lot better compressed into a 26 episode series trimming out the first 20ish episodes and a lot of the final fusion/combine sequences.

Final Rating:

9 out of 10