OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Giant Robo: The Animation

Mitsuteru Yokoyama was one of the founding fathers of anime. He created the very first magical girl in Sally The Witch and arguably the first mecha show in Gigantor. Giant Robo was an upgraded version of Gigantor the began as a manga in 1967 closely followed by a live-action TV show that ran for a single season. The TV series was first introduced to American audiences as a compilation film titled Voyage Into Space, and then later on some episodes were released under the label Johnny Sokko And His Giant Robot. There hadn't been any kind of continuation of the franchise until 1992 when the 7-episode OVA series Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Stood Still by Mu Animation. It was first put out in English on VHS by U.S. Rendition and then Manga Entertainment that covered the first 6 episodes, but the final episode was ultimately completed three years after the penultimate by a completely different studio, Phoenix Entertainment, which postponed it getting a DVD release that finally saw release through Media Blasters. The DVD release contained the original VHS dub and a brand new one to tie into the 3-episode OVA spinoff/parody series of Gin-Rei, and in the end was put on Blu-Ray by Discotek Media. Yasuhiro Imagawa was director behind this operatic superhero saga that not only adapts the original manga, but several other Yokoyama titles into a single shared universe. The OVA earned ample admiration from sci-fi and anime fans in the 90's but appeared to fade out much more at the turn of the century.

Taking place in 2039, the world has entered a new golden age with the creation of the Shizuma Drive which has replaced nearly all sources of energy reducing the amount of mankind's pollution. Where wars between countries is a thing of the past, a criminal organization called Big Fire has plans for global domination. The only thing stopping these bad guys is the International Police Organization with special agents called the Experts Of Justice, one of which is Daisaku Kusama, a boy gifted with control of a large sphinx-headed mecha called Giant Robo. Big Fire plans on using one of the Shizuma Drive's creators, Franken von Vogler, who to all appearances has returned from dead to launch the infernal machine, Eye of Volgar, with the sole purpose of nullifying the entire planet's stock of Shizuma Drive. The Experts of Justice tangle with Big Fire's Magnificent Ten who run the army of villains, and there is a bounty of secret reveals concerning each side as the conflict continues. A large portion of the overall OVA contends with character backstories and secret origins that take up time between super-powered battles. The entire OVA pulls together in one of the greatest climaxes in anime, even though they leave room for a continuation if needed. There have been two different attempts to carry on with the OVA's story, but each pilot has been shot down largely because of changing tastes in the new anime market.

Giant Robo: The Animation is the definition of a legendary anime. It does seem to contain more flashbacks than is truly needed which might have made the story tighter resulting in it being an episode shorter. The music by Battle Royal composer Masamichi Amano adds to the acclaimed anime's prestige. There are battles between giant robots and super-humans that builds to an amazing crescendo with the fate of the world literally lying in the balance. Decades before the Avengers finally assembled on the big screen, Giant Robo brought about an homage to superhero epics with a classy retrofuturism motif.