mecha anime

Alternate Titles: Super Robot Wars: Original Generation – The Animation, 超級機器人大戰O.G.

Original Japanese Release Date: May 2005

Episode Length/Run-time: 3 Episodes

Summary:

A new model of super robot has come out and everyone’s excitement suddenly turns to fear and chaos as these new robots become the enemy and start attacking everyone and everything around their inaugural celebration.  Upon thwarting the enemy there was a mysterious lack of casualties. The ATX and SRX teams must discover the reasoning behind the attack and what happened to their friends.

Review:

This anime delivers on its title, it has a lot of super robot wars.  Wasting no time, as it shouldn’t being only 3 episodes long they quickly establish the world and characters with a few scenes and simple dialogue and move right into the initial attack.  The fight scenes are pretty sweet, despite some of the characters corny lines and jokes to”lighten the mood.”

The mystery about the new robots is just enough to keep you, as the viewer, engaged in them.  At the end of the first episode a rather graphic image of a naked woman suspended painfully with clips throughout her body in a strange fluid drops out and you learn of the perhaps sinister ODE system.

One thing I really have to tip my hat to in this OAV is how they give the information about the world and characters.  Its on a need to know basis which works well.  In three episodes they don’t have time to elaborate on everything or go into every last little thing and they don’t.  They also don’t make the common mistake of bombarding you upfront with all the information either, which works well.

The animation is nothing impressive, given the animation look and style I actually thought it was about 5 years older than what it was.  Now that’s not all bad, I like the look of the old style, but for 2005 its lacking in a few scenes I think, particularly the action scenes.  The music is decent, nothing astounding either but they seemed to have a fair amount of pieces for such a short series and it fits the mood and fight scenes well to create the mood.  Plus, the opening is pretty good!

Overall, for three episodes they do a good job of packing a story with some suspense and desperation along with some good action scenes in there.  It wont change your life and the originality is nothing astounding, but I would say it’d be a good way for someone who isn’t sure about the mech genre to try things on and see if they like it. The time investment to enjoyment for this series I’d say is pretty high.  Overall it is is pleasantly average series.

[starrater]