I’m unsure as to how to best write this introduction. So let’s try the basics. Getter Robo is a very influential manga and anime series, one of the original mecha shows. Combining super robots? Yeah, it did that, and wrote the playbook. Getter Robo: Armageddon is a late 90’s anime miniseries, one quite well-regarded for how it captured the tone and spirit of its source material in animated form, which hadn’t really been done before. The Black Getter also appears. As such, Armageddon invites a kind of breathless summarisation as much as commentary. Because, not to put too fine a point on it, its a special kind of insane.
The first response you are likely to have upon watching Armageddon is likely to be something like "What the hell is going on!? “. That's normal, and I'd imagine the target audience had a similar response back in the day. The anime is doing a" not as you know them" meets "DC Elseworlds" thing here, assuming the basic functions of its world are known, only to break them in mere seconds. Here the Getter Team fought a war on the Moon against the metamorphic alien Invaders, won, only for tragedy to strike. Professor Saotome, Getter Ray pioneer and apparent raging nutjob, was murdered by Getter-1 pilot Ryoma Nagare, breaking the team. However, sometime later the Professor is back, alive, and waving around a doomsday weapon, which scares the crap out of everyone. The response of the Japanese government is to go to Ryoma, whom always protested his innocence, uncuff him, and basically say, "Double Jeopardy is in effect, here's a giant robot and some guns, why don't you have a nice chat with the Professor?". Meanwhile, the Invaders are back, and they specialise in kaiju-level threats with a side order of parasitical body horror. What follows is, in an objective sense, awesome. Seeing the assorted Getter Robos let loose, especially Ryoma's roaring rampage of revenge, are undoubtedly genre highlights. The show goes from a standing start to Defcon 2 almost immediately, the pace only slowed by flashbacks which offer piecemeal explanation of how we got here, and what's actually at stake. However, by the time the narrative has uncoiled itself and we get an idea of what is actually going on, its Defcon 1, the bomb is dropped, and none of it really matters any more.
Hmmm. I would not have done things this way.
After 3 episodes, the original director left the project, something that seems to happen with these 90's OVAs a lot, and I've seen conflicting explanations as to how it went down. The current consensus seems to be that he was taking too long, and got replaced, but he took his notes with him. As a result, the new director had to write a new story with no real idea of what the endgame was meant to be. Whatever happened, there's a time skip of thirteen years, which moves the focus onto new characters, with the remaining Getter Team members in a leadership role. There's also a new and much more upbeat opening sequence, and it's almost a different show. At this point, Armageddon does not so much slow down as de-escalate. I mean, there's been a nuclear apocalypse, there's an upper limit on how much worse things can get without disengaging the audience, so things need to settle a bit before ramping up the tension again. This makes the post-apocalyptic majority of the series, oddly lighter than the pre-apocalyptic first act. This is not to suggest the fundamentally hot-blooded characters and mecha sequences have in any way been toned down, though. If anything, with the world broken and an army of fleshy monsters infesting it, this merely allows for the series to mine new veins of melodrama and blood splatter while things explode. Things get rather weird towards the middle too. Let’s just say that the Saotome family clan has issues, and I’d like to know the creative process behind a certain plot twist involving the supporting character Genki Saotome. You’ll know that one when you see it.
I suppose the reason I enjoy Armageddon is because it ultimately reminds me of Gurren Lagann, although the smart way to say that would be the other way around. Getter Robo was there first, even if I encountered it later. The debt Gurren Lagann owes to Getter Robo is undeniable, both being peers in the whole "giant robots doing crazy shit" space, but with one clearly influencing the other. With Armageddon’s later episodes, the influence is very obvious too, both in visual elements and plot points. The difference is that Armageddon is a strait-to-video release of 13 episodes, rather than a TV production of 27, which grants it more freedom in some ways, I.e. gore, but it's working as part of a pre-existing franchise. That it is drawing on previous instalments only to subvert them, is both a strength and a weakness. Gurren Lagann is much more complete a story, by comparison. Narratively, Armageddon is a bit disjointed and messy, fond of mythology gags and presuming familiarity with its characters rather than properly establishing them within this work. This doesn’t necessarily count against the anime given how relentless & OTT it is, the series coming into its own in the second half, but it is a problem. I would also make the observation that while the first 3 episodes are valid, Armageddon is at its most enjoyable after the time skip, when the story structure is more conventional, but your mileage may vary on that one. Regardless, its an experience, to say the least.
Also, there’s something I find darkly fascinating about this series, and its place in the wider franchise. Its not immediately obvious, but Armageddon is of the Cosmic Horror genre, once you look. Of course, the word Armageddon implies a somewhat biblical aspect, although that’s more an artefact of localisation. The original Japanese is more like “The Last Day of World”, although Armageddon is supposed to be a battlefield as well as the end times, which certainly isn’t a bad fit, but not a perfect one. No, the series is more Lovecraft by way of John Carpenter’s The Thing, which I’m 99% sure is deliberately homaged in one episode. The Invaders are massively alien and terrible, to the point where its not immediately clear what level of individuality and self-awareness applies to them, or as shapeshifters, if they even have an original form. There's several characters whom are essentially Invaders in human form, and have been for a while, but its unclear if this is a case of subversion, symbiosis, or them just being very good mimics. The Invaders consume people from the inside out, corrupting them like a virus, and eventually doing the same to machines. So, just like The Thing then, its not just Gurren Lagann that borrows from a classic. They aren’t the only thing that’s terrifying though. The Getter Robos themselves very much are, and especially Shin Dragon, the Professor’s seemingly alive doomsday weapon. The mecha piloted by the protagonists, are powerful but above all brutal combatants, enabled by the wonder technology of Getter Rays. And something that's being alluded to throughout before being explicitly said towards the end, is that it's the Getter Rays that are the problem. It is not merely a power source and nuclear allegory, its evolution itself, and humanity needs to back away slowly. The Invaders are drawn to Getter Rays, feeding off them, spreading them, which is bad enough on its own, but the series hints towards the true scale of things. This is an aspect of Getter Robo I find to be very compelling; the sheer cosmic horror of the setting bubbling just below the surface. Full discussion of that is however outside the remit of this article, but in this case it feeds into a generational theme, the older characters moving out of the way of the younger generation; another Gurren Lagann parallel. Professor Saotome planned and planned, laying paths for his children and pilots to follow, only for it end badly for everyone. The original Getter Team, his proteges, instead protect the next generation, and choose to step aside as it isn't their world any more. That’s not a bad moral to have. And because it's Getter Robo, they do this by entering a kind of warrior heaven, a mysterious and distant battlefield filled with other Getter Robos and foes. And because its Getter Robo: Armageddon, what the fandom likes to a call a space vagina is involved. You read that correctly.
No, I'm not putting a picture of it here, you can look that up on your own time.
Conclusion
Getter Robo: Armageddon is as mad as a spoon. This madness comes from both faithfulness to its source material, its seemingly troubled production, and the fact that its relying a lot on its own cultural context to smooth the bumps. It is however very entertaining, and assuming you don’t go deaf from characters repeatedly shouting “GETTER!”, its worth tracking down.
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