I've never found a series with quite the same vibe as Yusha-oh Gaogaigar, and that makes no sense whatsoever now I come to think of it. The show is a purposeful throwback to the Super Robot Genre of the 1970s, and the latter part of a franchise similarly thereof. Its merchandise driven, overtly so, and as it was made by Takara, its a second cousin to the Transformers brand. There are hundreds of animes of similar providence, and maybe a million in the same, glorious, "punchy-punchy-robo-boomy" bracket. King of Braves Gaogaigar should not have been memorable, even amongst obsessive collectors and trivia obsessed nerds like myself. Why do people care then? I don't quite know, but I think it's a zeitgeist thing, a fluke combination of circumstances, where somebody rolled six sixes in a row. But that's selling it short. Gaogaigar is very much the perfect version of what it's trying to be. And then it becomes something more.
Now, what it's trying to be is a toy advert with a lot of stock animation. The show has a new toy to sell every 4 or so episodes, and puts a lot of effort into making them seem cool while fighting the proverbial Monster of the Week. Transformation and combination sequences get spammed and remixed endlessly, and I'm suspicious that one episode does this as deliberate self-parody. It's a very formulaic and simple anime, especially in the beginning, but those terms are not inherently negative. There is always something to be said for televisual comfort food, a pizza ordered from your favourite takeaway. You know exactly what you are getting, it may not be the best thing objectively, but you'll be satisfied. In twenty minutes or less. Gaogaigar is very good at being a mecha show, following a Monster of the Week format, with a target audience of kids. It is an ideal example of something like that. As a result, the show seems utterly daft if you try to describe what actually happens in a given episode, and the excessive design work that went into it. If I speak of this anime for any length of time, my words become those of an over-excited eight-year-old, one whom has to be making stuff up. In fact, let's do that now.
So, a typical episode plays out like this. First, a cold opening, followed by the expository theme song. Then, there's this big CG face under Tokyo Tower, and it's out to cause trouble. So it sends out one of its lackeys to turn a human into a robot monster. Those minions are a car-ballerina, a slug-train-conductor, a demonic looking chap with a big nose, called Pizza, and something that looks like Captain Birdseye's secret shame. The human is usually very stressed about something, which affects what form of robeast they end up being. This monster starts making a mess, which prompts the Gutsy Geoid Guard, (GGG, pronounced 3G,) to respond. Cue commercial break, and schematics of a mecha or item from the show. A plan is made by Mission Control, whom maybe panic a little. This involves the deployment of Gaogaigar, a combining robot seemingly made from whatever was left in the spares bin. It's built from a lion, a stealth bomber, a bullet train and a drill tank. And it's piloted by a cyborg with long red hair and battery bangs, whose cockpit area seems to be just a globe of light. He's called Cyborg Gai, incidentally. A huge amount of animator effort and screen time is expended on just combining. It borders on technology porn. The very hammy Chief Taiga bellows his approval, there's an exchange of blows, and Gaogaigar unleashes it's finisher, which at first is to rip the monster's core out by hand, but later involves a gigantic squeaky mallet. But wait, there's more. The core will regrow its body unless you "purify" it to free the person inside. This involves a boy, Mamoru, the audience avatar, spreading a set of fairy wings and chanting Latin at the organ while growing green. The victim inside regains their human form, openly weeping, but with joy. Roll credits, and cue a hyperbolic preview of the next episode, with the last shot being the "key to victory", an image of what will save the day next week. There's also a narrator, for the younger kids, I think. Later additions include a police car ninja, set of doomsday pliers, and a robot whom fights with the power of rock.
It is an incredibly memetic show.
So, why does this overtly silly stuff get treated so earnestly, and animated so well even as they repeat segments endlessly? It's because it's a reconstruction. Gaogaigar was planned and went to market in the aftermath of the famously depressing Neon Genesis Evangelion, when everybody else was following its lead. Somebody took a look at that trend, maybe one of the creatives, maybe the man with the money, and said "No.". I don't have much to go on, but Wikipedia entries do make mention that the production purposefully avoided the intrigue and dark secrets common to the mecha genre at the time. The Brave Saga was always firmly in the Super Robot Genre, but with Gaogaigar somebody decided to double-down, and I want to hug them for it. The show could easily have been bleak, looking at the details. Take Cyborg Gai, I mean, this guy cheated death and is now a walking weapon system. His kinda-girlfriend Mikoto perhaps has it worse as her parents died in the same incident, and now has to watch Gai fight monsters. But these aren't merely creatures, these are civilians transformed into mechanical abominations, unwilling participants in their rampage. And if wasn't the 9 year old with super powers, said monsters would be undefeatable. Is the cast necessarily happy about this? No. Are they consumed by despair? Nah, they roar defiantly. They power through it, with Gai treating his resurrection as a gift from the capital g God so he can help people. What is the titular Gaogaigar's defining accessory? The Dividing Driver. What does it do? Well, it's not a weapon, its a device that creates a safe battlefield where collateral damage cannot happen. Negative emotions are explicitly described as what fuels the enemy, while courage makes the difference. This anime simply does not indulge in needless tragedy or cynicism, and while not everyone makes it, there's a happy ending. It is pure, wholesome, heroism. And ham. Hot-blooded ham.
If the Gaogaigar anime had only been unironic kiddy fare though, that would have been fine, but it might only have been a footnote. Like I said, there's many toy-driven animes with the same basic formula. But, Gaogaigar breaks its own format and starts escalating the conflict. A super robot anime may be fundamentally juvenile, that is not to say actual drama is absent. Far from it. After a series of seemingly random attacks, the baddies lay claim to Tokyo, prompting a desperate battle to save the 10 million living there. It's a close run thing, only for the victory to be hollow. The team at GGG was only dealing with a scouting party, and the main force promptly turns up for some payback. With the stakes raised, foreshadowing paying off, and stronger continuity between episodes, the anime achieves greatness. And it does this while retaining its fundamentally hammy, hot-blooded nature. There's almost some genre subversion going on too, as GGG finds itself with allies whom have a somewhat different set of priorities. Most notably, the stakes go big and then intensely personal for the end, in a mirroring of the first episode. TBH, if you are still watching after the fifth episode, you're already committed fully to the show, but there's no disputing that things improve sharply by the midpoint.
Gaogaigar received a western release circa 2006, but notably not a complete English dub. Its not exactly easy to obtain now, and remains absent from streaming services. There's also a two sequels, of similarly limited accessibility. If anything I said above appeals, you might want to make the effort.
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