Gunbuster
OVA, 1988-1989
Director: Hideaki Anno
The Story
Noriko is the daughter of a space admiral who died fighting mysterious space monsters sevral years ago. Now she is a student at a girls' giant robot pilot high school - I did not make that last bit up - and longs to become an ace pilot like her idol Kazumi so she can go into space like her father. In order to do that though she'll have to endure rigorous training from Coach, who is determined to make her into the best she can be. Can Noriko survive Coach's exercise regimen, become an ace and go into space to fight the evil space aliens? Of course! There she'll find love for the first time, meet a mercurial red-headed rival Soviet pilot and, oh yeah, help determine the fate of humanity with its ultimate weapon - the new awesomely powerful giant robot, Gunbuster. Well, she certainly has her work cut out for her!
Review and Analysis
Wow. Sometimes you see a work that shows not only that the creators loved making it but a love for the medium itself. Such is the case with Gunbuster. This OVA is not only a classic piece of animated science fiction, it's a joy-filled love letter to anime itself. All of the standard tropes and cliches of anime, giant robot and otherwise, are parodied, played straight, then turned up to 11. This was made by people who love animation, and this shows in the animation itself. It’s still impressive today – when Gainax actually has a budget (see also: Wings of Honneamise) they can produce some of the best animation in the world. It’s well known that the founding members of Gainax were massive nerds, and that also shows in Gunbuster: everything an otaku could possibly love is lovingly drawn and animated – giant robots, spaceships, laser cannons, monsters, instrument displays, breasts…. Yes, breasts. Gunbuster is infamous for introducing the “Gainax Bounce” into anime: before this was made women's breasts didn’t really move in Japanese animation… so, as you can see this is a truly revolutionary anime! Haha. Anyway, lechery aside, I was actually impressed by the amount of fanservice in Gunbuster, as in, “not that much.” Yes, as I said this introduced bouncing boobies into anime, but the actual amount of fanservice in this OVA is actually restrained and tasteful (especially compared to the legions of fanservice oriented anime that would follow). It doesn’t really distract from the rest of the show. Personally I was distracted by the rest of the animation, especially the space battles. These are exciting and very well done. Many directors looking to film outer space battle sequences (cough George Lucas cough) should watch Gunbuster to see how it’s done. Gainax knows how make the little things shine, too. Even things as minor as the instrument displays in the giant robots are rendered and animated in the finest detail. And the displays are back-lit! I’m not sure, but I think that this might have been the first time this was done in an anime.
But for all my gushing about the animation, how does the story hold up? After all, well-animated crap is still crap. The answer is: pretty damn well, thank you. It may have a few flaws but the story of Gunbuster is one that is moving and deeply affecting. Yes it gets a little overwrought with the emotions a few times but those emotions are genuine. Part of the story of Gunbuster involves the effects of time dilation in light-speed travel: every time Noriko goes into space her friends on Earth age while she does not. This adds a very bittersweet flavor to the show as Noriko is forced to deal with the people she loves aging and the world changing as she fights to defend both the people she loves and the world from the ravenous star-destroying space monsters. It is the ultimate sacrifice in a way, and one of the best bits of characterization I’ve seen in sci-fi in recent times. Given the short length of the OVA (six episodes) characterization itself was rather rushed and could have used some room for improvement, but it’s not bad considering. Noriko herself does tend to whine and cry a lot in the first half but gets better in the second half, where she screams a lot (but that’s awesome because that’s during the most awesome parts). It’s also interesting to note that the main characters are female: Noriko and Kazumi are in roles normally reserved for boys. The giant mecha genre up to that point had seen a dearth of female leads. Hell, sci-fi anime in general (and actually sci-fi period) had seen very few lead heroines – only Dirty Pair, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Bubblegum Crisis (something I guess I forgot to credit that show on in my review of it) come to mind. The mecha show Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross had a woman as a main character, but that show wasn’t all that popular and was prematurely cancelled. It wasn’t until Gunbuster was released in 1988 (along with Patlabor the same year) and became popular that anime audiences began to accept the idea of girls taking the lead and piloting the big robots. Now, the animators may not have had this intent – they probably just liked animating pretty girls – but they still revolutionized anime by doing this.
Gunbuster may be a little rough around the edges but it is still an anime science fiction classic. It has gorgeous animation, awesome action, genuine emotion and an ending that will leave you in tears. Sisterhood is beautiful. See it today.
Screenshots
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| You know it's love at first sight. How? Sparkles. |
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| Get used to it. Noriko does a lot of this. |
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| And this. |
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| I'm sure this is what Neil Armstrong wanted to see when he walked on the moon. |
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| Broadsides... in SPACE! |
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| A back-lit display. The attention to detail in "Gunbuster" is awesome. |
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| The final episode is widescreen, and in black-and-white, so you know it's artistic. |
The DVD
I had seen Gunbuster before on VHS. Those tapes were pretty good, but WOW the image quality on the DVD edition blew me away. This DVD release from Honneamise (the pricey Bandai Visual label that also released… Wings of Honneamise) lets you see every detail in the wonderful animation. They really did a good job remastering this. It does have one flaw though: a white line is present for the whole runtime on each disc on the left side of the picture. This is especially noticeable on widescreen monitors and televisions, and doubly so for the final letterboxed episode. I have included a screenshot below to demonstrate.
Make sure to watch with the overscan on your TV or computer DVD player turned on. Another thing about the DVD set that bugs me: like the Animeigo Oh My Goddess! OVA boxset, Gunbuster comes on three discs, when it could have been squeezed down to two or possibly even one. There’s not even that many extra features on the discs, so I don’t know why they need three discs for this except to drive the price up. These are my only quibbles though. The DVDs come in a very nice fold-out case contained in a nice box with a nice booklet. A warning though in that this boxset is normally very pricey, so you should probably wait until it’s on sale somewhere before you pick it up. But you should definitely pick it up.
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