OVA, 2004-2005
Director: Kazua Tsurumaki
Story
Nono is a robot girl who desperately wants to be a Buster Machine (!GIANT ROBOT!) pilot and go into space (sound familiar?), but she ends up instead working as a waitress in a bar near the local Martian spaceport. One day she is saved from the attentions of some lecherous robot pilots by Lal’c, a member of the Topless, the elite teenaged Buster Machine pilots with psychic powers. Pledging her eternal devotion to her new “onē-sama” (sound familiar?) Nono goes into space to help fight the space monsters (sound familiar?) and aim for the top(less)!
Review
If I made the story of Diebuster sound a lot like the story of Gunbuster, that’s because, well, it sort of is. *However*, there are enough twists and turns to this OVA that make this a unique experience – for example, Nono being a robot (and I won't spoil any more...) – both recalling and expanding the original story. And since this was made sixteen years after Gunbuster a new generation of anime and giant robot tropes have to be parodied, played straight and turned up to eleven (although some of the older ones are taken on too, so don’t despair). And turn it up to eleven Gainax does, going even beyond the original in some areas (although it is kinda hard to beat destroying the center of the galaxy). Everything in Diebuster is *more.* MORE space battles! MORE cute girls! MORE cool giant robots! MORE awesome animation! MORE fanservice! Yes, for your pleasure there is generous helping of fanservice from the studio that revolutionized it in the first place (how many other companies can you think of have the bouncing motion of animated breasts named after them? I didn’t think so).
The animation in Diebuster is superb too, although by this point I expect no less from Gainax. It does look and act a lot like FLCL – which isn’t shocking – but I also detected hints of Evangelion in this as well (the Buster Machines for instance are semi-sentient with humanoid faces) which is also not surprising. The computer animation here is not garish nor does it stand out like a sore thumb compared to the 2-D animation, and I liked that very much.
But the heart and soul is the story, and – for the most part – it is well done. It is confusing in a few spots and there are a few tiny plot holes but the revelations and aforementioned plot twists will leave you delighted, and the emotional content – while over the top at times – is genuine and touching. Some who do not like latter-day Gainax may not like it so much, but I loved it. One element that has been discarded from the original Gunbuster is the subplot about time dilation at the speed of light. I guess the creative team for Diebuster felt that it really didn’t have much to do with the story they were trying to tell, and its exclusion is no big loss (besides which, as intriguing as it was in the original, Hideaki Anno and his team got it wrong – Noriko would not have experienced months-worth of dilation going to the edge of the solar system and back considering that Pluto is light-hours, not months away from the Earth – at most it would have been the better part of a day lost, but that’s not dramatic, is it?).
In conclusion, while I didn’t enjoy it *quite* as much as the original Gunbuster – or FLCL – I found Aim For The Top 2: Diebuster to be a very worthy successor to the original and a fun way to spend three hours of my time. I recommend it highly.
Screenshots
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| Get used to it. Nono does a lot of this. |
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| And this. |
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| Lal'c. Hmm, she looks familiar... now where have I seen her before? |
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| Ohhhhh. |
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| In the future, even baseball will involve giant robots. |
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| Psychedelic! |
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| Wait, why does a robot need to exercise? |
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| More broadsides... IN SPACE! |
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| For Teh Fanservice! |
Next Time: Adventure In The Desert
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