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Godannar: Mission 1: Engage And Destroy
I have to admit that when I saw the cover advertising "The ultimate marriage of man, woman, and machine!", I was a little excited at the possibilities. Little did I realize that the show would rely far too heavily on fan service and generic biological enemies to provide the backdrop for the so-called "marital bliss" of the two leads, Goh Saruwatari and Anna Aoi. With an English language dub directed by Matt Greenfield, one of the principles of ADV Films, I knew that the show would be technically advanced (Matt gets to pick the best material, and rightfully so, as the boss) but I also knew the dub would involve a lot more sexual material because of it too. Here's what the back cover said:
"Five years ago, as the Mimetic Beasts laid waste to Japan, Dannar Pilot Goh saved young Anna Aoi's life. Now, as they prepare to march down the aisle, a new Beast appears and Goh is summoned into battle once more. But he's not going alone, not if his blushing bride to be can help it! It's a honeymoon from hell as two stubborn mecha pilots bump heads, egos and other bits; but if Anna and Goh can mate their robots' interlocking parts, they'll form the ultimate marriage of man, woman and machine! The battle of the sexes and the battle for the future of mankind are fought simultaneously in the wildest giant robot series ever, GODANNAR!"
The series came out in Japan a couple of years ago and was directed by Yasuchika Nagaoka, a capable enough director but his forte is with action, not the kind of interesting character development that appeals to those of us over 12 years old. This is the biggest limitation of the series that even domestic director Greenfield can't compensate for. Each episode has two storylines; one being the generic beastie that needs to be killed and the other being some misunderstanding between Goh and Anna. While this works out okay a few times, after five episodes of the same basic material, you'll be craving something more than what amounts to LCD (lowest common denominator) flavored fighting anime. The story is simple enough; Goh saved Anna during an attack five years prior. He was in his mid-20's and she was 12, developing a crush on him like all schoolgirls would do under the circumstances. Now that he's pressing 30 and she's 17 (the legal age in Texas too), they're getting hitched which opens up all kinds of taboo doors into what happened in the past five years between them. That her mother, Kiriko Aoi, is his age and also his boss at work becomes icing on the proverbial Lolita cake for the closet perverts.
The setting in a nutshell though: Earth was attacked by a number of giant biological beings years prior but fought a desperate fight to protect the planet. Each geographic area had a series of advanced robots called Dannar's that could only be controlled by a very limited subset of the population. This theme is popular these days although I don't see the point in limiting a military weapon to such a small group since it limits the pool of pilot applicants based on something other than pure skill, striking me as a concept not well thought out. Relying on a genetic lottery seems so random and counter intuitive to a guy who's been in the military but I'm sure kids won't mind (much). The show takes place in 2047 and the sole benefit of the war was to stop all fighting on Earth between nations (another unlikely concept). Goh works for a military organization as a second stringer now, having lost everything in the previous war. Anna's in high school and keeps her relationship a secret, especially after her marriage (which is interrupted by an attack by a beast that draws Goh back into service). Her mother approves of the relationship although questions if she wouldn't be a better match for Goh at least once in the volume.
The episodes this time were: 1) Wedding Bells on the Battlefield, 2) Burning Virgin Road, 3) Battle Royal Honeymoon, 4) Shizuru, Once Again, and 5) The Girl From the Sky. Starting off with the obligatory series set up of the war, the story then progresses to the wedding and battle before Anna begins training in earnest to help Goh. He doesn't want to lose another wife and tries to stop her progress in training; it becoming a sticking point in their relationship. The following episodes then go into the strict formula with little variation, with the characters yelling at every opportunity when fighting (maybe the Dannars are powered by screams?!?). The titillation of bouncing cleavage, panty shots, and sexual innuendos were plentiful with some nudity to boot. Otherwise, there wasn't much going on here and little of it fit together very well; seeming like two distinctively different series in one. If the robot parts were severed into their own show, it'd be great for little kids with the adult parts going nicely into a show for young teenagers still trying to figure out why they're drawn to the fan service. The "adult" parts (I'm using the term loosely mind you) weren't really all that graphic or maturely used, a fact that also limited their appeal to this old pervert.
The Character designs by Takahiro Kimura, Mech designs by Masahiro Yamane and music by Chumei Watanabe weren't bad at all (the music was top notch in fact) but the limited action sequences were numbing to me. The best they could do was a punch and kick routine enhanced when Goh and Anna's robots combined?!? How lame! The English language voice actors; Goh by Brett Weaver, Anna by Hilary Haag, others including Greg Ayres, Monica Rial, Tiffany Grant, Chris Ayres, and Kira Vincent Davis were solid in terms of their work but they weren't given a lot to work with to say the least. In all, I thought Godannar: Mission 1: Engage And Destroy was worth a rating of Rent It and even then only for fans of the genre willing to put their minds on autopilot. If later volumes in the series improve on the writing, I'll be happy but I'm not hopeful given the consistently weak material in these five episodes.
Picture: Godannar: Mission 1 was presented in the same 1.78:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color it was shot in by director Yasuchika Nagaoka for airing on Japanese television a few years ago. The majority of action was far brighter than the front DVD cover would indicate and that made it look more like a show made for younger kids than the "TV MA" rating ADV Films gave it. The lines were clean, the visual effects somewhat limited (taking a look at other modern releases, you'll notice the trend towards providing an almost film-like quality to them, particularly with high budget shows like Samurai 7). Shows made for an older audience do better when they address the complexities of visual experience which was not present here. On the bright side, there were no compression artifacts and only a few moments where the picture experienced unplanned video noise.
Sound: The audio was presented in Dolby Digital with the usual 2.0 original Japanese track and the enhanced 5.1 Surround English language dub. The music was well handled by Chumei Watanabe and I can see why there'd be a music CD available for purchase given the experience he brought to the show and the interesting themes. The Japanese track vocals fit the characters slightly better in most cases but I actually enjoyed the English dub for all the main characters somewhat better. The special effects were easily better on the English track, sporting some great directionality at times, especially during the battle sequences, and seemed boosted to a higher volume.
Extras: With five full episodes, I wasn't expecting many extras but I was pleasantly surprised to see more than average here. The trailers, and clean opening & closing were pretty much all standard fare. The character profiles for the lead characters were interesting if short, as were the Mimetic Beast descriptions, and the key words section seemed a bit weak but the paper insert that had three pages of material on the music and Japanese voice actors was better than average. I only wish it were more extensive.
Final Thoughts: Godannar: Mission 1 wasn't quite a hack job as it had some fair looking animation employed and a great soundtrack (especially on a decent home theatre) but the mix of fan service and what amounted to a generic kiddy robot fighting show wasn't handled all that well here. The marriage aspects of the show seemed substantially unrelated to anything realistic and even to the point of absurd (not in a way that would further the show either) but it was the lack of developing characters and a limited story that could've been written by writing down generic material from other shows and randomly selecting pieces of paper out of a hat to glue into a script that kept this one from any significant replay value. Check it out first unless you like such mismatches of material but each sub-genre has far better examples to pick from so don't say I didn't warn you.
If you enjoy anime, take a look at some of the recommendations by DVDTalk's twisted cast of reviewers in their Best Of Anime 2003 and Best Of Anime 2004 article or regular column Anime Talk
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