[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Gunbuster 2 episode 1: First impressions of the new OVA from Gainax
Gunbuster: Aim for the Top (or Top O Nerae! to give it its proper Japanese title) is, in my opinion at least, one of the greatest sci-fi anime series. Ever. Epic, dramatic, emotional and, for its time, beautifully animated, Gunbuster told a heart-tugging story of friendship and determination in the face of adversity in the space of only six episodes. How it found room to cram romance, drama and mecha combat into such a short running time is testament to Hideaki Anno’s skills as director and the talent of Gainax studios. At the same time it was an affectionate pastiche of the old classic mecha anime shows with cheeky fan service (introducing the now-famous ‘Gainax Bounce’) and countless references and in-jokes. Okay, enough rambling - suffice to say I love it. Moving on…to celebrate their 20th anniversary Gainax have revisited their old OVA title to give us Gunbuster 2, another six part OVA.
The premise is fairly similar: a girl with lofty ambitions and modest talent wants to become an elite space pilot to fight alien monsters who threaten the lives of people on Earth. This time it is cafe waitress Nono (above) who dreams of battling among the stars; too bad she is almost superhumanly clumsy and flat-broke. Her life changes with a chance meeting with a space pilot named Raruku (below), a member of defence organisation TOPLESS, which throws her headlong into battle with the aliens.
Now, sequels of ANYTHING rarely stand up to the promise of the originals but I still felt some cautious optimism for Gunbuster 2. In addition to the background and premise there are a few similarities with the Top O Nerae! OVA, such as one of the incidental/next ep preview tunes, the gleefully cliched mecha designs, even the corny middle-of-episode jingle. As a homage to an old favourite, so far so good.
A Top O Nerae! episode isn’t complete without parodies of existing sci-fi shows and with not only the oldies but more recent efforts (including Gainax’s Evangelion) to draw on for inspiration Gunbuster 2 has no shortage of things to send up. Indeed, there are echoes of Eva in the battle choreography but there is also an obvious influence of Gainax’s slice-of-life comedy FLCL in terms of character designs and artwork. This is a good thing at this stage because, like FLCL, the frantic animation and sharp, bright art are superb and the combat scenes offer all the giant robots, cute girls, gruesome alien monsters and giant explosions that any self-respecting mecha fan could want (below).
With the staff roll-call reading like a Who’s Who of Gainax luminaries there is no shortage of talent on board and early signs give this series great promise. In the intervening years the industry and audiences’ expectations have changed a great deal so it would have been neither sensible nor as interesting to merely retell the original. Unfortunately the more tender character-driven aspects, the other great thing about the Top O Nerae! series, are absent here but it is early days yet. As far as can tell from this opening episode Gunbuster 2 is an action-packed and funny blast of mecha action that is great fun to watch. I just hope it stays good…
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