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| 4. Iodine
One of the earlier GAINAX OAVs, featuring a fairly basic
fight-the-alien-menace-with-giant-robots plot that's given extra heft by some
wonderful technical concepts. Much is also borrowed from sports shows, as our
heroine, Noriko, is in training for the first half of the series, struggling with
a demanding coach, a reluctant partner, and hostile rivals in her quest to become
a pilot. The scope of the story is huge and the plot moves past many potentially
limiting elements to follow through on its themes and concepts. But though the
writing is quite good, the same really can't be said of the characters. Noriko
is a weak-willed crybaby until the very last episodes and comes off very badly.
Her partner Amano is much stronger since she is allowed to develop and change,
but the short length of the OAV forces some these shifts too quickly. Both girls'
personality flaws make them very difficult to warm up to, and the early episodes
are iffy as a result. Fortunately, this is not the case in the latter half of
the series, where the plot manages to pick up the slack. The secondary and minor
characters are relatively better in conception and execution. The
technical aspects of the OAV are quite good, though the designs look a little
dated. Certainly Amano's hairbows and Noriko's headbands are oddly conspicuous.
On the whole, Gunbuster is one of the better entries to the mecha genre
of the late 80s, and certainly helped pave the way for more good work from GAINAX,
but there's the feeling that it could've accomplished more. With the depressing
dearth of girls in mecha, it's a shame that the characters here came out so weak.
Still, the story is one of the best in the genre, and the ending is an absolute
stunner. |
| 3. Cross
Scars 
Gunbuster contains a fairly standard sci-fi plot of
the human race being under threat from aliens with humanity facing an uphill struggle
for survival. As a result Gunbuster could have turned out like any run
of the mill mecha series but this is Hideaki Anno's work and instead the
series turns out more like a forerunner to Evangelion. The
most obvious form this takes is in the shape of the main character - Noriko Takaya,
an angst ridden mecha pilot, not that the rest of the cast are spared their own
bit of grief. Anno always creates a greatly touching cast of characters
with great interrelationships and the same is true in this early work of his,
and as with Evangelion and Kare Kano, it's the cast who make the
series so great. The plot may be fairly standard
but there's a nice development over the 6 episodes as Noriko gets to grips with
her mecha, tries to overcome her angst and settle into the role her Coach has
entrusted her with. The soundtrack to Gunbuster, while not entirely original,
is none the less one of the best to accompany a Gainax production and music taken
from Holst's 'The Planets' definitely enhances the epic space feel of the
series. Gunbuster shares several elements
with Evangelion but this is an OAV that's well worth watching for its own
numerous merits, even if comparisons are somewhat inevitable if you've seen Eva
before hand. |
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