12-year old Daisaku Kusama is the sole controller of Giant Robo, the world's most powerful robot. With the help of INTERPOL and the Experts of Justice, Daisaku must thwart the nefarious plans of Big Fire, a terrorist organization determined to control the world. In the future, the Experts of Justice battle to protect Earth from the terrorist organization, Big Fire, with the help of a boy who is the sole controller of a colossal robot. Witness now the dawning of our tomorrow. Shining brighter than the daybreak of light is the brilliance of the Shizuma Drive. Our only reliable future of energy, which includes dependability in every home and the Earth's only answer to the waste of atomic and oil energy.<br/><br/>But beware, for our shining future has also cast a dark shadow of revenge - BIG FIRE, an underworld organization, who's only goal is absolute world domination!<br/><br/>Do not panic, for we are protected by the international police organization formed by the Experts of Justice, keeping our world safe from the evils of Big Fire. Amongst their ranks is the bravery of one boy who commands the mightiest robot of all - a young boy called Daisaku Kusama. ..<br/><br/>The set up and intro may sound cheesy, but it's far from it. I am shocked - nay, stunned that it took me this long to get around to watching this series. Everyone should immediately drop whatever they are doing at this moment and watch Giant Robo. It's that cool.<br/><br/>The more observant of the crowd might notice that GR looks a LOT like a series called Johnny Socko and his Flying Robot. Or one might dismiss it out of hand as just another "Giant Mecha fighting" series. Giant Robo is neither. It is very loosely based on that Johhny Socko - but very, very loosely, and it is SO much more than just Big Robots beating the hell out of each other.<br/><br/>The plot revolves around the last sample of the prototype Shizuma drive, Big Fire's efforts to obtain the sample, and the Experts of Justice's attempts to keep it out of their hands. Along the way, villains turn out to be not quite what they appear to be, good guys die, the golden egg that is the Shizuma drive isnt quite the blessing that everyone expected - basically the plot undergoes so many twists and turns, that the view ends up is nowhere near where they started. It's like Babylon 5, but animated - and better.<br/><br/>The animation is a cool retro look, like the animated Batman series. The music is a grand symphonic score, worthy of John Williams, the story - I cant get enough of it. It's a bit confusing when characters get introduced in waves - you cant tell 'em apart sometimes without a score card. But stick it out - this series is WELL worth the trouble.<br/><br/>It's a nearly all ages film - no sex or nudity, plenty of violence - but it's all cartoon-ish, and way over the top (like a Jackie Chan movie). Some swearing, but not excessively so. (www.plasticpals.com) Back when the original animation series Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still was new on VHS, I rented each episode in succession and was enjoying them up until episode 6 ended on one hell of a cliffhanger. Unfortunately for me and many other fans, the 7th and final episode in the series wasn't out — and wouldn't be out for almost three years! In the meantime I lost track of things amidst the likes of Neon Genesis Evangelion and school.<br/><br/>I've just spent the last week watching the whole series, more than a decade after its completion, and I'm pleased to say Yasuhiro Imagawa's mid-'90s re-imagining of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's '60s manga series hasn't aged a day. The animation quality is top notch, and the accompanying orchestral score is still one of the best to grace an anime, with even each credit roll getting its own unique composition.<br/><br/>The story is set in the near future with the third energy revolution only 10 years old. Petroleum and nuclear power have been replaced by the seemingly perfect Shizuma Drive; a non-polluting energy canister-type device that now powers virtually everything on the planet. Mixed with the high tech are turn of the century design motifs like air ships, and characters which seem to have time-travelled from a fantasy medieval China, inspired by Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms manga. This concoction is a bit bizarre but works, and though the late episodes throw new characters into the mix at an insane pace, the early episodes manage to sketch in the key players well enough that you'll care about them.<br/><br/>The only catch with the Shizuma Drive is the Tragedy of Bashtarle: a catastrophic explosion that wiped out nearly a third of the world's population during a botched experiment with the drive's prototype. The accident was blamed on Professor Vogler, one of the scientists who worked with Dr. Shizuma on the drive. The series starts as the late Professor's spirit reappears to take vengeance on the world, backed by the terrorist organization bent on world domination; Big Fire. The only thing standing in their way is Interpol's Experts of Justice; super-human special agents that take on Big Fire's Magnificent Ten in wild kung-fu-inspired fight scenes. Among the Experts of Justice is Daisaku Kusama, heir to his father's masterpiece, Giant Robo.<br/><br/>Despite its title and genre, there are surprisingly few fights involving Giant Robo, let alone giant robots. The main characters do most of the fighting in hand-to-hand combat that would make the X-Men blush. There's enough Giant Robo to satisfy fans, but the story doesn't really revolve around him, or the ones that appear in brief cameos in the introduction. Giant Robo is an excellent example of direct-to-video productions, and despite the somewhat rushed and dissatisfying ending, the road there is worth taking. Some characters and seemingly important elements get tossed aside in the finale without a second thought, such as Big Fire's robot Poseidon. This is probably due to director Yasuhiro Imagawa's plan for a saga comprised of many such episodes, with this particular series taking place near the end. It's a damn shame the eluded-to series that would have preceded and continued the adventures of Daisaku and his giant robot never materialized.
Franignaz replied
295 weeks ago