Blog From The Bench

ADV calls their upcoming Tuesday release of Godannar "the wildest giant robot series ever." That's a lofty claim, and in some ways well-founded. Let's assume for argument's sake that two camps will be interested in Godannar: twelve to 15-year-old boys, and Gen eXers who grew up with shows like Voltron and Robotech. ADV has rated it for mature audiences, so I'll proceed under the assumption that Godannar is aimed at the latter camp.

As a thirty-something who loves anime and loved Voltron, I got a kick out of Godannar. Every cliche is prodded for comic potential. The enemy is kinda glossed over; all we need know is that Japan is not safe, and all that stands between us and annihilation at the hands of gigantous blob beasts are shiny robotic suits with human pilots inside. Breasts come in two sizes, huge and huger-- one particularly well-endowed woman even stores her cell phone conveniently in her endless cleavage. The enemies are silly throwaways, and the pilots are laughably exaggerated (I loved the German team with the flame-haired fraulein shushing her Eurotrash partner). No one does anything in Godannar without melodramatically announcing their intentions ("Firing the Supersonic Lance of Doom Impairment!") or engaging ludicrously complex machinery. Crusty mechanics work on the exoskeletons, while preordained savior-schoolgirl pilots rush to class. There is nothing here we haven't seen dozens of times. Godannar plays like a big gag at the expense of the shows we loved, which in retrospect simply weren't any good. Fans of early mecha shows are automatically in on the joke.

In that sense, Godannar is actually better than the shows I watched growing up. Nonetheless, I couldn't help a mounting sense of distaste as Godannar wore on. The reasons are quite simple: pace and tone. Godannar combines the shrill pace of Puni Puni Poemy with the stultifyingly generic tone of Gravion. It seems as though anime producers are either searching for the holy grail mecha parody that will grab Generation X or, more disturbingly, simply producing manic, narratively conservative mecha shows without seeing the irony. If big breasts are funny, bigger breasts aren't funnier. If high pitch seems zany, a higher pitch doesn't seem zanier. At no point in volume one of Godannar was a plot in danger of taking its time, blossoming slowly but tensely into conflict or joy. The plot is thrown at the viewer in a hurricane-force pinwheel of characters, weapons, enemies, and themes, while the frequent fan service comes and goes like a strobe light.

Perhaps my experience would have been more positive if this screener had provided the much-preferable Japanese language track, or not maintained a screen-wide, two sentence disclaimer along the top third of the screen. The English track is well-crafted, but I can't escape the suspicion that much of Godannar's intended irony has bee tossed out the window. Perhaps most of all I'm simply longing for a series with the depth, tension, and masterful pace of Neon Genesis Evangelion. I'm sure the anime producers are, too.