Samurai Troopers

Welcome to one of the original modern day cult classics of anime. The licensors originally intended to keep its true title, Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, but because of Saban Entertainment’s two big name titles at the time: Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad and VR Troopers having the names in their titles, they feared a law suit. I know it’s stupid, but this is America we’re talking about. But I think Ronin Warriors is also an appropriate title for our cast of characters. Despite the title and name changes, as well as some other ones in context to the story, it maintains a substantial amount of faithfulnessin presentation with character interaction, development, and themes such as friendship and unity. But for what it’s worth, the story is appropriately paced and stunningly engaging. I was really captivated by how much Ryo values his friendship with his teammates, and it was also an anime that had death scenes and showed a naked woman on early after noon television. So some of those qualities were just unique to me during that one summer vacation of 1995. But beyond that, I also loved its approach to the concept of what defines good and evil in a way that my 11-year-old mind at the time could handle. Of course some major flaws and issues people will have is that the team doesn’t have an official back-story. Such as how and why they got their armors. In the Japanese version, some of the characters are descended from samurai which does give some indication that they were bounded by blood or destiny to become so. But I heard there are some manga material and drama cds that do give some elaboration to this. Well, to some people the style may not really be unique, but to me when I was getting into anime, seeing the art alone was enough to tell me that I should watch this show. To me, the art was fresh, sharp, original, and distinctive. And for some reason, I still have some of those same impressions to this day though it’s not as strong as it was 13 years ago. Granted the multi-color scheme was very Power Rangers-ish for that time period, I just thought the designs of both the Ronin and Dynasty Warriors brought out a really retro and original approach to the style. I was truly frightened with what the bad guys’ armors looked like and the power it had. And even though the attacks relied on recycled footage, I just love how dramatic they were and how much detail they put into the movement and expressions. The fights at the time were very exciting and high octane for me because like I said, it was something new and it just pulled me in. But I did notice the use of hyper space backgrounds and ever since then as well as in other anime, they still bother me to this day. I want to say more but I’ll leave what I say in relation to this topic for my overall commentary. OK, the English opening theme was cheesy, but I just loved the guitars. Granted it didn’t have a Japanese feel to it, but I thought it was still hypnotic. But I do appreciate that the dub still kept the original background music soundtrack. I always loved the guitar edition of the first ending theme, Far Away, and I thought it was always appropriately used and it always stuck out to me, as well as other background mixes of the other songs such as Stardust Eyes and Samurai Heart. But when you hear the actual theme songs, they have this certain Japanese authenticity to the show. The dub may sound cheesy and lame to some people, but I personally still love it to this day. I think the dub is appropriately 90s and I think the accents for some of the characters truly reflected their personalities. I liked Cye’s or Shin’s or whoever you want to call him’s British accent. I think it perfectly brings out his gentle and happy nature. I also loved Jason Gray Stafford as Kento or Xiu. He brought out his party animal personality and I also enjoyed Matt Hill as Ryo or Raioh or whatever pronunciation you want to use. I recognized his voice as Captain N the first time I heard it and I just simply liked him for the role. And the dub voices of the Warlords were excellent and they just brought out the true evil in them. But I also think the Japanese version is also excellent in its own right. I truly enjoyed Kusao Takeshi’s Ryo as well and brought out his qualities in his own right as well as being passionate and commanding. And Wakamoto Norio, who voiced Cell in DBZ I thought was also great as Kaos or The Ancient One, and the English voice actor, Michael Dobson brought a great charisma to that role as well. I say watch both English and Japanese versions not to see which version is better, but to just overall enjoy it. Well, as you can tell by this review, every time I watch and talk about this anime, the inner child inside me who first watched comes out and talks about his impressions after watching it the first time. I was officially watching anime for barely six months at that point and I thought it was unique to see anime on TV at the time. Keep in mind that shortly after, DBZ and Sailor Moon would soon follow, but would have yet find any mainstream success. The reason why I feel I can’t be outraged over what was changed and edited is not really over the legal circumstances, but I felt that despite whatever changes were made, I personally felt that this anime still had all of its qualities that made it likeable as an anime. I mean, it’s not like any direct Japanese references were cut out. I was captured by how the story wasn’t traditionally episodic as I grew up with American cartoons. I loved the art, the action, the development, the characters.

Overview: Since I have lately focused on largely forgotten anime that actually did air on American TV, I decided I really had to do Yoroiden Samurai Troopers AKA Ronin Warriors. This show aired on Toonami in the afternoon alongside DBZ, Gundam Wing, and Sailor Moon. What made this one stick out is that it is several years older than most of the anime from Toonami and really has that vintage 1980s look and feel to it. Although it certainly has some flaws, it is a cheesy fun experience that still commands a cult following in 2014. Actually, it was recently announced that this series is goingto be re-released on blu-ray! Plot and characters: 4/10 The plot is that an evil demon was defeated over 1,000 years ago and his mighty armor was divided into 9 separate suits, each having a different element and virtue that it represents. Of course this means that 5 suits end up being used by the good guys and 4 by bad guys because it is fucking MANDATORY for every anime and Sentai (NOT hentai you pervs) show in this genre to feature a 5 man team. It is also pretty much required for each member to have a different color and element, and to strike cool group poses all the time. Of course there is also an animal sidekick and chick to be the team's cheerleader. Even the unconventional 4 man Ninja Turtles had to have April O'Neal. This show really used a cookie cutter 80s formula that will give modern viewers a good look at how pretty much all childrens' action shows looked and felt at that time period. When the armors of fire, water, wind, earth, and void combine together, they summon Captain Planet! Wait! They summon the Inferno Armor! Inferno Armor is what I meant to say! One interesting thing the show did was that even the 4 "Dark Warlords" each had a virtue that they followed. This at least gave it a small bit of moral complexity and not just pure good vs. evil. Art and sound 4/10 Ronin Warriors featured the same "finisher moves" in every episode which each had the same few minutes of animation used over and over. This meant that an average episode would be 20 minutes with 10 minutes of new footage and 10 minutes of recycled animation used in all 39 episodes. Even shows with larger budgets like Sailor Moon used LOTS of recycled animation at this period, so this was simply accepted as the norm by anime fans. Today we are far more spoiled and would never simply accept a show being this fucking lazy and cheap. The soundtrack is allright, although if you are expecting cheesy 80s songs like Top Gun or Rocky 4 than you will be sadly disappointed. Overall: 5/10 I gave it an extra point for nostalgia and cheesyness. This isn't a good show, but it was a fun little show back in the late 1990s when I was 10 years old. I'm sure if a kid today watched it, he or she would be like..."The fuck was that shit?!" However, it still holds a special place for me as a silly bit of my childhood.

This series will always hold a special place in my heart as a thing I deeply love, even though it is truly terrible in so many ways. DOOM -copyright the Japanese dub and accompanying English subs, which are truly a treasure- It was, I think, the second anime I watched, and the first one I ever fell in love with, and the first I ever owned. The plot is... largely bad, and it's so obviously built to pad time that it's somewhat laughable. We'll ignore the plot holes large enough to fill the Grand Canyon. After all, that's what the show did. Characters are so densethey could probably stop bullets with it. The dialogue is at times phenomenally stupid and laughably stupid, with occasional bursts of heart. This was first released in 1988, and the art quality (not the style) looks it. It has every bad hallmark of 80s-90s anime you can think of, even if you ignore the cheeseball dialogue DOOM. Repetitive overuse of the same long transformation and attack sequences (not just calling out the name of the attack and starting it, but actual movement) to cut costs and save time on writing plot by filling episode length. The only show I can think of that was worse with this was the old "Scooby-Doo" cartoon. Annoying child character/audience stand-in who serves no purpose other than to be rescued and be a whiny asshat. Lots of damseling the single female character in the main cast. And then adding a female antagonist who also gets damselled a lot. Sentient-ish animal sidekick. Convenient (with the copyright logo) villain dumbassery. A truly random baseball sequence that... I still don't understand. At all. But you know. Why not? The protagonists are only 14-15 anyway. That's not to say there aren't some very good plot ideas and episodes in the series. E03, E05, E10, E21, and E32 are particularly close to my heart. I'm biased because I'm a Ryo fan, if it wasn't obvious. If you're looking for cheese that's so bad it's funny, this skids the line of not quite making it there? Sure, DOOM is added to almost every villain's dialogue at least three times an episode, and the mangst wavers between good fanfiction fodder and true cheese, but well... This probably is not the corny thing you want to watch for shits and giggles while you get drunk or something. It's too slow most of the time for that. Although if you're watching the English dub, at least revel in the fact that Matt Hill, who voices Ryo, also voiced Ed from "Ed, Edd, and Eddy". "Your mother wears army boots" indeed, my dear, stupid English dub. (what does that line even MEAN I ask you) The series has a ton of potential. There's a rich bed of Japanese fantasy lore in the show that you don't see in a ton of easily recyclable shonen from the era. I'd love to see a modern adaptation of this. It would be spectacular. Particularly if the main cast got character development. The art, for all that it's generic 80s-90s quality, has a neat style that could do well on a modern show. The armors all have neat designs, particularly the Shiroi Kikotei. It's not surprising that this is the studio that went on to produce the "Escaflowne" movie in 2000, for better and different kinds of worse. The first ED, "Faraway", by Mariko Uranishi, is quite good. The rest of the music is forgettable. I seem to vaguely recall that the English OPs were pretty bad, but it's been so long since I watched the dub that it's thankfully faded from my memory. Honestly, if you aren't watching this for the nostalgia factor, I'd suggest skipping it. It hasn't aged well at all. And are the OVAs bad? Yes. Yes they are. All three of them. Oh you didn't know there were OVAs? How fortunate for YOU. Unfortunately there really aren't alternatives that hit the same-ish genre spots as this that I'd recommend. Too many mecha or samurai shows are terrible for similar and somewhat worse reasons, particularly from the same era. "Natsume Yuujinchou" is an amazing Japan-centric supernatural/fantasy show I'd always recommend, but it's not shonen or mecha. "Macross Frontier" is pretty, with some good plot and mangst, and some great music, even if it does succumb to some typical mecha genre issues. "Katanagatari" is a beautifully drawn and stylized fantasy samurai-centric-ish show with great fight scenes that embraces the cornball factor, so that might be the best alternative. If you want a more modern product of this studio with some nice animation, try the "Escaflowne" movie, which has Bones animation to give it the polish completely absent from the storytelling.