GaoGaiGar Final

After the really excellent GaoGaiGar TV series, I was very excited for the follow-up OVA, which promised bigger and better fights, more robots, more enemies and more characters. I certainly got all of that, but I wouldn't say it had the charm of the original. The TV series is approximately 25 episodes of classic super robot plot updated for modern audiences with plucky kids, brave heroes, talking robots and masses of explosions and shouting, followed by another 24 episodes of a more arc-based plot with its own exciting story and charm. It's a good solid show for anyone who loves or loved the classic super robotsof the 70s and 80s. The OVA tries to be more edgy and adult, with the stakes raised to massive levels and the villains more "mature" in design. As a case in point - GGG TV had for its villains a train conductor, a masked pilot, a ballerina and a sailor. Then it had a clown and a team of mutant enemies themed on body parts. GGG Final has a dominatrix, the Grim Reaper, a doctor who injects himself to become more powerful and a plethora of creepy kids and other misfits. When you've got a PVC and spikes clad villain chaining up the female heroes and "disciplining" them, or an oversized doctor using his "Doping" powers, it's not quite as charmingly pulp as what you've come to expect. There's also a lot more nudity and fanservice, and to be honest it doesn't really work. The battles tend to be inconclusive as the show saves itself for the final hour-long episode, something that mecha OVAs and movies sometimes fall prey to (Char's Counterattack seems to come to mind) and even then the fight relies on fakeout deaths and stalemates until its climax, at which point it's all over. The real problem is how it's set up in terms of power-ups. The intial fights, which pit GaoGaiGar against itself, are great. However, then the villains need to be shown as more powerful than the planet-sized Z Master who capped off the TV series - and this means the heroes need another couple of power-ups which only serve to make GGG more ridiculously tough and (in my opinion) a lot uglier than its original form. The ending of the OVA also bears discussion - it attempts at the same time to be hopeless ala Zambot 3, and have a noble sacrifice, while also leaving it open for a sequel. As a result, it doesn't really work at all. When you've raised the stakes as you have, the ending either needs to be full-on heroic or actually tragic, rather than inconclusive. All in all, GGG Final is a beautifully animated follow-up to the TV series which unfortunately misses what made the series so good. Overpowered robots and massive stakes do not instantly equal quality - as any Russell T Davies Dr Who finale, Godmars and Gundam SEED Destiny all prove. Similarly, the villains are dull for all their "extreme"-ness - I'd rather have plainer designs like the Zonderians, but at least they had personality from Penchinon's creepy laughing to the actually quite sinister behaviour of Primada. It's worth a watch if you're a completist or a fan of the show, since the fights are well-choreographed, but in this case bigger doesn't equal better - and GGG could happily have been left at the ending of the series.

GaoGaiGar FINAL is awesome. But not as awesome as the original series. It's a bit less awesome. It comes down to, it lacks some of the charm of GGG. GGG is a universal, but child safe show. GGG F got to be more adult, but it lost some of the charm of the original. The more adult things don't work in it's favour. Being a childs show forced GGG into focusing on the writing. It could'nt be lazy.GGG F got lazy. Fanservice, bigger breasts, more nudity. It does'nt help it. The villains are not as good. 3 of the first villains of GGG were neutrel and innocent things. A motorbike ballerina, a train conductor, and a creepy person in a sailorsuit/boat. Pizza was obviously seperate from the start, but a bird theme/planes is also innocent and neutrel. The boss was demonic. And that was the same for the later villains. Either straight up demonic, or something else. They included a creepy pierro. That they were neutrel things, made them more creepy and scary. They would be a ballerina or something, then do something nightmarish and horrible, made them more impactful. The boat sat about giggling is one of the most creepy things in anime. This, the villains go way too far. They are way too tryhard. The worst is the damn stupid wasp dominatrix. She does'nt even function as a villain, because she mess' about with the vile Renee Cardiff-Shishioh and Soldato J far too much. Were the other villains get on with it, she spends the entire time pissing about with the worst character in the show, in unnessessery fanservice. SHE DOES'NT EVER DO ANYTHING! And this is bad, considering the other villains do something. The self injecting doctor is stupid. Pallas Abel is incrediblely vile and obnoxious. A villains job is to be evil. But there's a point it goes beyond being entertaining and expected, into bad writing. And she looks like a child. Which makes the implied nudity creepy. Arm in GGG was deeply vile. But he was still a expected villain and was'nt so obnoxious he distracted from the story. The theme is awesome, but less good. More violins. It has a few diferent themes for diferent parts. The outro on most is atrocious, trite, sickening, drivel. One is awesome. The VAs sing it. The returning characters are as awesome are before. Guy Shishioh/Evoluder Guy, is very brave, handsome, and awesome. Mikoto does much more now. She's awesome. But the new characters are not always good. One of them is grindingly atrocious. One of the worst characters to stink up anything, ever. She is close to the levels of appalling of Iris from Pokemon Black And White. Iris is the worst character in any anime, ever. Renee Cardiff-Shishioh. She is a whiney, obnoxious, pointless, tedious, emo, cretin. She does'nt even look like the other characters, in design. The others are good looking and unique. Warm looking. Shes cold and out of place. Every single thing she says is either insults, borderline insults, or whining. To the point, her lines don't make sense. At one point, she stands about, glaring at a wall! Her friend dies, but she just sulks and glares. She's even got her back to the camera, glaring at the unfortunate person behind her, in the intro picture! She is the worst, and stupidest, cyborg, I ever saw. She wears a stupid 'cooling coat', for stupid and illogical reasons, She has a pair of useless pinch nez wielded to her nose. That turn into a visor.That she chose to wear. And a leotard. She's supposed to be 15 or so. Her outfit is a mess of stupid and a stupid attempt at sexy. It's like 2 designers clashed. One wanted twee steampunk. One wanted a stupid kind of sexy. And they compromised. There's no reason why they can't fix her. Just use Guys specs from when he was a cyborg, or Galeons specs. They could put the viser inside her head. There is no reason for any of the stupidity of her. She is really badly handled. This is especially bad, when GGG had 2 cyborgs. and they were handled really well. Guy Shishioh and Soldatto J. She is illogical and makes no sense. They never stop going on about how she is a cyborg. With Guy and Soldatto J, they treated them as characters. It was character first, cyborg or mechicalness second. Unless the plot required it to be said. You did'nt need telling Guy was a cyborg. And you knew Soldatto J was a cyborg, even if it was'nt obvious. But her, they never stop going on about how she's a cyborg. It's like, she is'nt so obviously a cyborg, so they keep saying she is. Like you'll forget! It's like they forgot how to do a cyborg. Or show fast running. And she makes these stupid Million Dollar Man noises when she runs. Not once, did or does any of the other characters, make a sound that does'nt sound right. Renee, she makes these REALLY ANNOYING whooshy pock pock noises every time she walks or runs. They forgot they making a anime, apparently, and could just draw fast running. So they resort to Million Dollar Man slowmo to show fast running. Guy and Soldatto J, they run normally. Her, ripped straight from the Million Dollar Man. She does'nt do anything, for most of the show. She either is useless or does very little. She does'nt take part of most of the big fights, that is in the hands of the original characters. She is shoehorned into every place she is. They are very pervy with her. They can't even show her being turned into a cyborg, without being pervy. The pervertedness is excessive. The worst part is, someone REALLY, REALLY, DESPERATELY, wanted to make out she was something more than she is. And they were so desperate to do it, they sacrificed the end theme. Apart from the end episode theme were the VAs sing the theme, which is awesome. The rest is not a outro at all. It's a cretinous excercise in Renee pushing. It is this grindingly atrocious, trite, sickening, cliched, garbage, that somehow manages the bad feat of making her seem worse than she is. And they did'nt have time to shoehorn in any more Renee crap, so they sometimes shoehorn her story into the end credits. A outro is a theme you use to finish a show. Not a advertisment for a cretinous moron character, who some idiot thought was a good idea to push. Papillion Noir is ok. But she sounds like a stoner when described. She sounds like a stoner whenever she talks about a lot of things. The two female robots are ok. The dark one is better. The pink one is hard to take seriously. She has a squeaky helium voice. Giant robot, helium voice, does'nt work. The position of GGG is stupid in this. In GGG they were part of the authorities. A secret govournment group. They had to attend meetings, but they were the authorities. Here, for no reason whatsoever, the UN have turned into cretins, and they somehow control secret govournment groups, now. There is absolutely zero reason for any of it. We ar'nt talking like in the transformers film, were they traitorously sent the Autobots away to avoid death from Decepticons. Not even those spurious and cretinous reasons are present. It's just pointless, meaningless, completely illogical, rubbish, what happens. If anything, GGGs position should much stronger than in the first series. They've proven themselves right to protect the earth, etc. Fanservice is more present here. Not bad fanservice. But not needed. There is a wierd ammount of nudity. In the end, there is a wierd picture of 3 female characters, naked. It's creepy. Pallas Abels outfit is also iffy. There's quite a large implication she's naked under the robe. That is creepy. There is also some none dirty nudity about. It's disturbing. But you can tell it's not dirty. The womens breasts are bigger. Which is fine, but was'nt needed. The dress' are contrivedly showing knickers, a lot. Not always in a way that makes sense. Sometimes it's like they hiked the dress' up, beyond normal levels. The writing is a bit less good than GGG. With GGG, there was a reason for everything. Some parts of this, are like the events are less for story, more to throw as much bad stuff as possible at Guy and GGG. Some of it looks like they were determined to give Guy and GGG a really bad day. And it's not a good idea, really. You may know the episode that starts off GGGs second half. Guy and GGG have a really bad day. It's cranked up way past some of the other fights. And it works, because the other fights are diferent levels of hard. Always hard, always against enemies bigger and stronger than them. But diferent levels. This there are more massive fights on par with the bad day in GGG. Not bad, but having diferent levels of fights works much better. There has to be some fights that are smaller, were they go back to base and say 'Job done'. One death is really stupid and contrived. There is more gore and violence this time. With some painful and gory looking injuries. The animation is better. The mechas are awesome. Genesec GaoGaiGar is not in it enough. There is a bad case of show it in the outro, but not in the episode. They show things, then it skips forward, showing a later version of the events in the last episodes outro. The end is terrible and insulting to the characters. They imply they will kill them off. In a really stupid way. Then they say they will be back. They were going to make a series after. But did'nt. But even if the series was made. The ending is still terrible and insulting. It is a awesome anime. But not absolutely awesome, like GaoGaiGar. You should definately watch it.

Hey, guess what everyone? Guess whose everybody's favorite robot has come back for yet another adventure! Well, it's none other than GaoGaiGar! A new menace threatens the planet... Huh? Wait, didn't we get a lot of that last time? Not again! Nooo!!! Joking aside, I'm glad to say that this sequel redeems the GaoGaiGar Franchise altogether. If you happen to be a regular viewer who just stumbled upon this series, (such as myself) and got through the first season, it's safe to say that if you watch this, you will be rewarded. Sadly, kid viewers will have to wait until they're teenagers to watch thisone. I'll explain later in the review. Before I go on to the review, if you haven't seen the first season, I STRONGLY SUGGEST you do watch it before reading any further. The only reason I suggest this is so you can appreciate the totality of GaoGaiGar. Now, on to the review. STORY... Not much has changed in this category, but you get a sense of nostalgia when you see the heroes of 3G back again. There's still villains wanting to rule the universe, but where it gets interesting is the methods used by the villains. The methods carried out by the villains inflict absolute despair on the heroes that it had enough SHOCK VALUE to make me say, "No way... Did that really just happen? Whoa, the heroes might actually lose this time." But then I suddenly remembered that this is GAOGAIGAR, the heroes ALWAYS find a way to win. And with that, lies a flaw- While watching this, I never had the sense that the heroes of 3G would lose in the end= slight sense of predictability. But as I got towards the end, I was finally given a befitting ending that left me satisfied. Watch it for yourself to find out. ANIMATION... This is one of the strong points of the series and also where I explain why kid viewers will have to wait until they're teenagers. The robot designs definitely look fresher, crisper, and much cooler. There are definitely those heavy GAR moments when power-ups are achieved and when transformations are done. The battle scenes are splendid- seeing mechas go at it, as bits and pieces of their armor break apart and lots of sparks flying everywhere with each intense collision. Not to mention, over the scale screaming of emotions of the pilots. Definitely fun to watch. It was enough to make me say wow. It's just that awesome. Haha... To my surprise, there is a lot of nudity and ecchi themes like huge breasts jiggling and seeing panties under the skirts of women. They even focus on it for like 1-2 seconds, sometimes 2-3 seconds. I thought this was a kids' show!? Anyways, let's go on- there are still the over exaggerated movements for the simplest of commands, and luckily, you don't see as much of that stuff anymore, (not like in the first season, wherein, every episode it's loaded with that junk) so you'll be more amused rather than annoyed. I also applaud the designers for making the villains look more menacing and dangerous. They weren't lazy this time. I commend them for that. SOUND... Not much can be said in this category, there's still the same opening theme song, but with a "grander" feeling about it. Maybe it's because it's the finale? I guess so... I didn't particularly like the ending theme song. In essence, it's still basically the same soundtrack. CHARACTERS... The same heroic 3G group is still here, but early on, the series lets you know that most members of the original crew have all moved to different places and different people have replaced their old positions. For example, remember how Mr. Chief use to give the approval for Final Fusion with wild energy and emotion? The new guy who replaced him is so relaxed, and so laid back that it is outrageously funny watching him give the approval for Final Fusion (because it's something you're not use to, if you watched the first season). There are also the introduction of a few new side characters, like the new sister robots of Enryu and Hyoryu, and Renee, who is Guy's cousin. But I ended up not really feeling for them because this is about the original 3G and their final battle. It feels as if they were just put in there because the number of villains turned out to be extra, so the directors needed an opponent for the villain. Surprisingly, Mikoto Utsugi was given a stronger role in the story, which I found to be respectable and likeable- refreshing. The directors finally made full use of the cast, which resulted in a better story. OVERALL SCORE: 8/10= Awesome STRENGTHS + Still conveys the wonderful message: "Anything can be overcome with courage." + Has SHOCK VALUE. + Full use of cast characters. + Excellent Animation. (Especially mecha battles loaded with GAR moments.) + Finally delivers an appropriate ending GaoGaiGar should have had a long time ago. WEAKNESSES - Predictability still exists. - Too much unnecessary nudity and ecchi themes. Note: I can't really say whether you should watch this or not. If you watched the first season, then why not watch it for closure? (It's what I did and I was rewarded.) But if you didn't watch the first season, then you don't have to bother with this one. Remember, tell the kids they're going to have to wait a few years before watching this. I recommend this for GaoGaiGar fans and for regular viewers who happened to watch the first season.