Genesis Climber Mospeada

I just finished Genesis Climber Mospeada this evening, and to be honest, it feels like I'm still absorbing what took the past three (or so) days to watch! The fact that it's still on my mind so strongly is, for me, a good sign of a plot that extends far deeper than surface action. My overall impression? Though it has its flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed "the ride" of watching the series. The story is easy to grasp but at the same time a little difficult. Earth was invaded by aliens known as the Inbit. Humans have either already been living onother planets or perhaps flee to other planets after the arrival of the Inbit; they try twice to liberate Earth and fail. The main action follows Stig (Stick) Bernard, a member of the Second Liberation Force and the only survivor from his squadron, as he journeys to the Inbit headquarters in hopes of completely obliterating it. The Inbit are mysterious creatures who were seeking a peaceful place to live, but that's all I really feel like I understand about their intentions. The characters and their travels are what made this series so enjoyable for me. My favorite is Stig, the uptight soldier who has trouble seeing things beyond the simple good/bad dichotomy. Ray and Mint are always hilarious and adorable. Hoquet is lively and strong, and it was nice to see a capable female fighting alongside the men. There wasn't a single member of the cast that I found myself disliking, even Jim, the big coward of the bunch! :p Their growing relationships were a joy to watch and cheer for, especially those between Ray/Houquet and Stig/Aisha. The latter seemed a little less natural (as in, you couldn't really watch it develop step by step), but strangely enough I still felt really drawn to them as a pair. My favorite aspect of Mospeada is the soundtrack because, let me tell you, it's BEAUTIFUL. The opening theme, "In Search of Lost Legends", is incredibly lively and fits the series so well. Yellow Belmont's songs (performed by Mine Matsuki) are haunting and beautiful, to the point where you may be moved to tears after listening. The background score is by Joe Hisaishi, who went on to compose the music for all of Hayao Miyazaki's films; though Mospeada is older, his compositional brilliance still shines through. I can't recommend the soundtrack enough to do it justice! I never saw the adaptation of this series in Robotech: The New Generation, so unfortunately I can't give a comparison to the original. However, I will say that the original is a strong series that stands on its own two feet as a great work of art.

A year following the success of Macross and known in the United States as the third part of the Robotech series, Macross being the first, Mospeada came into anime existence. One person of note was involved, Katsuhito Akiyama. He is the same episode director from Macross and a few other notable anime (Last Exile, Bubblegum Crisis). However, where Macross stood high and even falling into much of the same name and fame, Genesis Climber Mospeada falls way short. Aliens invade Earth and wipe out humanity to the point that the remaining humans flee to Mars. Humans fight back with a second force to try and takeback the Earth from the invaders (Inbit), and this is where the anime begins. It does start out strong with good action, an interesting plot with loads of potential. Even the plot behind the reasons behind the Inbit invasion and how evolution plays a role, all are interesting and great. However, the anime and this “done before” plot does everything it can to ignore a story and fill air time with almost meaningless action, and no progression to the overall goal. The entire anime is the journey of one group of main characters from southern South America to the Great Lakes of North America. At the same time, nothing happens, other than the same re-hashed fight sequences over and over again. The animation is weak being that there were more interesting and exciting things done already in the early 1970’s. One could actually think the entire show was episodic in sense after episode two. Music wise, this screams 80’s go-go dancing. The soundtrack is fun the first time heard, and then repeats over and over again. Lucky it is by Joe Hisaishi (music in many Ghibli films). There is almost no character development other than some characters kind-of falling for one another. Each one is incredibly one-dimensional. The most interesting character is the comic relief character, which is a red-headed ball of fun, but really has zero business being in the group. How the Inbit can wipe out Earth’s forces twice, but cannot manage a small group of scrubs is beyond understanding. In short, this might as well be a re-hashed super-robot show from the 1970’s trying to be real-robot. The only good episodes after the first two were the last three. It's just nowhere near enough to save this anime. This would have been better off as an OVA series, or just skipping all together.

Mospeada is mostly known for being the 3rd part of the Robotech series despite not being part of the super dimensional trilogy like the previous 2 parts, Macross and southern cross. Nonetheless it surprisingly shares a series of commonalities to the other titles that it fits quite in and makes sense why this title was incorporated, or maybe it was just the trend of the time for many shows and this title just got lucky. As for the show by itself, it's a bit of a disappointment. The best description would be that it's a decent show buried underneath terrible decisions. The story takes place ina sort of post-apocalyptic earth where aliens have successfully invaded and taken over the planet. Humans still live on earth but have become "slaves", but for the most part are actually just complacent to the invaders. Another group of humans live in space such as on the moon and mars and par-take in operations to liberate earth. The main protagonist, Stig participates in this operation but it goes horribly wrong and Stig crash lands on earth and assumes that he is the sole survivor of the operation. This begins his journey as he travels across the earth to hopefully find other survivors and find a way to defeat the aliens. Early along his journey Stig meets and travels with a variety of other people, creating a ragtag group of fighters. The first one is Ray who serves as a deuteragonist, and certainly looks like one due to his character designs and being more of a poster boy compared to Stig who has a more mature and controlled look and demeanor. Stig comes of more as a commander or mentor type while Ray is the more common young hothead protagonist you’d expect from the genre at the time. The other characters include Houqet a former member of a biker gang. mint a young girl looking for love. Jim, a soldier from a previous liberation operation. And yellow a man guised as a woman pop idol. The recruitment of each of these members made the show interesting. Giving each character a basic background to build from and in some way showed a sign of progress. However as soon as they get all the characters get together the show begins to stagnate. While the objective is still clear and the way to get there is laid out via a map, the show becomes a muddled mess by being episodic with whatever the writers can get by with. From meeting ancient dinosaurs. to an entire episode focused on a fever dream. They do have some in series reason to them, but do nothing to advance the plot. Not to mention how hard the show tries to keep a status quo with the character especially on two episodes that are back to back. The first one having mint leave the group after finding someone to marry (although a bit questionable due to her character), and the next episode having some people deciding to disband. Yet in the end Mint comes back for some reason, and the other members decide to travel with them still. The closest thing the show has to getting back a narrative is an amnesiac character named Aisha. She is found and goes along with the group on their journey. Along the way it’s shown that she has some connection to the aliens, and as it turns out she is an alien just like in Macross and Southern Cross. The difference being that they aren’t really humanoid aliens, but take the form of humans to be best accustomed with earth. But it’s these knew forms that hinder them as few becomes sympathetic to humans unlike the monstrous crab mechs of before. The production value is ok at best with the only thing interesting being the mech designs. First being the motorcycle that transforms into a battle suit for the wearer. Unlike other mech suits that are wildly big this one is about the same size as the wearer. It’s more akin to power armor which makes it sort of unique in the anime mech landscape. The other one is that aircraft which is basically the same as in Macross. Having three forms of a regular airplane, airplane with limbs, and finally a full on mech. It does look like kind of a rip-off, but it isn’t used that much compared to the motorcycle suits. It’s a shame that Mospeada panned out to be a disappointment of a show. There’s really something special their with it cast of characters and even a bit of the plot. Yet it’s so bogged down with a bunch of random nothing that it makes it a chore to watch at times.