Anime: Top o Nerae! 2i1y16

Top Wo Nerae: Gunbuster is a 1988 anime OVA directed by the legendary Hideaki Anno. It focuses on two girls, Takaya Noriko and Amano Kazumi, and their fight against the alien beasts attacking Earth. It may sound simple, but the true beauty of Gunbuster lies in it’s characters, execution and themes.

Our protagonist, Takaya Noriko, is a rather traditional “emotionally broken, terrifyed Gainax mecha pilot” character, a la Simon or Ikari Shinji. The difference here is just how FAST she gets out of her funk. And when she does get in the damn robot... Oh my god. The battle sequences in Top wo Nerae are, to this day, some of the most visceral, intense and downright badass fights in anime. Specific note to the fight in episode 5, which got me so hype that I was shivering. That’s an incredible fight.

Amano Kazumi is the “Onee-Sama”of the two, acting as the mentor of sorts. She, however, is also human, and has moments of weakness herself. I think that Noriko and Kazumi have the perfect amount of being awesome and being vulnerable. Kazumi’s friendship with Noriko is also something rather special, and some of the emotional high points wouldn’t have been so potent without their bond.

All the side characters, seeing as they are literally side characters in a Bildungsroman, do their job very well. Special mention to Coach. No, I don’t know his name, and frankly, I don’t care. His name is Coach. And he was awesome.

Gunbuster is a total of around 170 minutes long. 2 hours and 50 minutes. 2/3 of that time is slow, and dedicated to character development. Hell, you don’t even see what they are fighting until the last 45 minutes. Normally this would be crazy talk, but it works flawlessly here. Not a frame is wasted.

These first 4 episodes manage to stay exciting through perfect use of the occasional “INAZUMA KIIIICCCCCKKKK” with sprinkles of some of the best fanservice in the industry. If, of course, the strong characters aren’t enough for you. Well, there is one more thing about these episodes (and the whole show) that could draw you in...

The action in Gunbuster is beautifully animated. Featuring stunning lights and backgrounds, constant fluid movement, easy on the eyes character designs and, of course, the Gunbuster itself

Far more impressive is the ear-worm original score. It’s some of the cheesiest 80s cheese you can hear, but god if it isn’t one of my all time favorite anime OSTs. Everyone knows the opening, but my favorite track is called “Fly High” followed by “Gunbuster!”

How can you overshadow outstanding frame by frame animation, intricate and developed characters and a catchy musical score? Easy. Hire Hideaki Anno to direct. I’ll put it plain and simple: Gunbuster’s directing and execution is the best aspect of the whole show.

The aforementioned amazing fight direction helps, but what makes the directing stand out so much is the final episode. The has a slight directing change that deliberately down plays the entire final battle. At one point in the episode, there is a 3 second scene that messes with this change. Every average show I’ve ever seen’s pathos combined isn’t nearly as poignant as these 3 seconds of Gunbuster.

The age of time is something explored quite a bit in this series. You see, in space, time es far faster. Our heroes could have only been out there for 20 seconds, but when they get back to Earth, it has been months. This use of time is the crux of the narrative, and more importantly, the ending.

Ahh, the ending. To be blunt, once again, no anime comes close to the ending of Gunbuster. My two previous favorite endings, Shigatsu and Katanagatari, while both very powerful, don’t manage to make me cry in less than 3 seconds. Gunbuster’s finale had me crying the whole time for the characters, and for the next hour after because of just how masterful the whole thing was.

The motivation and hype of Gunbuster is far above average. Less than Gurren Lagann, but hundreds of times more than something like One Punch Man. Yet, there is one difference here. The use of time adds a totally new layer to the motivation. Every motivational speech is a sacrifice. The eternally ticking clock makes every episode desperate.

+ Superb animation work

+ Catchy cheesy soundtrack

+ Mind blowing directing, cinematography and symbolism

+ Strong, likable characters

+ Well done slow start

+ The unyielding age of time

+ Tons of fun

+ GUNBUSTAAAAA

+ A beautiful tragedy (This show made me cry more than I’m willing to it)

+ Top notch fanservice

+ Ridiculously hype.

+ THAT ENDING DOE!

+/- Takes a full watch before you can truly love it.

+/- Some of the characters do nothing but moral

As you can tell, I adore Gunbuster. The two “flaws” I don’t even think are flaws, thus I put them as “you may love or may not” because I sure had no problem with those two things. Top o Nerae: Gunbuster might just be the greatest anime I’ve ever seen. It gets a very obvious 10/10. It’s one of the only 3 anime I’d give that award, and I hope you guys liked it as much as I do. GUNBUSTAAAAAAA show less
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How can a piece of anime history be rated and reviewed? Not a rhetorical question, that, at least two answers I see as valid. The first one, which states that a reviewer has to be familiar with the context, history and influence of the piece in question in order to fully portray its significance and merits. I can't do that.
The second answer is the weakling's way out, history is hard, I'll just spout my modern thoughts on this relatively retro piece. Yeah, that sounds like something I can do.

Art & Animation

Gunbuster is gorgeous. The faces do have that retro look to them, but the animation quality is top notch, the sci-fi designs are great, and there are little details everywhere. Of particular note is the space monster designs, which better than most series have captured the alien-esque and monstrous essence with the looks ascribed to these guys. The final episode is also worth a mention due to an execution decision taken to make it, but I won't go into details here, just note that it looks fantastic. 9/10

Sound

The #1 aspect of Gunbuster, which I can rate as retro-as-fuck out of 10. Actors do their dramatic jobs well, hats off to them, but the music, dear lord, the music! Prominent bass-guitar like sounds, disco stabs, beats with average amounts of funk (they never went all the way in the 80s), this thing has it all. It is only when the soundtrack is switched to something more timeless such as the good old orchestra that it isn't painfully colored by the era it was made in. another issue is the sound effects, especially in the first episodes, where visual events with seemingly great impact have very simple synth zips and zaps to for them to our ears, which produces a disted impression with above-average visuals accompanied by sub-average sound effects. it does get better as the episodes run by, so it's not that bad, but it's one area where Gunbuster was lacking.
actors with their solid effort make it, tho, a . 7/10

Story

With only 6 episodes, there's not much that can be told, and Gunbuster sticks close to these limits. Most of the core characters are introduced in the very first episode, the ensemble of dramatic persona is kept small and tight-knit, but the scale of the action, oh boy, it's as big as it gets in space, with only TTGL suring it.

There are two sides to Gunbuster's story - the first is the science and fiction side of it, which wasn't anything that much out there back when the show was aired, aliens attacking, mecha in space, big deal. The other side is the dramatic reactions and experiences of those intimately involved in the first side - drama, too, was nothing unheard of even back then, and by now we've been fed overdigested dramatic twists and adventures for so long that it's sometimes hard to imagine feeling an emotional response to all these collections of plot devices and visual patterns.
But Gunbuster does that.

The first side is not without merit, too, the notion of mechas aside, it's a fairly hard sci-fi, one, which focuses on a bunch of physical laws that govern the universe and can hardly be twisted by any miracles aka ass-pulls. All characters being subjects to these laws are at their mercy, and thanks to clever sci-fi, the ensuing drama is actually genuinely interesting and fairly original even to a modern viewer, who has perhaps seen something like it before. The conceptual sci-fi induced drama then makes up most of Gunbuster's emotional load, and it's fairly successful, too, even given the limited scope.
Ah, yes, the limited scope. There are many places where the story could have been extended and an in-depth look could have been great, but Gunbuster does the unthinkable and manages to invoke the necessary responses in the viewer by presenting many of its core things very compactly.

And that's how you do feel quite something after the final episode of Gunbuster. Quite something being something of a roughly 8/10 value.
However, there're a couple of holes or, rather, burning questions left after finishing it. I dare not voice them, only a blind man would not see them, but lack of better explanation of some of the core decisions in the show do force me to downgrade the 8 to a 7.

Characters

a bunch of girls, a guy with a beard and a guy with one eye, also spaceships. and nipples.
you've seen girls before and after, you've also seen guys like that, and most definitely spaceships. nipples is one thing that this show had in above-average amounts, makes me curious about the 80s in general.
the cast is a likeable bunch, and their experiences significant and psychologically well-defined, however, they might be seen as a bit too singular - when you start thinking about characters and their experiences and definitions, emotional impact starts falling a bit apart, revealing the ticking devices behind it. alas, character depth is one thing that suffers from the short length - the characters, as little as they've been showed, are believable and nice, but you do have a feeling that they could've been a lot more than the cogs in the bigger story they are now.
well, at least the show remained relatively focused, so props for that.
characters earn 7/10, they serve their purpose, could be more.

Value & Enjoyment

abstracting from the retro tunes, I do think this show is a great watch, even if it's as short as it is. the conceptual and dramatic impact is undeniable. due to its short length, it never misses a beat, and by the end of it you feel like you've watched something longer than that.
at least I feel like that.
Value & Enjoyment 8/10

and these were my modern thoughts, any history a pure accident.

It’s not an easy thing to mess with expectations. If the pilot episode offers the viewer a basic image of what the show is all about, then he will expect for the rest of the show to be as such as well. Making a sudden turnaround to something different will most likely feel like an ass-pull and the average viewer will most likely be displeased if his expectations were formed up to then. There is of course the option of taking the viewer by surprise, by inserting events that seem out of place yet work just because he didn’t expect them at all. Although that usually works (the most recent example at the moment I write this review is Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica) it still in effect counts as nothing shock effect that is there just to mess with your emotions as if you are a rug doll.

Gunbuster is amongst the first anime that managed to find the perfect balance between a good story and an entertaining presentation. It is not an easy task that one can write down and offer it to all the rest so they can mimic the formula thereafter. Even after all these years Gunbuster belongs in a very small group of shows that pulled it off nicely, while most other shows were usually too serious and boring or too stupid and distasteful.

The thing that makes this show good is that it is smart and stupid at the same time, thus it can appeal evenly to all types of anime fans (in this case I’m referring to the simple separation to hardcore type As and casual type Bs).
- On one hand we have a show which did its homework and inserted lots of scientific information around physics in an attempt to excuse all its advanced technology. The fringe science is still improbable even with those explanations included yet you are made to feel like everything is based on something scientific and it’s not your usual magic dressed as technology. Even if you don’t try to reason everything, it is still nice info for the ignorant to learn a few basic things around astrophysics and time distortions.
- One the other hand the show is full of guilty pleasure, such as cute/silly girls in tight uniforms, overblown drama where willpower is more powerful than nuclear bombs, as well as really epic in scale battles. You can just shut off your mind and enjoy the idiotically entertaining human pathos and the over the top action.

Another great thing is that the show does not remain wrapped up in a repeating formula all the way. It starts as a weak war drama around a girl whose father is killed by aliens, then gradually turns to training to get stronger ala shounen, then to romance, and then to over the top mecha action. The transition from one genre to the other may feel rushed since the duration of the show is rather short but the excuse is there nonetheless, backed up by science and people growing up and getting wiser to make it far more plausible.

The characters are another good thing. Although they are all quite simplistic as personalities, their roles are exploited to the fullest and not always in a linear fashion, thus their importance to the rather short duration of the show feels tenfold. The lead girl begins as the typical naive klutz unsecured girl that steadily needs to train and toughen up in order to take revenge and protect the planet. Her teacher becomes more than just a teacher. Her main female rival becomes more than a female rival. The aliens are more than they appear to be, the scale of the war gets out of control, and nothing is expected. By the end of the show, you will really get to like their simplicity, for they evolve to something entirely different than their introduction scene. That counts as character growth and even catharsis.

Production values are also very good for their time, with high detail given to both character figures and backgrounds, as well as making the battles to appear super epic. The BGM is also good at transmitting the proper mood and voice acting is both full of cheesy dialogues around getting stronger, as well as explanations around the fringe science used in the story.

Yet another thing is that the final episode is made fully in grayscale, and there are many still frames depicting the action. Not because of budget restrictions as much as artistic choice. A different director would have just made a crappy colorful finale but this one chose a far more melancholic, bittersweet feeling. I am referring to Hideaki Anno, who just like the finale of Neon Genesis he created a controversial conclusion with minimum funds, which makes it far more artistic and memorable for its unorthodox approach. It takes a genius to do this right and Anno is one.

In all, this is a jewel in the rough; highly entertaining yet not completely retarded. It has a story that heads somewhere, characters that evolve, ion and intellect, an ending that leaves you wowing with its scale of action and unorthodox coloring. Not many managed to do all that. I can even say Tengen Toppa took pointers from it and Neon Genesis used it as a blueprint for its director to make something great out of something cheesy. Great stuff indeed.

Me likes Gunbasta. Stoopid an’ smart at da seim taim.

An anime series can make you chuckle and weep, laugh and cry. If it can be pulled off in thirteen or twenty-six episodes, it's an excellent accomplishment.

When it's pulled off with just six 25 minute episodes, however, it's something closer to genius. I've held Hideaki Anno, the writer and director of Gunbuster, in high regard due to Neon Genesis Evangelion, but Gunbuster made me wonder - what the hell happened between 1989 (Gunbuster) and 1995 (Evangelion)? Megalomania perhaps? Did 26 episodes exhaust him? Did those rumoured personal problems, which gave Evangelion the tinge of insanity that makes it so praised, also dull his edge as a creator?

Gunbuster develops exactly the way an anime of its genre and length should. It begins as a zany, almost corny story of a girl striving to get the most out of her own potential, prompted by an ired senior student and her coach. This is the first part of Gunbuster, mainly the first two episodes.

Then we get to the second part, episodes three to five. As the hidious and omnipresent enemy is brought to the picture, characters are deepened and developed and melodrama is introduced. Gunbuster has only two, perhaps three main characters, which shows good judgment - a larger cast can't be developed satisfactorily during 150 minutes of animation.

Then we have the final episode. The artistic choices made in it were interesting and fitting, yet made me suspect whether Gainax ran out of funds near the end, something that supposedly happened with Evangelion as well. You'll know what I mean when you get to it - and I damn well intend to make you watch Gunbuster with this review.

The last part, episode six, is one of the greatest anime episodes I've seen. When most anime titles become a train wreck, and crash and burn near the end, Gunbuster breaks the norm and becomes better the further it continues.

What really, really blew me away was the ending. I'll chime in with many others and praise it. You might feel a slight déjà vu when you see it if you've read science fiction novels before. That doesn't detract from it one bit. It's touching, moving, and overwhelmingly emotional, with no place for cynicism. The ending is great enough to warrant a grade 9 for the story - while it's not the best, trickiest, most surprising or even that tight-paced, the overall impression is good, especially if you take into that there truly are only two and a half hours of animation straight from the late 1980's.

One mustn't forget the imaginitive use of real-world physics either. Even though the math and terminology seem a bit off oftentimes, the ideas have a water-tight feel to them. It seems to make sense in some strange way, as opposed to the pseudoscientific garbage that's spouted in far too many scifi titles. Time dilation, used cleverly as a plot device, is something often ignored in space fiction.

This anime should also be considered in proper context. It may seem a bit silly at times, what with the oldish animation style. It was probably a bit old in 1989 already, reminiscent of the old Gundam series. The mecha and starships felt quaintly bulky.

The other aspects never let the story down, and work as good . Anyone who fancies a bit of melodrama, bittersweet emotions and space battles of epic proportions, Gunbuster is a good deal. It also offers an example of how serialised anime is done properly.

My respect for Hideaki Anno and Gainax originate from my experiences with Neon Genesis Evangelion, but had I seen Gunbuster first, Evangelion would have seemed somewhat inferior. Then again, comparing GB to NGE is like trying to compare a short story to a novel. The two are quite different media and should be treated as such.

By the way, don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for references to other anime, posters in particular. Noriko is an otaku, even if she tries to deny it.

This is a very good OVA and I recomend it if you don´t have any ideia on what anime to watch

Animation: Well, in the afterall it´s well made (one shouldn´t expect CG because of it´s date of course) but it´s nothing that should make this anime a referenc regarding animation. I liked most the detalism about the mecha cockpit, the ships design (of course, they looks some way unrealistic but if they didn´t it won´t be any show) and the "space" design.

Sound: It doesn´t have any special sound, like a good song that makes you remind the anime; so it´s pretty regular

History: I liked it, but it´s too small to have a pretty complex history. It´s focused on the characteres all the time and don´t show external elements and more characters than the main ones. The thing that make really liked is the fact that the writer put some realitivistic concepts (like time compression) that make the history very intriguing and made think things that any othes anime did.

Character: The main character develop a lot in the series (in the first episode she doesn´t wanna fight and in the last she made everyone fight, cliche..) and her "onee-sama". What make instersting is just the fact of time compression (I really liked this shit, althoug the fisics of the anime have many othes flaws, but if didn´t it won´t be any show) and the way the characters react to it. And I laughed a lot when appeared an soviet character (it was made before the URSS fall down).

Value: I wathced it two times and I pretend to do it more times with my friends (especially with the ones that don´t see anime)

Enjoyment: Do I have to say anything about time compression? LOL.. Well, if you don´t like physics maybe you can think of an above regular show, but I really do recomend it!