You don’t think “Take that you damn aliens!” The story is essentially a war drama, without clear good guys and bad guys, a lot more mature than most other series of its era. It is not a series about good humans versus bad aliens it is more of a civil war amongst people who have different ideals and refuse to collaborate out of sheer egoism.
And unlike those lame megalomaniac villains of idealistic series, these guys have emotions, ideals and positive traits as well. They are in fact humans themselves that simply evolved on a different planet. The aliens are not monstrous inhuman freaks, bound on destroying humanity and ruling the galaxy. Yes, it starts quite typical and ridiculous but becomes very good soon after. Some youths find three vehicles that combine into a powerful mecha in the ruins and use it to defend their people. General Scenario 2/2: Humans find ruins in a far away planet and are attacked by aliens that consider them invaders and looters of forbidden technology. Music themes were silly bood-boiling attemps to make everything sound serious but without much success. Voice acting was ok in terms of dialogue, although many characters sounded too fake, which seems to be an ever present curse with all Tomino retro works. That’s something quite rare in old series.Īnimation & Lightning/ Visual Effects 1/4: Hey, everything is hand-drawn what do you expect? The motion is terrible and the special effects look stupid. Fear, sadness, happiness, it’s all clear. You really do understand how somebody feels by his/her body language. But the facial grimaces are pretty good for their time and the animators made a fine job with what they had. Not to mention how stupid everyone’s faces looks. The outlines are annoyingly big and the colors bluntly few.
Huge afro? Check! Big sideburns? Check! Funky outfits with lifted collars and bell wide trousers? Check! The detail of the character figures is quite low and full of inconsistency errors. It has a childish silliness to it, which was pretty mainstream back then.Ĭharacter Figures 1/2: As I said, disco fever is all over the place. It looks completely ridiculous by today’s standards (Ideon is supposed to be of alien origin? Not with those looks!) but it is not awful. I’ll be damned if those aliens ain’t a variation of the Valkans in Star Trek or if the leading mecka ain’t a rip-off of that red Gundam from the original series. A combining Transformer-like leading mecha, fighting ships that reminded me of a hundred cheesy sci-fi b-movies of the 50’s. Long before computer games had 3D objects or even multiple colors, miniature robots, cars and spaceships were the only way to play war with each other without throwing rocks or stabbing others with wooden swords. Everything feels like those plastic toys the older of us were playing with 20 years ago. This series is a fine example of that time. General Artwork & Backgrounds 2/4: Ahhh, The late 70’s! The decade where disco was beginning to become a trend and mecha were starting not to look like round bulky buckets.
This review covers both the series and the movie finale.ĪRT SECTION: 4/10 Even though its huge it doesnt seem overpowered yet. Eva's can grab choppers and throw them around, Ideon cant even grab one, it ends up swatting them. After breifly taking a glimpse throuygh ep 2, Ideon itself is huge! Looked much bigger than an Eva. The animation itself looks great for its time IMO. I gotta say the show is kinda graphic with the deaths. As to how the Ideon had automtically activated on its own and combined on its own will hopefully be explaned in later eps. The 3 "trucks" seem unharmed from anything the buff clan would throw at them, and eventually the 3 "trucks" combine to form the giant mech Idion. Buff clans tech was more advanced than the earthlings and despite giving a good fight there would have been defeated had not the 3 trucks that were excavated had not activated once Cosmos (The Protagonist), one of the technicians of the science and a few other young kids had borded. Thats when the body count starts, people getting killed everywhere. The immigrants from earth living on the planet didnt have a clue what hit them. The Buff clan seem very cold and didnt have a second thought in wanting to get rid of the aliens (the earthlings) living on the planet in getting whatever they wanted. Once the earthlings and the Buff clan meet things heat up pretty fast.