As much as I love the mecha genre, I must admit that I am also somewhat dismissive of the actual works that encompass it. Mecha has such a rooted history, especially in anime. Perhaps, I feel too grown up to enjoy the likes of the super robot genre anymore. Even worse, I admit to having somewhat of a Miyazaki-like perspective on the medium these days. By that, I mean that I can come off as a curmudgeon. I am not a big fan of the overdramatic displays of emotion. I am somewhat sick of the mannerisms, behaviors, and tropes that have become universal code to an audience such as pushing up glasses, flamboyancy, and meaningless grunts to express emotion. I find this form of storytelling shorthand to be somewhat lazy. The worst offender of all is the over-cutesy, hyper-sexual nature that seems to have the stylistic monopoly. The most concerning about this last element is Japan’s constant use of underage girls in these depictions. I can understand Miyazaki’s cynicism. As much as he is the worst offender for old man syndrome, he has a point when he speaks bitterly about the industry that he has become a master of.
Now, I know that I am being an old man because these elements are not new to anime. I have simply gotten older while the medium that I love so dearly has remained, in many ways, exactly the same. The beauty and excitement that I found when I was 13 years old are still present in this medium even today. I want to continue to enjoy these things, but I am not sure how, especially when there isn’t a lack of great stories being told outside of the anime medium. What is there stopping me from completely abandoning this hyper-reality for…well anything else?
This is why Gunbuster caught me off guard. Released in 1988, this 6-part OVA is the first directed work of Hideaki Anno, who will later become famous for his work on the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise. The DNA of that show is present here, with great mecha designs, cute characters, and science fiction ponderings that left me considering long after the last episode.
The story follows a girl, whose father dies prior to the start of the story as a military hero who saved the earth from an alien threat. As a high school student, she enrolls in a military mecha force and becomes a candidate to pilot the new, powerful weapon: the Gunbuster. Along with her co-pilot, she experiences the psychological and temporal cost of being a mech-pilot war hero, journeying through space for love and dreams.
I should hate the setup of the story in many ways. I am not a big fan of the high school trope. I usually don’t watch things with a full female cast. This second part has nothing to do with sexism. Like I mentioned before, I can’t take the usual sugar-coated sweetness that drenches females in anime. Yet, the main character, Noriko, doesn’t make me cringe at every turn. She is sweet, but this is simply one part of her character. She is someone with hopes, fears, and dreams. Her father’s death has had a huge influence on her own aspirations and it is admirable and heartbreaking to see her follow in his footsteps, learning how the temporal differences in space can have someone spend 6 months in space only to return to Earth with its citizens having experienced 15 years. This affects her relationships and attachments on Earth. In many ways, I identified with her as a person who put all of their soul into a passion, to reject the notion of a normal life. To watch loved ones and the entire world changed and different, anachronistic to your own existence, is one that I have felt. This naivety is something that I think would be cynically beaten down in other works but here, it is presented as a challenge to be overcome. Gunbuster is honest about these hardships and yet it presents the outcome as one of triumph and one that I couldn’t look away from with cynicism or dismissiveness.
Her co-pilot, Amano, is a great foil to Noriko. While Noriko starts the story as a below-average pilot, Amano is presented as the star candidate with the most potential. What I like about Amano
is that she is not presented as a meanspirited person. Even when she tells their leader, Coach, that she doesn’t want to be Noriko’s partner, it is out of best intentions. There are several bully/ rival characters present but the story is quick to dismiss these characters and have the story always return to Noriko and Amano. I don’t think it is a coincidence and I think the story would have faltered if Amano was anything other than a genuine and beautiful soul. I also find her life path to be a great foil to Noriko’s as well. At the climax of the 5th episode, it is her that is having the mental breakdown at the height of battle, not Noriko as the story originally suggests. She wonders if all of her training and time spent as a pilot was worth it when she could have spent it with loved ones. Noriko helps her find this strength and after, she decides to retire as a pilot and return to earth. She opts to spend her time with her love interest until the events of the final episode. I think this decision is reflective of those who reject greatness for a humbler life. I can say from experience that this rejection is portrayed in a way that was cathartic to me. If Noriko’s story is about the pain that comes from the sacrifice for greatness, Amano’s is about the beauty in rejecting it for a normal life.
The animation itself is pretty standard for the time. Not to say this is a bad thing but you won’t find the hyperreal and detailed style of Akira. Instead, you have the cel-shaded, hand-drawn style typical of the time but I think in a way, it is perfectly fitting for the tone of the story. If you like the older style of animation and design of the ’80s and 90’s retro anime, you will enjoy it here. I found most of the designs for the characters to be pretty good. Most of the mechs were ok. The starships and aliens are imaginative. The star for me is the Gunbuster. His black and gold color palette and large, imposing frame and size I think are memorable. For someone without nostalgia for the show, his cross-arm pose is something I can now see as the inspiration for the likes of Gurren Lagann.
The music is absolutely amazing. I am listening to it now as I write the review. The opening and closing are that of Japanese city pop style that is of its time. I like how those portions do not really focus on the Gunbuster or action as most mecha shows would. Instead, they focus on the high school/slice-of-life elements that are the heart and emotional core that the characters hold dear. I was most impressed, however, with the symphonic elements of the music. It is dramatic, endearing, and dare I say: sweet.
And I think this is where Gunbuster grabbed me. It is strange that this is a work that would eventually come from the man who will eventually make one of the most psychologically taxing works of the ’90s in the form of Neon Genesis. But it makes sense that if Anno were to make something so unabashedly sentimental, it would be at an earlier stage in his career.
Am I saying the work is perfect? No. Again, I am not big of fan service and you will find heaps of that here, with shots nudity and booby physics that I didn’t ask for. Yet, in some ways, there is a scene at the end that also somewhat subverts this for me. At the climax, Noriko and Amano sacrifice themselves in order to set off a bomb that would save the earth but in return, hurl them 12000 years into Earth’s future. At this moment, Noriko has Gunbuster pull his mechanical heart out, and reflected in this, she rips her jumpsuit open, revealing her breast. Is this fan service? Most definitely. But I also read this as a moment of a heroine, despite all of her sacrifice and hardships, saves the world not through a collected bitterness, but through love. She exposes, specifically her left breast, exactly where her heart is, as her mecha rips out his own. It is an unapologetic declaration that this conflict is won because Noriko fought to maintain a youthful, naive, and beautiful sense of love. As she screams these declarations of spiritual warfare into the ethers of space, her voice growling with a mecha pilot’s heroic zeal: I was touched.
Are my complaints about anime–heck probably the entire entertainment industry–irradicated
through this moment? No. But perhaps, it did cut away at some of the cynicism I have developed. After all, even Miyazaki, the old, angry, cynical man that he is, openly admits that Anno is a student he is proud of and a creator that he respects. He has said that despite all else, he is a stark optimist, even after all the years he has had to collect disdain at the world. I don’t think my suspicions of the problematic elements of storytelling will ever go away, nor should it. After all, we as a species have so far to go. But I think Gunbuster has done something in a long time that very few anime have done. That regardless of medium, tropes, and stylistic tastes: I was touched and I refuse to apologize for it.
Danger Wonka 