The U.S. has Superman, brought to the Earth by a destroyed alien civilization and granted super powers based on the color of our sun, but he’s a perpetual bachelor. Japan has Dragon Ball, a manga-and-anime series about an alien superhero named Goku, and eventually his extended family. Superman never had kids, let alone those that could kick his butt.
Story Intro
(Dragon Ball) In an Earth with both science gadgets and dinosaurs, there was a young boy named Son-Goku (later just Goku) who lived alone in the forest. Hunting with his staff and fishing (with his tail) were his favorite things to while away the days, until he met a loud demon racing through the forest. This “demon” turned out to be a girl named Bulma on a motorcycle, searching for something called Dragon Balls — looking for such a strange part of dragon anatomy only served to convince Goku of her weirdness — so Goku brought her home to visit “Grandpa” and help her find them. “Grandpa” was not the old man who raised him in the forest, but a small sphere that was left to his care: a Dragon Ball.
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Bridging the gap between man and God didn’t work so well for Victor Frankenstein, but that won’t stop the folks at NERV in GAINAX’s Shinseiki Evangelion (or here in the US, Neon Genesis Evangelion) from trying their hand at it.
Story Intro
Commander Ikari and his defense-department corporation NERV lead a battle against invading aliens with large robots controlled by fourteen year olds, children born the last time the aliens attacked. Rei (quiet and unemotional), Shinji (Ikari’s shy son), and Asuka (spoiled rotten) pilot these huge “Eva” bio-mechanical robots, at the command and care of Misato and Ritsuko, among others. While the show has plenty of action in each episode, the relationships between the various characters and the feelings brought out by battle and unknown forces really takes the center stage.
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Created by celebrated manga-ka Yoshitoshi ABe, Serial Experiments Lain (or simply Lain) opens up a world of science-based philosophy and history of both the real and alternate sort.
Story Intro
The show follows a shy junior-high-school girl as her world is shocked after receiving an email from a recently-deceased friend. Intrigued by the timing, and part of the message itself, Lain gets a new “Navi” online computer and begins upgrading it for better access to the “Wired”, the world of the Internet. She then comes to be often confused with another Lain, an extroverted, take-no-pity girl who looks, but certainly doesn’t act, just like her.
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The story of a girl who loved her robot…
A classic, yet realistic, giant-robot anime, Patlabor Mobile Police (or simply the titular robot model, Patlabor), uses no special powers to tell it’s story. This is good-old “cops and robbers”, with both sides using large robots as their vehicles of choice.
Story Intro
Labors are large robots that have been created to do heavy construction tasks in the wake of overpopulation. However, human nature what it is, a criminal element had started to use Labors for crime as well. The police stepped up their equipment and created their own editions, Patrol Labors, known by the common Japanese word-meshing version, “Patlabors”.
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If you’re into playing tennis, that’s fine. But if you like to watch anime, you’re weird. Why?!
~ Kubo
Meet Kubo and Tanaka, two fans of anime (one translation of the slang term otaku is ‘obsessed fan’) that set out on a mission to “Otakunize” the world by starting their own anime company in Gainax studio’s Otaku no Video.
Meet the Gainax studio, started by fans of anime and went on to become one of the greats themselves , with works such as The Wings of Honneamise, Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and others among my favorites as well. It also features designs from a favorite character designer of mine, Kenichi Sonoda, who also designed characters and mecha in the original Bubblegum Crisis, and created both Riding Bean and Gunsmith Cats.
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