Giant Robo the Animation: The Day the Earth Stood Still

I fell in love with this series from the very first opening frames. After having seen countless animes with interchangeable characters, plots and visual styles, Giant Robo was an unexpected masterpiece. At first glance it looks retro, but nothing can be further from the truth. If anything, Giant Robo is ahead of its time (or perhaps one of the only ones on time). Highly stylized (to say the least), Giant Robo eeks every scrap of possibility out of its animated format. There is no attempt to recreate reality here. Characters have incredibly long, thin legs (and--in one case--nose), run faster than cars and have super powers way cooler than anything else I've ever seen. The soundtrack is outstanding in an original sort of way (opera!) and the pacing keeps viewers on the edge of their seats.

My biggest gripe with the anime is with the characters. While I found many of them to be interesting and likable a few of the main characters were a bit too typical for my tastes The protagonist boy, female lead and the master villain all seemed to be characters I had seen before. However, nearly all of the secondary characters make up for this single flaw.

What Giant Robo does have is great style and enough audacity to try something new. In each of the seven episodes there are numerous breaks from anime convention that set this anime apart from most others. Unfortunately, to go into details would spoil just about everything. Plot twists abound and Giant Robo does feature one of the most powerful endings I have ever seen.

I could go on and on about this anime, but that would be pointless. If I haven't convinced you by now to see it, I'm not going to. And if you've already seen it, you'd just agree with me.

Personally, it ranks as my second favorite anime (following the flawless Mononoke Hime).