Just finnished watching Aura Battler Dunbine. An anime from 1983 by Yoshiyuki Tomino. It's been 49 episodes of hard, yet rewarding slog. Here are my thoughts.
There are two worlds, ours, the 'Upper Earth' and Byston Well. Both are joined by the 'Aura Road'. Creatures known as 'Silkies' are made to open the 'Aura Gate' by the evil Drake Luft, the ruler of some country who is bent on total domination. Once the Aura Road is opened, humans from Earth are taken against their will to Byston Well. Drake trains them to become the pilots of giant insect like mechs called Aura Battlers, which are powered by humans 'aura' or life power. Aura Battlers are made by Shot Weapon, a mechanic also from Upper Earth. Show Zama, the series protagonist, is taken from his home in Japan and becomes and Aura fighter for Drake. After meeting with the young rebel 'Marvel Frozen', an American who was also taken to become an aura fighter, he is convinced that Drake is up to no good and subsequently he changes sides. Taking with him his Aura Battler, the Dunbine, he joins the band of rebels to fight against Drake, and find himself a way home.
The series starts slow and is slightly confusing. In the first episode, Show Zama, Todd Guinness and some other guy are essentially kidnapped and not one of them seem to be that bothered. Admittedly they get kidnapped and given a mech, but if that was me, i'd be raging. There's not a chance that i'd join some dude's army if i'd just been kidnapped.
After Show Zama joins the rebels, around episode 5 or 6, the show starts to pick up speed. The battles get more intense and the story becomes real easy to follow. The rebels made me laugh. There leader is Neil Given, an Irish guy with ridiculous pink hair and a ridiculously stereotypical Irish accent. I mean this guy tries to be the hard man, he really does try, but nah, with hair like that your just gonna make yourself look like a fool. A thing he does on many occasions. He looks stupid, he sounds stupid.
And speaking of sounding stupid, in the later half of the series, the battle for Byston Well begins to gets pretty epic and goes to Upper Earth. The battle involves all the major countries of the Earth joining forces with the good guys. Around episode 35 - 40, Princess El goes and requests aid from the Queen of England. I've never heard a more stupid sounding stereotypical English accent. I half expected her to jump onto a penny-farthing shouting 'EH WHAT? JOLLY GOOD SHOW OLD BOY! PIP PIP I SAY!', amusing though.
Dunbine reminds me of Gundam, which isn't surprising as it was made by the same guy. It was released two years before Zeta Gundam and at the time was tipped as being 'the new Gundam'. It wasn't, but the similarities are all there.
- Aura Battlers - Mobile Suits
- Aura Power - Newtype telekinesis
- Zelana warship - The Argama (Zeta Gundam)
- Burn Bunnings - Chronicle Asher (V-Gundam)
Does it matter if I give spoilers? Meh, its 26 years old, I doubt it matters. The series ends in good old Tomino fashion, a huge battle with both side throwing everything at each other.
The last two episodes are genius and make up for all the bad episodes. There is almost more main character deaths than Victory Gundam. I really didn't expect this many deaths. More unexpected than when Misato dies in End of Evangelion. Absolutely EVERYONE dies. All the goodies, all the baddies, all of them dead. It's really bad, Emily gets shot in the face, Marvel dies without Show telling her he loves her, Neil kills Drake then gets his battler shot in the back and Show gets stabbed jumping from his battler into Burn Bunnings cockpit.
This series is occasionally slow and in places the dubbing is terrible, but believe me, episode 48 and 49 are more than enough compensation. The animation looks extremely dated but hey, what do expect from a series that's almost 30 years old. The story is massive. A war that gets so huge its envelopes two entire worlds. Epic stuff.
Aura Battler Dunbine may look old but it is totally rewarding in the end. If you like Gundam, or any kind of mech show, then I highly recomend checking it out.
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