(38 episodes)
What’s it about ?
More mecha from Sunrise ! Here it’s the more oldschool kind (that looks a bit like sentai without the costumes), clearly targeted for children. You can tell by the obvious product placement.
Characters
Hokuto, our generic kid protagonist, whose family has just moved into the city. Decent book-smarts.
Ginga, another kid he meets later on, does lots of martial arts training. It’s mild irritation at first sight, so of course when the nasty giant robot aliens attack, they have to pair up to pilot the Earth Defense Force’s own new mecha. In a synchronised fashion, of course.
Susumu, the official pilot for said mecha, is very confused : who are those kids and how could they even enter the cockpit ? And why is the mecha now denying him entry, despite him having trained for this for years ?
The mysterious masked woman who seems to be the field commander has no such qualms : she artfully manoeuvres the kids into defeating the Alien Mecha of the Week. (Too bad the aliens aren’t moron and immediately send tons of footsoldiers at once.) … And come on, even without recognizing Kotono Mitsuishi’s voice, she’s obviously Hokuto’s mom with a blonde wig and a fancy visor.
Production Values
Nice enough for this kind of thing ; although there’s a clear emphasis of how cool those programmable remotes for mecha are (despite the kids using them, you know, INSIDE the mecha…).
Overall Impression
Well, that was quite fun. I don’t really care enough for the characters and the toyetic aspects enough to really watch the show, but Sunrise know their stuff and how to spin a decently entertaining series out of a generic premise through sheer enthusiasm alone.
Source: [In Which I Review] Anime series from 2000 – Page 12
