Reideen

Made by Tohoku Shinsha for WOWWOW TV, Reideen as the name suggests is a modern version of the '70s super robot anime Yuusha Reideen. What is different is over 30 years of advancements in anime technique and computer graphics is evident in this series. The realism of graphics and the finesse of animation is world apart from the original Reideen. But unfortunately much of the spontaneity and the drama of the original Reideen seems to be lost in this series. You might say that this is something different all together. The animation has very rehearsed quality to it and cut from one move to another looks artificial, and when the scene cuts into battle between Reideen and the monster robots, the move slows down couple of notches more. The battle sequence is probably done with CG and there's lots of scenes where the camera angle moves around Reideen in 3D, but it's very difficult to actually see what Reideen or the opponent is doing due to battle always happening (at least in the first few episodes) at night, and the confusing shapes of both robots. Reideen's movement is so slow it's hard to feel the action from the all important battle scenes, and the fake way the weapons appear also takes away from the excitement.

Reideen is gold in color in this series and resembles more of RahXephon which is an homage to the original Reideen. Refinement in art department is almost perfect in this series, but it fails in the way story is being scripted, and the awkward battle movement between Reideen and not so impressive looking enemy robots.

Beautiful, but too lacking in power to be crowned the honorable name Reideen and to be identified with the fantastic original.

"Where there is life, there is conflict. And talking doesn't always solve everything" the "fairy" Maedasaki instructs the protagonist in his dream. "Reideen" is full of conflicts. Between aliens and humans, between giant alien "robots" and Reideen, between Reideen and the army, between the army and military intelligence, between departments of military intelligence itself... But the main conflict of "Reideen" is internal. This anime is in conflict with itself, unable to finally decide what it is and what it is about. As a result, it loses the battle to itself. Those mecha lovers who are attracted to action will find "Reideen" boring and overextended. Combats are rare, Reideen's transformation animation cutscenes are frequent and lengthy, and the movements of the giant machines are slow. Fans of trash, entertaining stories and humor will not find either one or the other or the third in "Reideen", but they will find it too serious and grave. Fans of melodrama, blood and boobs will also be disappointed with "Reideen" - there are no emotional anguish, no dismemberment, no kawaii girls suffering from breast hyperplasia. Fans of romance will find only a very crumpled hint of it, hastily built into the very end of the series. Those who are interested in serious anime will be repulsed by the indestructible stupidity of the protagonist, often manifested in completely illogical (like fleeing from the alien base ship when it was defenseless and could be easily, safely and methodically shot down) and stupid actions, fragmentation of the narrative and gaping plot holes (incompleteness of separate storylines, "magic" with dressing up of the MC, which can only be attributed to sclerosis or hack-work of scriptwriters, etc.).

The protagonist, Junki Saiga, is also stuck somewhere between narratives - between his strong, bold and determined "prototype" from the original 1975-76 series and the ever-doubting, timid, stupid, whiny and weak modern days anime protagonists modeled after Ikari Shinji. He should be taller and more mature than his classmates, an excellent and aggressive kendo swordsman, fighting on equal terms with swords with an experienced alien warrior Roxel, controlling Reideen like an extension of his body and receiving physical damage when his "robot" is attacked, but he is actually depicted as a rather frail nerd, who at the beginning does not even try to fight, being one-sidedly beaten up by ordinary punks and is not even able to get angry at a deliberate "friendly fire" by the army. At the same time, there is no limit to the stupidity and passivity of the protagonist - most of his problems come from his own slavish obedience and revealing all Reideen's secrets to the government. Like the hero of the original series, he yells "Ruuuydin! Faido-in!", but it looks completely ridiculous with his character and in a remake that wants to be serious. Just as ridiculous is the futuristic moped in the remake in which the sportbike of the protagonist of the original series was "turned" into.

"Reideen" cannot decide what story it is trying to convey to the viewer. There are many "hinted" stories, but they are all fragmentary, loosely connected to each other and not shown properly. Starting with the detective story of the mysterious death of Junki's father, the anime soon completely "forgets" about it. Political intrigues within the army can not be taken seriously against the backdrop of the epic stupidity of the protagonist, who, like a suicidal, plays giveaway all the time, cannot distinguish enemies from friends, and only in some completely incomprehensible way (often miraculously saved at the last moment by alien enemies, performing the role of deus ex machina for the MC) manages to escape death. The title theme of Junki's "growing up" is rather vaguely illustrated and mostly only voiced by the other characters in the anime. The romance line, which is barely traceable for most of the episodes, then suddenly develops rapidly, leaving a feeling of crumpledness and understatement. The key theme of the hero's acceptance of himself and his responsibility is not sufficiently emphasized and is raised only in a couple of episodes, ending with a short comment by Midorino. In general, Midorino voices almost all the key morales in the "Reideen", which, given the small amount of screen time allotted to her (in her human form), blures the message of the anime.

And yet, I liked the remake of "Reideen". Largely due to the things which are not in it and what many will consider a disadvantage - there is no anguish of passion, blood, fan service, trash, intoxication, hurricane action, kawaii, saucer eyes, cellulite oppai, blue, green and other pink hair, stupid jokes and sentimental nonsense. The Art Nouveau 3D animation of Reideen and its transformations is quite beautiful. In general, the drawing and animation in "Reideen" is on top from the very beginning - for example, the animation of movements in the second episode in the hospital, when Junki, while fleeing from the "zombies", slips on the turn. The design of the characters is especially good - without the grotesqueness and colorfulness inherent in anime, but with a certain stylization for the Art Nouveau or even mannerism - the figures and faces of people are beautiful and slightly elongated, but not exaggerated. The anime has a pleasant opening with a city-pop song and a green-eyed beauty Midorino posing in various clothes, as well as a blue-eyed, golden Reideen shown in the ending which is made in the Art Nouveau style. Seiyuu are all good - the main and secondary characters are voiced superbly. Some of these secondary characters are also well written - especially Hoshikawa and the obsessive Shiori. Roxel is quite stereotypical, but nonetheless interesting with his imp cat. I liked the repulsive for many viewers "inhibition" of the movements of "robots", because it conveys the size and mass of gigantic machines. The same applies to the "prolonged" transformation - this is exactly how military equipment functions, which always requires time to deploy. The romance line, although rather crumpled, pleases with the lack of melodrama and, especially, how it ended for the annoying stalker Shiori, the obsessive childhood friend of the protagonist. The main character behaves with the girl he is in love with, quite believable for his temperament. At first he is gathering his bravery and looks for an opportunity to get close, some sign that she likes him, and only after that he gains the courage to speak.

Although vaguely, here can be traced the main line of the anime which is Junki's coming of age - from a kid obedient to someone else's will, avoiding responsibility, by the end of the series he transforms into a capable guy who knows what he wants from life and is able to act contrary to the opinions of others (one can only hope that growing up also helped him get rid of stupidity and he was smart enough not to tell the military about who Midorino is). In general, if you omit the fantastical assumptions like giant robots and aliens, "Reideen" is a coming of age story. In the story-dream of episode 22, everyone calls the MC only by his last name and he needs to find himself, become a person, by recognizing his name, encrypted in an anagram in the name of his "magic sword" - this is the only way he can defeat the monster and save the princess. Throughout the series, Junki gradually "finds himself", while literally (through communication) and figuratively (by symbolically fighting with the help of Reideen) interacting with Midorino. By contrast, his childhood friend Shiori doesn't "grow up" and, unlike Midorino, doesn't help Junki grow up (and deal with problems), and therefore, eventually, loses him. The contrast between Midorino and Shiori is emphasized in the episodes with Junki's "supermoped" falling - where Shiori remained indifferent, Midorino hurries to help Junki to lift the moped. While MC grows up, he learns to overcome his "limits", take responsibility, not be afraid of conflicts, but, defending himself, solve and even create them, if circumstances so require, resisting the will of others. The need for a "symbolic crutch", which was Reideen, disappears, and Junki gets his princess. Both with the moral message (albeit poorly illustrated) and with the ending, the series is all right, and the animation and art are quite capable of bringing aesthetic pleasure. The characters are written worse, especially "suffered" from the screenwriters the main character. But, nevertheless, the characters here are noticeably more interesting and behave more believably than in most other anime, especially in the "mecha" genre. So, despite the serious problems with the narrative and a very narrow niche, "Reideen" deserves the attention of connoisseurs of aesthetics, allegory and unhurried narration.

This version of Reideen is a terrible disappointment. The story is good, the 2D renderings are good, characters are good and the Computer generated Reideen and mechas look beautiful. Unfortunately, in action scenes the CG looks like something produced in a school project. The Mechas look beautiful but the movements are so slow and so simplistic it looks amateuristic. Imagine everything in slow motion. Imagine those kids cartoon where they use CG and the movements are choppy and simplistic. Now imagine those horrible kung fu movies where the extras are fighting, slow simplistic badly coordinated moves. That is Raideen fight scenes, the mechas look beautiful throughout but the action is slow and always happens in the dark (I guess to mask any CG defects). At first I thought I had accidentally slowed down my player then I thought it was the intro 1st fight scene effect (to show the awesomeness of the Reideen and CG) but it never sped up. I jumped to different episodes and it was still slow. it was watching it at 50% speed. In fact watching Reideen, it is perhaps the first time watching mecha anime that I did not want mecha action scenes. The action scenes basically kills the story. It slows the story down and looks amateurish. I say give this a miss, really cannot recommend this new Reideen.