Ginga Shippuu Sasuraiger

Sasuraiger might hold the record for the western anime release to go out of print the fastest, being available for less than a month before Discotek discontinued the J9 Trilogy of which this is the final series (though no prior knowledge of the other two shows is required, since they're only a trilogy in a loose sense). So the questions fans of 80s mecha shows may be asking themselves are: should you be kicking yourself for missing out, and is it worth paying horrific scalper prices for? Read on and draw your own conclusions.

The premise is interesting in theory: turn Around the World in 80 ... Days into Around the Solar System in 365 Days, then throw in a train that transforms into a giant robot. In practice, the execution is variable. Despite being tasked with travelling to 50 planets (they do eventually explain why the solar system has that many by the 30th Century), it often feels more like a road trip across 20th Century America, with a few stops in the wild west and planets inspired by other countries. There are times when Sasuraiger goes full space opera, and those tend to be fun, but on the whole it suffers from a lack of imagination.

The characters are an atypical bunch for an 80s super robot show. There's no Earth Defence Force here, and not a Japanese name in sight. You know that one outgoing, happy-go-lucky and perpetually cheerful American character that used to show up in 80s and 90s anime a lot? Everyone in Sasuraiger is like that. They're constantly throwing each other a thumbs up, and "Yay!" is their version of the Thunderbirds' FAB. Maybe this is just what Japanese people think all westerners are like. You'd think this would grate on the nerves after a while, but surprisingly it works.

Sasuraiger's strongest episodes tend to be those highlighting individual members of the JJ9 team taking part in the journey. Everyone seems to have half a dozen different tragic backstories, since they keep running into ghosts from their past everywhere they go. Thanks to these episodes, and the JJ9 team's infectiously upbeat personalities, Sasuraiger was a show that grew on me after its shaky first few episodes.

Unfortunately far too many of the other episodes fall into one of two predictable patterns. Either:

a) The JJ9 team land on a planet where there's local unrest. They're immediately held up by a gang of thugs with machineguns who capture them and either try to blackmail them into doing something illegal or threaten to hand them over to series villain Bloody God (the kind of villain who remains permanently concealed in shadow even when he's standing next to normally lit people in direct sunlight). JJ9 escape, transform the train into Sasuraiger and kick their butts.

or

b) The JJ9 team land on a planet where there's local unrest. They're immediately held up by local law enforcement, who blame them for crimes that happened before they arrived on the planet and arrest them. JJ9 escape, transform the train into Sasuraiger and kick the butts of whoever really committed the crime.

As for the action, it's a mixed bag. There are some good battles and chases, but in general the Sasuraiger is too over-powered for the typical thugs to stand a chance against it. The enemies don't even start wheeling out their own mechs until half way through the series. Up to that point the hero mech is just stomping on cars and tanks that might as well be toys. After a lengthy transformation sequence, Sasuraiger often lays waste to the opposition all too easily. Also, for a super robot show, it's oddly low-key about fetishising its titular mech. It has various weapons, but they're deployed with no fanfare; I couldn't tell you the name of a single one of its attacks. It may have been trying to ride the line between super robot and real robot a bit, but considering that it's basically a transforming Galaxy Express 999 it's definitely a super robot.

The series does reach a satisfying conclusion, and I waver on whether it's a 6 or 7 overall. It's a show I chipped away at over several months, but ultimately enjoyed and will probably watch again. In the end though, the mediocre episodes outnumber the good ones. There's the backbone of a solid 26 episode series scattered throughout Sasuraiger's run, but the other episodes that pad it out to 43 weigh it down.

Watched March 2023. This review contains no spoilers.

A space "80 days around the world" with high stakes is a great premise for an anime, and the characters here are presented as so cliché that they're fun and likeable from episode one.

Unfortunately, the writing and development of the plot is shoddy and while I can excuse most caveats of watching an aging show, there's a lot of wasted potential here, in the sense that most issues addressed are superficial and most would-be dramatic climaxes are completely irrelevant to the character development that ensues.

When this lack of effort demonstrated by the writing is joined by the ... dated and dubious cultural references shoehorned in as an attempt to portray the future descendants of current ethnic groups (was this meant as an inclusive gesture?), I think most viewers will pause and ask themselves why they're watching this series.

The occasional fun and ridiculous moments coupled with the nostalgic style that Sasuraiger is presented in are the saving grace of the show, justifying it being watched as a window into what an unexceptional 80's anime looked like and thus what the production status quo for the time was.

All in all, watchable if curious, detached and critical. And maybe with a couple beers in you.