Daikuu Maryuu Gaiking

Earth is still in danger: aliens from planet Zeraz are willing to invade our planet because theirs is being swallowed by a Black Hole. Led by Great Darius and his four generals, they begin seeding death and destruction. When an ESP warrior is killed by aliens, professor Hi-Tech understands the danger and builds the huge Space Dragon (Daiku Maryuu) piloted by Pete, and the gint robot Gaiking whose pilot is Sanshiro Shiwobuki, an ex-baseball player. Daiku Maryuu is a big dragon shaped spaceship and his head is the Gaiking torso. When the Gaiking enters the action, Daiku Maryuu launches other Gaiking's components and then it re-unite neck with tail, becoming unbreakable.

The story chronicled the battle between the crew of the semi-transformable carrier Daikuu Maryuu and the Super Mecha Gaiking against an invading race of aliens from the planet Zela, whose home planet is facing destruction by a black hole. The robot Gaiking was piloted by a baseball star named Sanshiro Tsuwabuki (Sanshiro's name was changed to Aries Astonopolis for the English version of the show with the carrier being called the "Great Space Dragon", a literal translation of "Daikuu Maryuu". Gaiking was notable for being one of the few super robot series to take place in real places outside of Japan, and for being the first Super Robot series to have a mobile carrier for the chief robots.

(Source: ANN)

Tsuwabuki, Sanshirou Main

Kamiya, Akira Japanese

Professor Daimonji Supporting

Shibata, Hidekatsu Japanese

Hachirou Supporting

Tsukase, Noriko Japanese

Fujiyama, Midori Supporting

Koyama, Mami Japanese

Yamagatake Supporting

Katou, Osamu Japanese

Richardson, Pete Supporting

Inoue, Makio Japanese

Hayami, Bunta Supporting

Ogata, Kenichi Japanese

Desmont Supporting

Shibata, Hidekatsu Japanese

Fan, Li Supporting

Tokumaru, Kan Japanese

Asimov Supporting

Katou, Osamu Japanese

Katsumata, Tomoharu Director

Takayashiki, Hideo Episode Director

Iuchi, Shuji Episode Director

Ochiai, Masamune Episode Director, Animation Director

Reviews

Mar 20, 2021

MrLegitimacy

Mixed Feelings

(TLDR: Gaiking is decently fun, with episodes ranging from hilariously wacky to pretty boring. If you're just looking for a cheesy classic super robot show without much substance, you're in the right place.)

I watched Gaiking over a year ago at this point, and I've had my notes for this review sitting on my computer ever since. Since I don't spend nearly as much time writing anymore, I never got around to fleshing out those notes into a full review. Rather than trying to finally write cohesive paragraphs out of these thoughts, I'm just going to post all of my headings and year-old bullet points so ... there is at least one MAL review out there for this series.


How does it look?

A little wonky, but I think pretty good.
I can't compare to much from that era since this is the first classic super robot anime I've watched.
If you can't stomach old animation, you definitely won't enjoy this.
There is lots of good stock footage for Gaiking launching and using named attacks, as well as the Daikuu Maryuu (DM) using its Volution Protect.
Sometimes a different animator comes on with a style that has a sketch-like aesthetic which I really like.
The Gaiking itself looks awesome, but the DM is kinda derpy.
It basically looks like a fat caterpillar with a dinosaur head
I suppose the pilot suits for the crew are pretty typical for classic sci-fi, but that's exactly why I love them.


How does it sound?

The theme song is admittedly not great, but at the same time I've had a blast singing along with it for the past few months.
The soundtrack is pretty decent.
There is a nice range of emotion in each of the orchestrated tracks.
Of course, everything has a crispy 70s quality to it.
The voice acting is just fine, nothing to write home about but nothing to lament either.


What does it present?

A VERY episodic series with very few multi-episode arcs.
There are a handful of 2 episode stories, and the finale technically spans 3 episodes.
Everything else is self contained with a nice ribbon tied on the story before the credits roll.

A typical episode goes like this:
The Zelans cackle about having a new plan to defeat the DM.
The Daikuu Mari-Crew goes to investigate a strange phenomenon somewhere in the world.
They discover the phenomenon is linked to local history or mythology, and it was in fact caused by some kind of robot that the Zelans planted on Earth in ancient times.
Gaiking launches and cleans up shop.

Story:
The overarching story of the Zelan homeworld being sucked into a black hole is only touched upon a few times.
Their army is stupidly evil and their people are super pacifist, so there's not much subtlety at play.

Characters
I think the characters are actually one of the series major strengths.
Most of the main cast has a few episodes dedicated to them, or to conflicts between certain members.


And that's the end of my notes! So who should watch Gaiking? I would recommend it to any mecha fans like myself: someone curious about classic mecha anime that doesn't want to committ to a high episode count for something like Mazinger Z. It was fun enough to turn my brain off, enjoy the cartoony shenanigans, and shout Gaiking's attack names along with them.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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