One of my favorite series, ever.

Go Nagai

Go Nagai, also known as “Uncle Go” by fans worldwide, has been writing manga officially for 40 years now. The sheer number of manga he’s created and anime adaptations made from said manga (a list is available on his Wiki page here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Nagai) as well as the influence he’s had on the industry is astounding. Not only did he practically invent the mecha genre as it is today, he even was the first to use magical girl, horror, and fanservice as elements in his manga.

The Getter Robo series has been one of most his most famous works – the characters of Getter Robo are not always heroes, or morally righteous, or even mentally stable.

A violent martial artist named Ryoma Nagare is the main pilot, a hotblooded, manly lead for the series; a delinquent, sadistic loner named Hayato Jin is the cold, collected, intelligent yet somewhat psychotic counterpart to Ryoma’s daredevil antics; and Musashi Tomoe, a judo expert with a much more amiable personality than either Ryoma or Hayato plays the straight man to their aggressive style of piloting. Benkei Kurama pilots in Musashi’s place in the second series, Getter Robo G – similar to Musashi in attitude and behavior, the two characters were combined in the New Getter Robo retelling into a pilot named Benkei Musashibou, a gluttonous warrior monk. In the Armageddon series, they meet and also happen to become good friends.

The robot itself was revolutionary – the Getter Robo was the first giant robot in anime to have a “combining system”, and could use different configurations of the three smaller flying machines to make three different versions of the Getter Robo. Powered by “Getter Rays”, which are alluded to as the power of evolution, the Getter Robo is constantly evolving, and goes through several iterations. The series Getter Robo G and Shin Getter Robo both involve these new Getters, and the Getter Emperor is referred to several times as the ultimate evolution of the Getter Robo line of robots, bigger than planets and capable of growing larger than a galaxy. It appears briefly in the Shin Getter Robo manga and even more briefly at the end of the Armageddon OVAs.

Getter 1 with the Getter Machine Guns.

Getter One, or Getter-1, is piloted by Ryoma, and is most suited to close-range brawling or air combat, using either its fists, the blades on its forearms, the Getter Tomahawk, a machine gun, or the Getter Beam, which most enemies of the series are weak towards. Getter-2 is piloted by Hayato, and moves at extremely high speeds. It uses a drill as a primary weapon for ground and underground combat, and is used often in Armageddon. Despite having failed all the physical and mental tests, Musashi still pilots the Getter-3, which is used quite rarely. The Getter-3 is mainly used for submarine combat, in which its long, constricting arms and powerful missiles are most suited.

The 1975 anime adaptation of the Getter Robo manga was heavily sanitized, due to Japanese standards for television not allowing for the grittiness and violence ever-present in the manga. OVAs changed this, with Shin Getter Robo: Sekai Saigo no Hi (1998), New Getter Robo (2004), and Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo (2000). These were retellings of the original manga, with the characters returning to their antihero personalities.

Shin Getter Robo: Sekai Saigo no Hi

OP 1 – Ima ga Sono Toki da by Ichirou Mizuki

OP 2 – HEATS by Hironobu Kageyama

Shin Getter Robo: Sekai Saigo no Hi (in english, Getter Robo: Armageddon) takes place after the Getter Robo manga and isn’t actually part of the storyline – it’s an alternate universe. I should probably mention that there are a lot of alternate storylines and crossover series involving Uncle Go’s anime and manga series.

The main characters are split up; Ryoma has been jailed for the murder of Dr. Saotome (the scientist responsible for the gathering of the Getter pilots, the Getter Robo itself, and the research of Getter Rays) after the accidental death of Michiru during a failed Getter Ryger combination, Musashi is taking care of a girl named Kei, and Hayato is working in the shadows as always. They reunite after it turns out Dr. Saotome didn’t die after all, and is resurrecting his largest project yet, the Shin Dragon.

To stop the return of the Invaders, an alien species with accelerated evolutionary abilities that took over the moon at the beginning of the series, the three former pilots pilot the Shin Getter Robo, the fastest, most evolved Getter Robo, and capable of unimaginable speed and power.The Japanese government, already afraid of the huge amounts of power that Dr. Saotome had been playing with, launches a nuke at the Shin Dragon, thus causing the extinction of 99 percent of the world’s population. IN THE FIRST FOUR EPISODES. The rest of the series begins after this apocalyptic event, on a barren earth devoid of people save for a tiny amount who spread back into the world from underground shelters.

The Shin Getter Robo, in Getter-1 configuration.

Shin Getter breaking the sound barrier with ease.

Danger: this GIF contains critical levels of Getter Rays and manliness.

I really loved the Armageddon OVAs not for the story, or even the postapocalyptic setting – I loved the characters. I’ve always been a huge fan of the manly super robot genre, and Ryoma isn’t transparent, either. Not only does the ending invoke a supreme feeling of “THIS IS AWESOME”, the Shin Getter and the Black Getter are two of my all-time favorite robots in anything ever. Their design is Uncle Go at his finest. There are flaws in Armageddon – the mass-produced Getter Robo Gs are a little too underpowered and some plot points are only comprehensible if you watched or read other Getter series – but I absolutely loved these OVAs despite the pacing and holes in the story. I would recommend seeing New Getter Robo and reading the manga before one sees Armageddon, as it’ll explain many things that were left unexplained.

New Getter Robo

DRAGON by JAM Project

The New Getter Robo series, in short, is a retelling of the Getter Robo story that’s more faithful in spirit to the original manga series. The Dinosaur Empire of the old series has been replaced with a new enemy, the Oni, and Benkei Musashibou is introduced as the third pilot. Ryoma, in this series, is a street fighter and martial artist who inherited his father’s dojo – he’s also heavily in debt, often having to defend himself from collectors. Hayato is a crime boss that tries to steal the Getter Robo but ends up meeting Ryoma, and they fight in front of the Saotome laboratory. The third pilot, now a mishmash of Benkei and Musashi known as Benkei Musashibou, is a greedy monk full of earthly desires living at a shrine. After his village is attacked by Oni, he meets Ryoma, and ends up becoming the third pilot of the Getter Robo.

I liked these OVAs for their exploration of the personalities and origins of the Getter pilots as well as a new villain to watch the Getter Robo beat the crap out of, but they suffered from major plot issues, in some points much worse than Armageddon’s. The story jumps around often without warning, and the evolution of the Getter Robo shows up, but it isn’t explained in nearly enough detail. In all, I enjoyed the New Getter Robo series, but it wasn’t polished enough for me in both story and animation to enjoy it over Armageddon, even with the cool thick-lined artstyle.

You should also probably check out this 4-episode alternate universe sequel to Getter Robo if you like this series – Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo, which draws much of its material from the Getter Robo Go series. It also has one of the best Getter OPs, STORM by JAM Project.

It also stars America’s super robot, Texas Mack. That’s one of the biggest reasons to watch this OVA besides a new Getter and kicking dinosaur ass. It’s short and easily digestible, a great one to watch right after, say, Armageddon.

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Thus, my Getter Robo series overview and review ends.

After seeing too many inane anime bloggers picking at minutae and spewing fountains of verbal diarrhea, I’m setting out to review anime in an easy to digest and very opinionated form. I began this little site on the corner of the internet at 3:50 am when I should have been drawing things for Art 101; a can of Pringles and a bottle of water on one side, my roommate prostrate on the bed to my far left, and a humming computer on my right.

Tomorrow marks the first day of this attempt at reviewing my favorite series. I think I’ll even add manga reviews to the list of stuff I have to do.