Gasaraki #4:
From The Ashes

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75 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
06/19/2001

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Through the trials and tribulations of watching another 75 minute anime DVD, I've come upon a sort of epiphany. To me, Gasaraki isn't so much a TV show as it is more in the style of a well done movie, a twenty six episode long movie. It just has a more solid feel and a sense of purpose that isn't often apparent in the sector of television programs. When I watch Gasaraki I feel like it's moving somewhere, it's got places to be. When I watch other shows, I usually just wonder when it's going to be over. This is not to say that I can sit through a disc of Gasaraki without, say, paying my utility bills (not that I would ever do that, winkwink), but I can still enjoy it while I'm on the line with PECO energy.

I think it has something to do with the undue violation of the English language foisted upon us at every turn. You know there's trouble when one of the controllers starts shouting and the read-out displays Danger Level G-Over. "No! Not Danger Level G-Over!", I exclaim, "We're all screwed!". According the other screaming technician the "AI is evolving". Just one question on that, what kind of AI does a Tactical Armor have? They still need a person inside them to control them. What is this, video game AI? When I play Doom the monsters sometimes turn their back to me and just start running into the wall until I punch them to death. If Tactical Armor has a similar type of Artificial Intelligence, I wouldn't be very worried about getting killed on the battlefield, provided enough walls for them to stumble into clumsily.

 

This disc is a little more important than all of that. What I imagined to be the main thrust of the current three episodes was a question. Can love bloom on the battlefield between two test tube freaks of nature? My answer is: doubtful, but then again... I've never met a chick with green hair before. I guess anything's possible in those circumstances, given the inclusion of super powered robots with amazingly effective knee-spike weapons. It's a rare instance, but it's better than the implied alternative of weird, incestuous Gowa-love.

Love quickly takes a back seat to that tortoise-paced mech action when a new style TA goes rogue and threatens to escape the training grounds and wreak havoc on the general population of Japan. Seeing as how he's insane with rage, the pilot doesn't so much say that, he more screams, "GHPALGPLVAFWAF!!" through the bloody foam flecked lips up burgeoning insanity. This is what happens when you inject people with fluid you grew in a robot warrior. , I would question even the fundamental logic of an action like that at all, but I've learned that the scientists of Gasaraki, fake as they are, probably know much more about secret robot fluids and humanoid biology than someone like me does. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, this time.

And so, the only interest at present is the escape and capture of the aforementioned rogue robot, the whole situation making me think my diatribe on Tactical Armor AI was a bit undeserved. That's in the past now, and there's nothing I can do about it. Insane pilots not even in control of their most basic functions is a plot point that I'm never going to shoo away, despite it taking two episodes for this robot, running at full speed, to get to the border of their training grounds. Tell me where in Japan there's that much real estate! All things considered though, that's nothing to bring into question when the end result is a sweet scene of the young heir to the Gowa family digging himself into the ground via knee spikes in order to avoid robo-missles. Outstanding!

After that, it's an easy segue right into the realm of political intrigue. For ease of use I'll give you my own set of names for the Gowa sect. We've got Evil Gowa, of course, and the two remaining Gowa brothers I've named Kiyo-1 and Kiyo-2. I'll leave you up to your own machinations on which is which, because it doesn't really matter to me. All I know is, I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to wholly remember the names of at least four secondary characters with only two or three more viewings of this show.

 

Aside from revealing a decidingly apparent lack of perspicacity on my part, this shows to us that Gasaraki is a show that requires more than just a little work to 'get just right', if you will. But it certainly feels to me that this is one of those rare cases where the journey is half the reward. When I sit myself down to watch a solid hour plus of robot action mixed with political intrigue that would make your standard hour long drama blush I know that I'm getting exactly what I paid for, with a less than average amount of whiny teenagers running around. This is not to say that Gasaraki turns away from the bitchy teen motif entirely, one might not be able to recognize it as your standard robo-poli-fusion if they did! But a little is better than a lot, as it were.

Gasaraki curries yet more favor with me every time I watch it. It's too rare that I actually find it in myself in a place to really enjoy whatever animated program I'm viewing. I know I've said this before, and I don't know that I'll be reiterating myself to the point of your unbridled aggravation sometime soon, but I really like Gasaraki, and not just from a robot standpoint. If the good lord Jesus Christ came down and blessed my DVD player I don't think it could get much better. I mean, it would get a little better... we're talking about Jesus after all.