New Getter Robo #4: Crash Pioneer 75 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles Released: 09/27/2005 Reviewed: 04/11/2006

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Listen to Dave and Joel talk about this show! (right click, save as)

I should've seen it coming right off the bat. I should've known what Getter Robo was going to go into. I can imagine that this is the reason people don't like Giant Robot shows nowadays. They always get so weird. It's not like I haven't experienced it before. Just a couple years ago I was sitting on the very couch where I'm writing this, watching the end of the other Shin Getter Robo and itching my head in a weird sort of way. Giant gooey aliens comprised of black slime were somehow encroaching across the galaxy and Getter Robo turned into a dragon-boat or something and then there was a whole lot of fighting and some solar beam attack and I got so pumped up that I jumped up and popped Sambo in the jaw. He was living with us at the time and enjoying a rather productive session of Final Fantasy XI, unlocking the Dark Knight profession if I remember correctly.

If you're worried, I apologized to Sambo and it was all cool. He understood what was going on. Getter Robo just has a way of snaking into your subconscious and going to town with your emotions. When the episode was over we shook hands and all was right with the world. It's the magical presence of Getter Robo. This series is no different than the end of any other Go Nagai-inspired thing I've seen. Things get messed up, massively messed up, which is quite a feat considering this is a show that went both back AND forward in time, turned major historical figures into chicks, and convinced us that there's a 'tough-actin' disease out there that turns you into a demon hell-bent on the destruction of the human civilization within moments of your first bite. It's like a zombie virus that actually does something. But as weird as this show gets, what it doesn't do is lie to itself or its viewers. Getter Robo is weird because it knows that weird can be totally sweet. It's not weird like that Matrix garbage that was stripped directly from Freshman college Philosophy textbooks, it's weird in a way that allows for the outright rape and multilation of evil alien species. HELL YEAH!

While we podcasted about this show, Joel and I came upon a singular revelation. Getter Robo goes out of its way to present you with crappy and incomprehensible story arcs because the act of this pushes all rational thought out of your mind. With that your brain is perfectly prepared for the sixty to seventy five minutes of robo-insanity that's gonna follow. Don't come in here expecting a good plot, at least not good in the "traditional sense", because you're not gonna get it. You're also not gonna get a whole bunch of psychodrama babbling, or people posturing (except in totally awesome ways), or a single female character that has time for anything but being sultry and stoic. Nuts to that! This ain't no weaksauce robot show about fourteen year old girls blasting off in battery powered eighty foot tall robots that can't even fly. God!! Why would anyone want a giant robot that DIDN'T EVEN FLY?! I've distracted myself, but the point stands. Even the mere thought of something like Getter Robo automatically forces all ability for cogent thought out of your mind. You're converted into a gibbering mess of emotions, a helpless mass totally subservient to the will of the machine. When the prototype Getters that you didn't even know existed start dragging themselves out of the ground you'll exclaim exactly what I did, I'm sure of it. It went a little something like: "GOD DAMMIT!! Why am I working in my wage-ape job when I could be a giant robot pilot?!"

In this last disc of Getter Robo infighting runs rampant among the Getter team. It's only the natural progression of this kind of show. All we need now is a plucky young sidekick to burst in on the middle of the brawl and tell them that they're ruining everything and they'll never save the world if they can't understand the power of love and teamwork. Of course, that would never EVER happen in this version of Getter Robo because it is beyond any shadow of a doubt batshit crazynuts. Maybe I'm a big, dumb guy as far as cartoons are concerned... but I go out of my way to watch the weird things because it's the weird things that don't lie to themselves. Yes I want to see giant gods who tell you how they're really saving the world from the Getter plague and I want to see the main characters say 'Eff YOU man! Even if we're going to ruin the universe we're not gonna bow down to your weak-ass logic!' I could be crazy, but that's a good show to me. Like I said, Getter Robo doesn't lie to itself or its viewers. It doesn't try to act smart, it's not pretentious, it's about guys in a giant robot and the sublimation of masculine urges. Getter Robo is the purity of art in its most refined form. It's perfect.