First Impressions / Super Robot Wars OG

「未知なる声」 (Michi Naru Koe)
“Unknown Voice”

As someone who hasn’t played through the OG games, I was a bit surprised to see the legendary “Choukijin” machines RyuOhKi and KoOhKi show up so soon. I’m somewhat familiar with them from the Alpha storyline, but it leaves me wondering how newcomers to the franchise are expected to be able to grasp everything that’s going on. Lamia had just arrived and joined the Earth Federation as an unexpected ally after all, and now we’re dealing with legendary machines of Chinese mythology. The short version is that those two destructive machines that resemble a dragon and tiger will play pivotal parts to the story, as does Dr. Eri Anzai (Saitou Rie) who was in the process of excavating them before the absurdly corrupt Archibald Grims (Yamazaki Takumi) came strolling along and figured it’d be fun firing on civilians to take them for himself. His top pilots Yuuki Jagger (Madono Mitsuaki) and Ricarla “Carla” Borgnine (Matsumoto Rika) — who were possible protagonists in Super Robot Wars Alpha 1 — aren’t too fond of his methods either. The obvious conclusion is that he deserves to die in the most horrible way, especially given how he’s seen in cahoots with Isurugi Heavy Industries’ president, Mitsuko Isurugi (Takaguchi Yukiko), whose company likes to supply both the Neo Divine Crusaders and the Earth Federation with weaponry and profit off the war.

For the time being, a lot of the undercover conspiracy-like developments are only being hinted at, but it does lay an interesting foundation for the story going forward. In particular, it raises a lot of questions as to who exactly are the antagonists, seeing as the ones currently portrayed as such may not remain so later on. Lamia for instance has already given indication that there’s more to her than she’s letting off, plus her irregularity in polite speech should draw more wary eyes than Excellen’s happy-go-lucky attitude would indicate. As I mentioned in my previous post, betrayals and cloning are prominent themes in the SRW storyline and serve as homage to the Gundam franchise, so that’s something to keep in mind. Similarly, the Psychodriver classification that various characters fall under is akin to being a Newtype with psychic abilities that can be harnessed by their machines. A lot of the characters had an unsettling feeling when approaching the Chihyu Mound that the Choukijin were sleeping under, which was one example of their extrasensory perception. In any case, for anime-only viewers, a lot of this will probably go over their heads, but avid fans of the game will probably be picking up on all the little nuances and picking out the differences between the games already. Again, it shouldn’t take away from one’s enjoyment unless you have a keen interest to appreciate the series to its fullest though.

Personally, I’m just looking forward to seeing more of Banpresto’s original story unfold amidst all the things that I am familiar with, which looks like the next episode will be a good start towards. The SRX team looks like they’re going to finally show up in this sequel, plus Seolla Schweizer (Kakazu Yumi), suggesting that Arado Balanga (Kaichi Kazuya) should be showing up as well. Yes, there are many more characters and personal troopers to come. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Preview

42 Comments

  2. Glad to see Lamia’s speech problem is still intact, too bad she didn’t do anything this episode. I love the hilarious broken faces though, its absolutely perfect for someone like Excellen.

    Episode itself felt a little rushed, I guess they wanted Bullet to get his new mech ASAP. If it brings Kusuha in the show much sooner, I’m not complaining. It did show some cosnsistency last episode by showing the Einst though. The Chokojin animated was pretty awesome too.

    Also, Seolla, Latooni, Aya and Viletta next episode rejoice for more boobies (and a loli).

    fragb85
    Reply

      1. In Macross 7’s case, I could see that as being an intentional gag. Here it just seems like a mistake that failed to get caught. Especially as it’s Kyosuke and not one of the other characters who might have a “rock on” reference.

        Sol Fury
        Reply

  7. The episode felt rushed yeah, but I guess you can’t do everything the way you want to do it. The mechs battles were still really well animated this time too, I hope it stays like that until the end.
    I picked up the differences all right, the choukijins (and so the plant like monsters) appear much more later in the OG games and they don’t “run away” like that.Kusuha was there too.
    Oh and one thing didn’t change: Mitsuko is the same bitch I still hate.

    Rockmanshii
    Reply

    1. That’s not quite right. The Einst make an appearance in Scenario 7 in OG2, in much the same way they do here, but the Choukijin don’t show up until much later, and even then, in such bad shape that they need to use the Grungust Sanshiki to repair themselves.

      And even though I knew it would happen, Show Spoiler ▼

      Shiden
      Reply

      1. The einst appear in the same way they do here, but iirc in the game it’s after what will happen in the next episode;They basically did scenario 7 before 2 and 3 is what I’m saying.
        argh screw it shouldn’t think about this it’s been too long since I played the game anyway and this isn’t a forum.Also I admit I’m so in love with this that I don’t want to talk about it too much so I don’t unconsciously spoil anything or make it looks even more complicated for the newcomers.
        And yeah I hope to see some solo beam spam too.

        Rockmanshii
        Reply

      1. I think everybody was thrown off with the Chokijin due to the facts that:

        1. RyuOhKi and KoOhKi never officially appeared in OG2/OGs
        2. The fact that they were introduced this early

        Dendoh_fanboy
        Reply

      2. I think that they are following the Alpha version here for some reason. In Alpha, Show Spoiler ▼

        I was not expecting to see this: https://randomc.net/image/Super%20Robot%20Wars%20OG/Super%20Robot%20Wars%20OG%20The%20Inspector%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2014.jpg, quite a nice touch if you ask me. Shame they didn’t go for broke and show off Show Spoiler ▼

        But, what we got was good overall, if you ask me.

        Thrudgelmir
        Reply

      6. Ah… actually they did. Even thought they weren’t shown in any sort of fight scene as RyuOhki and KoOhKi, their original form is RyuOhKi and KoOhKi. These forms were just absorbed into the Grungust much earlier then their Alpha counterparts. It’s not that they didn’t specifically appear as RyuOhKi and KoOhKi, it’s just that they had no turn base fight scene. They definitely had some dialogue before being absorb into the Grungust as their originals form.

        Sora no Kaze
        Reply

      7. Actually, no they didn’t. When the Chokijin appeared, it was in a damaged RyuKoOh form. It was definitely RyuKoOh that absorbed Grungust Type 3. While it is true that RyuOhKi and KoOhKi talked to Kusuha and Bullet at the time (and other times later in the game), they never actually “appeared”, not even as on-map sprites. Heck, even when RyuOhKi and KoOhKi were talking, the portraits were of RyuKoOh and KoRyuOh.

        I know what you’re trying to say, hence why I put quotation marks on “appeared”.

        Dendoh_fanboy
        Reply

      8. Well, I guess I didn’t convey across that I did note that they didn’t appear as map sprites even. I made a mistake on the part of absorbing. Yup they absorb Grungust 3, and choose them as pilots. Though, I still remember it was definitely RyuOhKi and KoOhKi that appeared once excavated, not a damage RyuKoOh. At that point, I think they were attacked and at some point they transformed into the RyuKoOh. The damage RyuKoOh had was from that battle. Well atleast in OG2 I think, my memory fuzzy. I know in OGs, they appeared as a damage RyuKoOh, but I could have missed the dialogue part where that happen. In fact, the circumstances is that they themselves combine into RyuKoOh from the RyuOhKi and KoOhKi.

        Yet again, this is all fuzzy to me, but that’s what I remembered. Let alone, RyuKoOh if I remember was a combination of the two.

        But, whatever, I’ll agree with you on the point that they did not appear in their respective RyuOhKi and KoOhKi. Cause as much as I could argue that point, it still doesn’t prove the fact that RyuOhKi and KoOhKi had an actual appearance on screen during OG2 or OGs, especially if they talk in their forms of RyuKoOh and KoRyuOh rather than the former. (though I certainly don’t remember them ever talking in their RyuOhKi or KoOhKi forms when they were combined ever, even in Alpha 2 (they did talk, but after they combined, it was the RyuKoOh and KoRyuOh picture if I remember).

        Sora no Kaze
        Reply

  13. As a newcomer to the whole franchise, things are quite perplexing and mysterious but I’ll survive.

    Personally from this episode I’m most intrigued by Lamia’s inner thoughts about Ex since she expected everyone that she meet on board Shirogane to be there but Ex was someone she didn’t recognize (only saw some resemblance or connected the name to someone else).
    That might be something that the ones that have played the game realized immediately what she meant by that, but for me it will be a mystery until more is revealed.

    Those animal mechas were cool as well, I can see why that bastard in the DC ship, and the Isurugi woman wanted them. 🙂

    On with the show!

    Greg
    Reply

  15. I was actually looking over my old copy of super robot wars og 2 for the gba and as i recall the fight here didn’t include the unusual mecha -not spoiling or the mecha beasts showing up till the second time around but they may be doing this because of time constraints as they will probably not be able to do every battle form og 2 as there was a split path towards the end and if you gave each battle one episode we would have a 50 episode series at least so i think its probably to speed things along =also next episode will just go to show why mecha designers should do what code geass did and give their mecha keys and activation codes

    chaos42
    Reply

  16. “those two destructive machines that resemble a dragon and tiger will play pivotal parts to the story, as does Dr. Eri Anzai”

    Nope, none of them really matter in the story, they are “just there”. Just another robot, nothing special about it. If you can even call the mess they had in OG2 a story…compared to OG1 its a tangled web that makes barely any sense.

    karry
    Reply

  17. from someone who absolutely has no clue about the backstory of the series, i find this one quite entertaining. yes, questions keep popping here and there but i think that’s the main driver, for me anyways, to follow this one. i actually think that those who know anything about this show, original story and whatnot, wouldn’t have much fun watching it as they’d be nitpicking every little detail that they find that is off.

    so far so good for this one. nothing compared to our galactic pretty boy tho, but still… :))

    kc
    Reply

  18. Someone please tell me they’re not going to use something as lame as a cyber kitty and dragon as one of the main plot elements in this series. Everything up until that point was bearable, but WTH. Are they going to show a bunch of guidos with popped colors and off center baseball caps as the XFL cool guy squad or something?

    synkronized
    Reply

  19. To the reviewer: My impression was, for newcomers, this is a “show cool stuff now, explain later” type thing. The stuff in ep 1 had to exist (because it is a major driver of the later story); the 2nd was… heavily accelerated, essentially.

    I can concur that Eri is “just there,” but she’s eye candy and I don’t regret seeing more of her at all (having first seen her back in the Alpha games).

    At any rate, there is indeed a time constraint concern and the fact is, a game like this tended to develop quite slowly at first; also, there was very little seen of the non-ATX team characters (and their new jerk commander Lee running the Shirogane) until quite a bit later, so I can completely see how next ep will feature that side of things for an anime audience. The test will be later, when “routes merge” so to speak, and we get to see if they’re going to do this material justice.

    Jeremiah Bourque
    Reply

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