Final Impressions / First Impressions / Super Robot Wars OG

「貫け、奴よりも速く」 (Uranuke, Yatsu yori mo Hayaku)
“Pierce, Faster Than Him”

It took twenty-six episodes, but we finally got to see the long-awaited Aussenseiter and Dygenguar “Tatsumaki Zankantou” combination attack where “real men ride one another”. It was the perfect follow-up to SRX’s Hyper Tronium Buster Cannon failing to kill something in one-shot like it’s known for, and brought about “Einst Beowulf” emerging from Stern Regisseur’s ashes. I honestly wasn’t sure what to make of that sudden revelation, other than how it provided Axel with the opportunity he was waiting for to finish the fight that started back in the Shadow-Mirror universe. From an anime standpoint, it also tied in the events of the first episode to bring the story full circle, while providing some more depth to Axel’s character by having him fight alongside the Kyousuke of this world.

What happened afterward was nothing short of orgasmic Super Robot Wars overload, with all the robots cranking out their strongest attacks one after another on the copies created by Beowulf, all to the theme of JAM Project’s Ryuusei Lovers. It was like I was watching one of those fan-made SRW MAD movies in anime form, and it was unbelievably awesome for that very reason. Ryouto took his Exbein Boxer and picked up Rio’s AM Gunner and Viletta’s Guarbein to fire the Full Impact Cannon, which I got a kick out of because Viletta slipped in a little bit of Ingram’s “Dead End” phrase before Ryouto shouted “Shoot”. We also got glimpses of Giganscudo Duro’s Giga Unghia, the Fairlions’ Royal Heart Breaker, Grungust’s Keitou Ragouken, Falken and Wurger’s Twin Bird Strike, Astelion AX’s Maneuver RaMVs, a very fan-service-filled version of Valsione’s Cross Smasher, Cybuster’s Cosmo Nova, Vysaga’s Koujinsen, and RyuKoOh’s Hazanken. To any SRW fan who’s familiar with the games, it was nothing but pure mecha ass-kicking action befitting of a finale.

As for the wrap up involving Axel and Kyousuke’s combined effort to stop Einst Beowulf from wiping out mankind and creating his evolved species using himself and Excellen, what really got me was Alfimi sacrificing herself to protect Kyousuke. I actually felt bad for the crazy blue-haired lolita after seeing how dejected she was from Beowulf telling her she’s imperfect as well. The rest is pretty much history with Kyousuke dealing the finishing blow on top of where Axel attacked with Soulgain’s Genbu Goudan. The only thing that kind of went unmentioned was whether Axel survived, which should be the case since Soulgain didn’t explode when Alt Eisen Riese flew in front of its wreckage. The PlayStation 2’s Original Generations version of the story comes into play on various aspects after all, including how Lee Linjun survived the entire series. I still found it odd how Lee was the first to help retrieve Alt and the other damaged units. That bastard. Trying to improve his image a bit at the very end.

* Note: There were various cameos at the beginning of this episode, including the Cry Wolves, Touma Kanou, and Kouta Azuma.

Show Real Men Riding One Another ▼

 

Epilogue

Final Impressions:

Looking back, I’m actually quite happy with the way this adaptation turned out, including the changes at the very end to change things up for those familiar with the games. As someone who played a handful of games before with insufficient Japanese, this show clarified the bits and pieces of story that I did pick up about Banpresto’s original characters, and renewed my interest in the Original Generation games that I never played before. Whether I can get into them now is another matter, but a lot of my enjoyment while watching The Inspector came from being really familiar with a lot of the characters and only semi-familiar with others. It was basically a trip down memory lane that filled in a lot of the holes in my incomplete understanding of the story, so I actually found it somewhat educational as well (SRW-wise).

Speaking from experience, the nostalgia definitely goes a long way as far as entertainment value goes, as it can be pretty confusing if you’re coming in with little to no understanding of what Super Robot Wars even is. As such, I can’t really speak objectively about how good or bad this series is, given the various glossed over subplots that I caught but someone new to the series probably didn’t. Incidentally, that suggests to me that this production was catered towards them, which is typically not a good thing for an anime when it’s supposed to help promote the original source material it’s based on. I commend those who were able to just dive head first into this latest adaptation and find enjoyment making sense of it the best they can, especially those who didn’t watch the prequel Divine Wars. Even I find the enormous cast daunting at times, having difficulty remembering all the characters’ names, which is something I feel works against adapting SRW. Each set of characters has enough story to warrant their own 25-episode series, much like the Gundam characters who show up in the crossover strategy games, so multiply that by at least twenty and you have an extremely bloated story that can’t really be contained in a mere 26 episodes. The epilogue alone touched upon a lot of the things that simply weren’t covered.

Be that as it may, I consider this a good attempt by Asahi Production to piece together an extremely condensed version of Banpresto’s story without terribly trimming down the cast. Production-wise, it was far from the jaw-dropping visuals in Sunrise’s latest Gundam series, which was most apparent during the final stretch when the artwork was all over the place. However, I still feel the quality was a huge step up from Divine Wars and did justice to the long-running franchise. Fans of robot anime shouldn’t have too much difficulty getting into this series, but those considering a series to help get into them best stay away. I’d strongly recommend a Gundam or Macross series to get your feet wet first.

53 Comments

  1. Hmmm. Lee didn’t survive even in the PS2 OGs. Maybe Lee surviving is another change for the anime only. Pretty good adaptation, although I like the character art at the game much more, but at least it’s much better than Divine Wars adaptation.

    aiueo123
    Reply

      2. Except that everyone does care about the remakes, because the remakes are pretty much all canon. All future OG continuity follows them and wouldn’t work with the GBA versions. Most notably with Axel being a good guy.

        fragb85
        Reply

    1. In the regular OG universe, yes, but here, the Shirogane never got captured by the NDC/SM, replaced instead by the Trilobite-class Ganland (just realized now that it was a Trilobite-class, making it the same type of ship as the Neverland from EF/EF Exceed… too bad we didn’t get any W-0X cameos). They also turned Lee’s jackass switch way down, so this Lee doesn’t deserve the same level of scorn as his OG2/OGS counterparts.

      Shiden
      Reply

    2. I concur. This Lee Linjun is much less of an a-hole than his game counterpart, making it much easier to feel sorry for him (given how IIRC he lost his whole family when the Aerogators attacked back in OG1). Plus they quietly disappeared him and gave the job of killing Daitetsu to Vindel, so there’s no reason to hate Lee in the series.

      lemonfanboy
      Reply

  4. thanks for the posts Divine 🙂
    now the show is over, I should go back and play the OG games to get a better sense of the story I guess… too bad the games are so long :#
    it was a good series overall

    jrj
    Reply

  5. This show definitely had SRW fans in mind; instead answering the usual “how do we make to source material appealing to a wider audience,” they focused on, “how do we animate this and that scene, so we can satisfy the fans?” As a person who’s very familiar with the OG universe, I loved the direction they took.

    paulrenzo
    Reply

  8. Everything was fabulous, thought I think the Cosmo Nova is a bit lacking… in the Divine Wars, there were like 5000 lasers roboteching towards Mai while in Inspectors it was just a measley 3 small lasers.

    Suppa Tenko
    Reply

      2. Huhuhu I got praised by Divine LOL.

        So I just saw on Magicbox.com that Banpresto will reveal the next SRW game after the release of the 2nd SRW Z on psp, and that the trailer at the end of this episode was indeed game footage.

        Rockmanshii
        Reply

    1. They are Giada and Garnet (yes, Giada is the man.. in the localized version he was renamed Giado) two pilots in Divine Wars. They retired after the end of the Aerogater war and now they are living in Asakusa Town.. They are also like a parental figure for Latooni.

      Saga
      Reply

  11. Everyone using their strongest attacks with the theme song playing, this is how every mecha show should end. Many thanks for covering this btw Divine, it’s been a nice ride.

    Even without listening to my fanboy inside, who’s inactive right now anyway because he died from the awesomeness this episode was I’d still say this was one of the best game to anime adaptation I’ve ever seen. Especially how they tweaked the scenario, which is big, to make it much more anime-like, without screwing up. What I mean by anime-like is for example how they didn’t need 4 shots of the HTB Canon to reduce half of Stern’s hp.

    Rockmanshii
    Reply

  13. So many little cameos this episode! I was so not expecting to see Touma in there. The best darn delivery boy ever! That shot of the Compatible Kaiser was great! Now I can’t wait to get my hands on the model.

    I’m not sure how the changes will play out when/if they adapt OGG into an anime, but this was a great adaptation either way. The ending battle was just great with the music and all the attacks. Little hints of OGG being tossed in make me so excited about a sequel.

    The big question though is that trailer after the episode! Was that… Was that a hint of OG3?! It also looks like they gave the team a name finally.

    Thank you for covering this, Divine. It was great reading your posts.

    Zack
    Reply

  16. They certainly added enough bonus stuff and dangled enough loose ends to pave the way for an OG3. That and plenty enough of the SRW goodness we expect, though everything went a bit too fast at some points. This series could definitely have used a couple of extra episodes to allow the plot twists to sink in and make the mecha action more meaningful.
    Real Men did indeed Ride Each Other, and a few other Finishing Moves did get showcased, so I’m happy.

    Shinmarizu
    Reply

  18. Huge props to you Divine and thanks for your posts on this series, it really helped someone like me who has never played any of the games or wathed Divine Wars. In the end I really liked it, and when the “real men riding eachother” happened I got goosebumps, thanks to you hyping it in previous posts thus making me check it out what it was. 😀

    Greg
    Reply

  21. Real Men Ride Each Other IN SPACE!

    Those god dam teases not only cockblock that kiss scene, but NO MOTHAFUCKING RAMPAGE GHOST WTF!?!?!?!?!?!

    I was happy and immediately became pissed towards the end -_-

    So anyone besides me waiting for that OG Saga Ova with Alfimi and Axel? :p

    anishuma
    Reply

  22. Jam’s Song lovers was actually a turn off to me there. I was so waiting for Maxxon (I’m not accustumed to lovers yet) so part of me was crying “WRYYYY?!” in sadness… and then no RAMPAGE GHOST!?

    Over all it was great. so I don’t have much to complain.

    Ruu
    Reply

  23. Did nobody notice Kusuha just summon a effing mountain in space to make the background for Tatsumaki Zankantou =)). Now you know where those mountains and cliffs come from.

    gespentred
    Reply

  24. WHEW that was a awesome finish and kept pace well. I had a feeling Alfimi might side with Kyousuke but i was really hoping she’d survive it! She is part of Excellen at the core after all. erm…was. lol at your comment about Lee being a bastard. They had to leave someone for the next series since they nearly wiped out everyone else i guess.

    Breedo
    Reply

  26. I lol-ed when I saw the infamous “real men ride each other”. I’m glad I followed this series, that was something I could never get from watching Gundam series 😀
    If only they had rampage ghost, it would have been perfect.
    Excellen is may favorite and she looks useless in the final episode 🙁

    KGFJ
    Reply

  27. Awesome way to end a great adaptation of OG2! Even the lack of Rampage Ghost didn’t do anything to hamper my joy. Real men finally rode each other IN SPACE!!, a finisher rush set to Ryuusei Lovers and a showdown with Beowulf with the Alt delivering the final blow. My only gripe left remaining is that they didn’t give the show a bigger budget to spread more evenly. Here’s hoping for a redone Wodan vs Zanger in the DVDs and an OGG anime with the same team.

    Kagekyuubi
    Reply

  28. Mixed feelings – it’s been an enjoyable ride (in fact, that’s what’s prompted me to return to playing OG1 and OG2 on my PSP using a GBA emulator), but I’m still disappointed that there’s no Rampage Ghost.

    …the realistic part of me, who gets up and goes to work every morning, notes that Rampage Ghost, while awesome, would be a pain in the ass to animate.

    Also lol Kyosuke and Excellen – promising her that he’ll be the one to finish her off if she goes bad. It’s also kind of amusing how despite Excellen’s over the top-ness and Kyosuke’s stoicism, they have some of the most tender scenes in anime, ever.

    …I do wish that they could have had their conversation about getting married and Excellen having twins named Lemon and Alfimi, but that would have clashed with the mood. (Such as how using Ash to Ash when Lamia kamikazes Vindel turns what is a tearjerking, poignant scene into something triumphant.)

    As for OG3, what with J, W, K and L, SRW has enough originals to be added to the roster.

    Something I find a little amusing: there were more instances of Jet Magnum throughout this series than Divine Wars. Also, relatively little display of badassery from Kai, and more Team Dad.

    …Then again Kai’s best Crowning Moment of Awesome was in OG Gaiden, so….

    As for the trailer that aired after the episode, I hope to god it’s OG3 and on the PSP, so Atlus will give a shot at translating it (since OGs wouldn’t bring enough money and nobody in the US apparently plays with PS2s anymore).

    Wild Goose
    Reply

  29. Psp has enough rpgs, OG3 for the 3DS please! And bring it stateside so you can make my life!

    Seriously though, if they make an Original Generation 3 without bringing it stateside ever, my rage meter would over extend and then I would have to go supervillain to find away to track down the creators and force them to translate the game.

    anishuma
    Reply

    1. I wouldn’t really ask for the 3DS then. If they don’t bring it to North America you wouldn’t be able to import and play it if you wanted since the 3DS is region locked. PS3/PSP would allow you to import and play it regardless of localization or not. Although no localization would be a sad thing, wouldn’t it better to have it be playable over here through importing at least?

      Personally I’m hoping it’s for PS3, but I wouldn’t mind PSP. Although with SRW Z2 coming out on the PSP I wouldn’t mind OG3 on the PS3 for a little sense of diversity.

      Zack
      Reply

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