Reviewed on May 30th, 2006

Visually

New Getter Robo acts like a series that needs no introduction, which is probably true. It's a familiar enough story in which normally only the details would vary, and in this case, there aren't many details. There's an aging scientist who has something to do with a powerful trio of robot ships that combine to form a super robot. This device 'Getter Robo' seems to be the only effective weapon against a mysterious group of supernatural invaders, which keep throwing gigantic, highly individualized super-monsters at the scientist's main base of operations. The scientist's son is one of the Getter Robo pilots, but as the series begins, all the other pilots have died in battle, and a new set of reluctant, antagonistic, untrained but naturally skilled super-pilots are needed to merge with the ships and defeat the monsters.

Audio

The dubbing for New Getter Robo was pretty much bland and not so well done. The voices to me didn't fit with the profile of the characters they represented. Or it could be than the voice actors just weren't into it. If the voice acting could've been improved this would've helped the quality of New Getter Robo.

Storyline

Each of the first three episodes concentrates on one of the new pilots that embattled scientist Dr. Saotome recruits for the Getter program: Wild-man black-belt Ryoma Nagare, crazed killer Hayato Jin and pudgy, vice-ridden Buddhist monk Benkei Musashibou each get unwillingly dumped into a Getter Machine and hauled into battle, and each of them responds with eager violence once they see the enemy. Only the fourth and last episode of the series' initial volume gives them time to actually interact on anything other than a sneer-and-punch level, though they still seem to prefer sneering and punching to any other form of communication.

As to the bad guys, they don't waste any time or breath either. The enemies Getter Robo must fight are onis; man-sized horned demons who seem like mindless, ravening beasts, but who heal themselves with miraculous speed unless their brains are destroyed, and who periodically call upon multistory mega-oni, which lay waste to everything in their path, at least until Getter Robo shows up for some prototypical monster-on-mecha action.

Virtually every aspect of Getter Robo's simple plot has come up dozens of times in previous anime series, from Voltron to earlier incarnations of Getter Robo. So this new interpretation of the story individuates itself by shelving the talk and getting straight to the action. There's relatively little explanation for anything: At one point, Ryoma asks Saotome's brusque scientist daughter what the oni really are, and she shrugs, saying "Onis are just onis. We don't know a whole lot more."

DVD

The DVD for New Getter Robo is probably quality at it's worst in my opinion. Not that it didn't have any features but what it offered was very lackluster and to be honest buying this series on DVD isn't really worth the while.

Overall

Beyond that, there's not much to New Getter Robo. The fluid, stretchy, jumpy animation looks kind of interesting, and there's a sick, rough humor throughout. Its appeal starts fading with repetition even before the plot finally begins to kick in.

by Aidan