Anime Profile: Gunbuster

For over a decade now, the legendary anime Gunbuster has only been available to North America on VHS tapes... but that will all end on February 20, 2007 as finally this wonderful series makes the leap to DVD! And what better way to release this gem than to give the deluxe treatment, with a three DVD box set containing two episodes (and super-cute science lessons) per disc, newly translated English subtitles for each episode, and a 24-page color booklet containing episode summaries, character profiles and sketches, mech info and sketches, and the staff and cast credits.

Gunbuster is the first anime series I ever rented from a video store, so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Of course, it being a great mini-series also helps. It pretty much embodies exactly what people think, or at least used to think, when they heard the word anime: girls in tight clothes, giant robots, starships, aliens, and space battles. But Gunbuster also includes real emotional content. Friends change... they grow older, and some die... and it all matters. It isn't just brushed over as something that happens. It is dealt with.

Gunbuster, named for one of the giant mech robots in the series, tells the story of Noriko Takaya, a cute young woman who is desperately trying to follow in her father's giant footsteps. And what giant footsteps they were, as her father, Admiral Yuzo Takaya, was commander of Earth's first faster-than-light ship called the Luxion... and nearly his entire fleet perished during an alien attack. There were a few survivors... however, Noriko's father wasn't one of them.

So now Noriko is training to become a mech pilot, but she lacks even the most basic piloting skills that most of the other girls already have. Luckily for her, Koichiro Ohta, a coach at Okinawa Girls’ Space Pilot High School (and a survivor of the incident that claimed Admiral Takaya's life), takes her under his wing to personally train her... or is it lucky for her? Now all the other girls thinks she's getting special treatment... can nothing go right for this poor girl!

Well apparently Koichiro, AKA "coach", sees raw talent in her, and after a bit of one-on-one training, he is able to bring it out of her. Although still far from being the best student pilot in the school, she is nonetheless chosen as a pilot candidate for the Top Squadron, along with the extremely talented Kazumi Amano. Seems Noriko's dream is actually starting to come true, as the two of them head off for space, but knowing not of what awaits ahead.

It's not long before she meets new friends aboard the massive space battleship Exelion... and winds up fighting in her first real battle against the space monsters! I wish I could say she kicked some major space monster butt, however at this point just surviving would seem to be a major accomplishment for our inexperienced rookie. Unfortunately, simply surviving might not be enough. She's going to have to find a way to pull herself together if she's going to conquer the trials to come.

And battles aren't even the only thing to fear in space! Time is all relative, so when traveling at near light speeds, time progresses at a different rate than those standing still, so what is a quick 5 minutes at near light speed for Noriko and Kazumi ends up being months back at the Exelion, or years on Earth. How does one reconcile the fact that five minutes ago you were at the same level as the rest of your Top Squadron class, and now all of a sudden they're all ready to graduate? Or that your best friend from back in high school is now a middle age woman with a daughter?

Well, one thing's for sure... things are only going to get worse! Enormous alien fleets, extreme time distortion, and high-running emotions... Noriko and Kazumi are going to have to pull out all the stops and use the hopefully invincible giant robot Gunbuster to save the Earth, and humanity, from total annihilation! Thank goodness for those ultra-cutesy science lessons in between each episode to smooth out the intensity of the series. And unlike other shows, these shorts actually serve and informational purpose, explaining clearly about the science and physics of the series, as well as enlightening us on the largely unknown space monsters. Without these funny little snippets, following the series would have probably been a much more challenging task!

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Gunbuster tells the story of Noriko Takaya, a girl training to become a robot pilot in the midst of a massive intergalactic war. She hopes to follow the footsteps of her famous father, Admiral Yuzo Takaya. She befriends fellow student Kazumi Amano and undergoes various trials and tribulations on her way to the top, and with help from Coach Ota and the rest of Noriko's friends she finally becomes the pilot of the insanely powerful robot known as Gunbuster.

The Earth and the entire Solar system has fallen under war from a mysterious and massive alien threat that places humanity in jeopardy. Noriko and Kazumi soon travel to space to prepare and combat the alien threat, however the horrors of the war and the consequences of space travel create unimaginable trials and tragedies for Noriko.

Will Noriko and Kazumi find the courage and confidence to combat the alien threat and protect their loved ones? And what consequences will come from the final battle?