Robot Claw – Page 102 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

28 Hours Of Gridman!

September 19, 2023

In 1993 Tsubaraya, makers of Ultraman, released a show called ‘Lightning Superman Gridman’, also called ‘Gridman The Hyper Agent’, that I’ll here refer to simply as Gridman. Over the last few years I’ve watched the entire series, as well as a couple of truly extraordinary spinoffs. It’s time to discuss this mysterious show…

Gridman The Hyper Agent (1993, 39 episodes, 16.3 hours)

This series was created to capitalize on the popularity amongst children of home computers, and tells a story of a group of youngsters that – with the help of a mysterious being called Gridman – battle evil viruses in the ‘computer world’. It’s a bit like ‘Tron with kids’ except the humans never actually go into the computer world. Since it’s a Tsubaraya tokusatsu production, there is of course a battle in every episode between men in suits; in this case the hero Gridman and a ‘virus’ which is (of course) a giant kaiju monster. Humorously, these creatures are created by a being known as ‘Khan Digifer’, who manifests the monsters using the anger and frustration of an eternally (sort of) bullied almost-friend of the hero kids:

These are our heroes that work with Gridman to defeat him:

These days the computers on the show are hilariously dated, although it was fun to see such things as people playing games on PC-88 machines. The fight scenes are interesting since they’re always on the same set and therefore get creative with the kaiju suits to spice things up. But ultimately there’s a disconnect between the real-world and computer-world segments, and Gridman himself seems to take a back seat to the main story toward the end. I enjoyed it as a glimpse into early 1990s Japan since there’s so much on-location filming, but it doesn’t hold a candle to a good Ultraman series.

SSSS.Gridman (2018, 12 episodes, 6 hours)

To everyone’s amazement, in 2017 Tsubaraya announced an anime sequel to Gridman! Or was it a sequel…? The show was SSSS.Gridman, and it took the anime world by storm when it screened in 2018, becoming one of the most popular series of the year. The story is based around an amnesiac boy named Yuta, who discovers Gridman (yes the same one from the 1993 show) on an old computer. Gridman tells him he has a mission to complete, and thus begins a rollercoaster of events as Yuta fights to save his town from Kaiju, all the while trying to work out the many mysteries going on around him.

This show is incredible. It’s one of the best anime series ever made, and a shockingly good retelling of the Gridman story from a different perspective. What are the kaiju? Why does no-one remember their attacks or even the people killed by them? Who is Akane, the frustrated girl who creates the Kaiju for a mysterious villian on her computer? And who are Gridman’s friends who eventually turn up to help Yuta?

The visuals are bright and colorful, and the battle scenes use tokusatsu motion capture methods which gives them Ultra-DNA. The show is a love letter to Gridman via Evangelion (which itself was a love letter to Ultraman…) and countless other giant robot series, and it’s so meticulously scripted and directed that when you get to the very last shot – one of the very best final shots of any anime – you immediately want more. I can’t recommend this enough.

SSSS.Dynazenon (2021, 12 episodes, 6 hours)

After the success of SSSS.Gridman, a sequel was inevitable, and when it came in 2021 it took the series in a new and unexpected direction. Nothing from the first series returned: here we had all-new characters, all-new heroes, all-new villians and all-new kaiju. Was this even Gridman?

The story tells of a young man, Yomogi, who is recruited by a mysterious man named Gauma to help fight off a kaiju attack. Gauma does this by summoning a giant robot named Dynazenon, which can split into several independent vehicles, each piloted by Yomogi and his (new) friends. They fight the ‘Kaiju Eugenicists’ for the sake of the world itself, but as the show progresses we learn that each pilot -and Gauma – has personal struggles of their own that make the conflict even more difficult…

This is another triumph of a series, with even more over the top action and characters. The transformation scenes of Dynazenon in particular are incredible, and if you’ve ever watched any giant robot anime from the 70s or 80s you’ll be laughing out loud at how good they are. At the same time the characters are charming and their struggles resonate even after the show has ended. This is not a happy-go-lucky story of kids saving the world, perhaps unsurprising since they attend Neon Genesis high school. The mystery quota of this series is high as well – including the links to Gridman – and you’ll be guessing at what will happen until the very end. Another highly recommended series.

And that would be that, except for the fact that SSSS.Gridman and SSSS.Dynazenon were followed up by a theatrically released film called Gridman Universe, which was released in Japan this past March. As is often the case, this has been slow leaving Japan, and with releases in other Asian countries still a month away who knows when it will make its way to the US?

Suffice to say as soon as I can I’ll be watching this, since I want to know more about the links between Gridman and Dynazenon, but more importantly I want to see these characters again, even if just for one last time. Both these anime series are amongst my favourites ever, and I think if you give them a chance you may love them too.

Let’s Open Some Cards!

September 17, 2023

When we went antiquing a few weeks ago, I picked up a motley collection of old trading card packs for a song. In addition, I had a couple of other notable packs aging on a shelf. Let’s open them all now…

These Fievel Goes West cards date to the release of the film in 1991. This was the ‘junk wax’ era, when publishers gave anything a card set, and one wonders what the demand was for these cards? I’ve never seen the film and after glancing at the pictures on the cards never want to. The only positive I have about these: the card stock is heavy, the print quality high, and twelve cards per pack is bounteous. But I’ll be trashing these regardless 🙂

I once saw an entire box of these All My Children cards on sale for only a few dollars, and almost bought it only because it was so cheap. I’m glad I didn’t, since these cards (also released in 1991) are trash. Of the ten cards in my pack 4 of them were quiz cards with no art (the bottom two in the pic are the fronts and back of such cards) and the others are just studio photos of characters. I’d say even a rabid fan of the soap (which I have never seen) would be disappointed with this low-effort set. Into the bin they go!

These six packs of Megametal cards (from – once again – 1991) cost a shiny quarter each. I’d never heard of the set but gambled that with six packs my chance for a hologram was decent so I bought them all. The cards are decent if generic: a photo or album cover image on the front with some fluff quote on the back. What makes the set amusing are some of the included bands: have you ever heard of M.O.D., The Front, Heaven’s Gate or Dark Angel? Sets like these puzzle me, since it’s extraordinarily unlikely someone would be a fan of all these bands and would they buy multiple packs just for the 8% of cards that are Bon Jovi?

I got a hologram! A shame it’s L.A. Guns. If you want it, leave a comment, otherwise it’s heading to the trash with the rest of these cards!

A more recent pack now, from 2018. The Doctor Who card license is currently in the hands of a company called Rittenhouse, who prints high quality card sets with lovely art reproduction, loads of informative text and overloaded with chase cards such as autographs and costume pieces. The problem is their cards are too expensive, and a single pack of these Who cards retail for $10. With only five cards per pack, that’s $2 a card and they’re absolutely not even close to worth this price. It’s easy to ignore these sets right now because they’re ‘new Who’, but if Rittenhouse turns their attention to classic Who and in particular the Pertwee era, I’ll be miffed!

I picked up this pack of Bass ManiaX cards earlier this year in Japan for only ¥50 (about 40 cents). Released in 2000, this was a trading card game that seems to have disappeared from the internet as I can’t find anything on it (even the official webpage printed on the packs is gone). From the contents of this pack it seemed to have fish, lure, event and technic cards, and translating a few cards I’m guessing the goal was to catch fish – that were upside down on the table – for points.

I love buying clearance card packs in Japan because you never know what you’ll get. This is a classic example of ‘weird Japan’ (who was the target audience for a bass fishing tcg?!?) but even though the set was probably doomed to fail the production quality is high and the cards themselves feel better in the hand than an MtG card printed today.

So there we go. Five more card sets never before seen on this blog, many of which arguably should never have been seen at all! I’m always on the lookout for more, so let’s hope this isn’t the last post of its kind 🙂

LEGO Pac-Man

September 9, 2023

Kristin bought me the LEGO Pac-Man set earlier this year, and last week I assembled it. I went into this set ‘spoiler free’, and it was a delight to discover it’s special feature!

You first built the (removable) character display on top, which features Pac-Man and two pursuing ghosts. At the push of a button the all turn around to replicate what happens when Pac-Man eats a power pill. It’s a nice trick, but just a side dish to the main act. Oh and see those tiny Pac-Men and ghosts at the bottom? They’re printed tiles:

The main cabinet took me several overs over a few days and was an intriguing build because for a while I couldn’t see how the set was coming together. As mentioned I was initially oblivious of the special feature so half-way through the build of the main ‘screen’ I had no idea why I was adding a chain drive:

Then adding an axle attached to a crank on the back made it clear this set had hand-powered animations:

But I still wasn’t prepared for how smooth the movement was once finished, and how good the ‘screen’ looked:

Pac-Man, all the ghosts and the cherry all animate in some way, moving in various cycles around the board. There are two chains and a lever attached via different gears to the crank axle, so they don’t even all move at the same speed. It’s incredibly well done, and needs to be seen in action to appreciate it. I’ve made a lot of legos over the years, including some gigantic technic sets, but the engineering on this one surprised and impressed me more than any I’d ever seen.

There’s a few other nice little touches, like a moving joystick and light up ‘coin slot’, and even a cute little diorama hidden behind the back panel:

One interesting aspect to this set was that it’s slightly on the ‘harder’ side as far as assembly was concerned. A few steps required a second or even third look to make sure I was doing them correctly, and I was extremely careful for the screen part itself since errors there may have taken a long time to fix! Overall assembly was fun, and I the only real negative I can think of is the usual one: I wish LEGO stopped using stickers entirely.

The success of this set is just how great it looks assembled, and how smooth and wonderful the movement is when you turn the crank. This is one I’ll be happy to leave on display for many years to come 🙂