The 80s was somewhat of a mecha anime boom period, and Layzner sits squarely within that epoch. However, its legacy in the decades since has been an impressively influential and complex one.
Released back in 1985, Layzner deals with the then future of 1996. With the Cold War still underway between the USA and USSR, the conflict has now spread across the Solar System.
We start the story at Mars, where the USA and USSR have bases. A bunch of schoolchildren have been ferried out from Earth to the neutral United Nations base in the hope of fostering peace. Unfortunately, a third armed force has appeared, and they don’t come from Earth.
Originally intended as a 52 episode series, the first 26 episode season was very well paced and ended on a fantastic cliff-hanger. Unfortunately, one of the main sponsors of the anime had to pull out, which ruined the second season’s budget and forced the series to finish in a very haphazard way at episode 38.
Popular demand forced the series to have its ending delivered in the form of an OVA, which finished off the major plot points but sadly lacked the carefully constructed build-up that the original episodic script had intended.
Written and directed by Ryosuke Takahashi with excellent mecha design from Kunio Okawara, Layzner was a departure from the more military and grounded mecha anime of Dougram and VOTOMS. Instead, Layzner was set primarily in space and dealt with advanced alien technology that was incredibly potent and agile.
Layzner also took that heavy rule based approach seen in prior real robot anime and went even further in a technical sense. It’s this specifically that is noteworthy as to how Layzner has been so influential in the decades since, at least with video games.
In fact, I’ve written about Layzner’s influence on video games before, not to mention given lectures on the subject at places such as Otakon. Put simply, the very specific rules laid out in Layzner has acted as a functional blueprint for all manner of mecha games over the years.
From Zone of the Enders to Armored Core and Virtual On, even Bangai-O and Omega Boost can trace their functional roots back to Layzner.
However, that’s not all that Layzner has influenced. Due to the agility of the mecha in this anime, the combat animation had to keep up and did so in a very impressive way. While the character and general plot animation is fairly standard for the 80s, the mecha combat is something else entirely.
Spearheaded by legendary animator Moriyasu Taniguchi, who also did Layzner’s character designs, studio Anime R really pulled out all the stops for this show. Takahashi also made a point of explaining this when I interviewed him a while back, and that Taniguchi really went all out with the mecha animation for Layzner.
You can really see it too and that’s partly why this Blu-ray release is so important. Major animators reference Layzner all the time in Japan, even people like Trigger’s Hiroyuki Imaishi cite Layzner and Taniguchi’s work as a creative influence.
This release then has a lot going on. It is also based off the amazing Japanese Blu-ray remaster of the series from 2013 and not only includes the whole TV series but also the follow on OVAs (although the first two of the OVAs are a retelling of the TV series, with the third ending the story).
While this release may lack much of the extra printed material from the Japanese version, the anime side of things is covered very thoroughly and given a solid English subtitled translation to boot.
My only real complaint with this release from Discotek is that for such an artistically impressive anime, it has a thoroughly terrible cover. Why they didn’t opt for any of the excellent artwork from the likes of animator Katsuyuki Tamura, who penned a bunch of amazing pieces for the Japanese Blu-ray release, is entirely beyond me.
Layzner then is one of the best anime from the mid 80s, not only for its animation and initially immaculate narrative pacing, but also its influence it has had on video games and other anime in the decades since. The fact it is now readily available on Blu-ray means you should pick this classic anime up as soon as you can.
You can purchase this Blu-ray release of Layzner via Amazon for $69.95.
Disclosure: I purchased this Blu-ray set with my own money.
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