One of the best anime that Gainax ever made has to be the seminal Gunbuster, and this Blu-ray release certainly does it justice.
Released in 1988, Gunbuster was an OVA unlike any other at the time. Initially, it seemed to be a mecha parody of Ace o Nerae, a high-school girl’s tennis manga later anime. With the title of Top o Nerae and featuring high-school girls doing calisthenics in mecha, you would think Gunbuster was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
In reality, Gunbuster was and is a very hard science-fiction story dealing with immense “space monsters” that view humanity as a galactic infection.
So what starts out as this high-school melodrama done for laughs grows into something darker and more profound as the story progresses.
Dealing with the effects of time-dilation on the characters, where the high-school protagonist Noriko Takaya stays young while her friends and classmates age around her, also has similarities to Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War.
The space monsters are also entirely terrifying, gestating inside young suns to hideously emerge as massive space insects.
So, as the conflict ramps up and humanity realizes just how badly outgunned it truly is, in steps the titular Gunbuster.
Against the hard science and massive engineering keeping humanity in the fight is the anomalous super-robot Gunbuster, built from “hard work and guts” and thus nearly invincible.
When the tide finally turns in humanity’s favor, with Gunbuster rising cross-armed from the bow of the starship Exelion, you know that this mecha means business.
However, that’s barely anything compared to the feats seen in the last two episodes, and it shows how a simple high-school girl slice-of-life drama can evolve into something truly epic.
Set across six episodes, Gunbuster is also a tour-de-force of animation. The movie Gundam: Char’s Counterattack was also released in 1988, and Gunbuster looks amazing by comparison.
Even Gundam 0080, an OVA released in 1989 and also featuring character designs by Haruhiko Mikimoto, doesn’t hold a candle to the animation in Gunbuster.
You also have Kohei Tanaka’s amazing musical score that underpins the evocative isolation Noriko feels as she speeds through time and space, as well as the epic no-holds-barred combat that is required to keep humanity safe.
The production itself for Gunbuster was also a who’s-who of major anime talent, from Masami Obari handling key animation to Kazutaka Miyatake designing the battleships and obviously Koichi Ohata’s amazing mecha design.
Not to mention the stamp of Hideaki Anno throughout the story and heavily nerdy science in the back end. The silly science lessons between each episode are also this wonderful juxtaposition of wild antics and incredibly dense science that explains how the physics of things like warp work.
As for this release, it’s been a very long time since I saw Gunbuster, and this Blu-ray version is genuinely astonishing. I remember Gunbuster being a pretty anime when I was younger, but this Blu-ray really emphasizes that.
The visual and audio quality are fantastic. You also have all the science lessons at the end of episodes included. You also get some fun little extras too, all included on one Blu-ray disc.
What really stands out, though, compared to all of Gainax’s works, is just how accomplished and balanced it all is. Everything delivers. From the nerdy references, from Cutey Honey to Ideon, and having the starship Eltreum being built in orbit on giant model kit sprues, means the nerdiness is there throughout.
However, none of that gets in the way of a poignant and immense story that stays with you in a remarkably profound way.
Yes, Evangelion is popular, and yes, The Wings of Honneamise is an undeniable work of art, but Gunbuster is the best anime Gainax ever made. From its humble, almost trite beginnings to fighting for humanity’s survival on a galactic scale, Gunbuster delivers on all of it and never disappoints for even a single frame.
If you’ve never seen Gunbuster, then get this Blu-ray and correct that cultural oversight. They really don’t make anime like this anymore, and while that is an obvious shame, we still have Gunbuster in all its glory to make up for that.
Gunbuster is available from the Crunchyroll store for $29.96.
Disclosure: Crunchyroll sent me this Blu-ray for the purposes of this review.
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