A video essay about Gasaraki (1998), the Evangelion inspired mecha series by Ryosuke Takahashi (Votoms). Thanks to @ZuComics for the artwork, Zu's art can be found at / zucomics
i love the work of Ryosuke. I remember watching gasaraki when i was young. the plot really went past my head, and even when older the plot is hard to get through. but what i love most is his preference for more gritty realistic military mecha, and he usually has them be some of the smallest mechs in anime. i love small military mecha. its something i cant get enough of. so much so that ive had to draw my own ideas and dabble in some animation just to see more of it, because barely anyone in anime is making what i love. the most recent anime that comes close to my tastes is "obsolete" on the "emotionlabelchannel" here on youtube. it has that sort of ryosuke vibes to it. i can only hope this very niche mecha genre gets more attention. lord knows there is too many gundam and gundam wanabes already (i like gundam to an extent, i liked 8th ms team and other such gundam series, i loath the super robot aspects of pretty much the rest of the franchise). thanks for your review, earned my subscription.
Yeah, Takahashi is really special. I do think its a shame that aside from Votoms his stuff is kind of overlooked. Thanks for such an insightful comment! :)
@@pyramidinu9449 what I think is possibly the issue of why ryosuke isnt that popular, is that he is makeing western mecha for a Japanese audience. (I use the term "western" not because the west invented that type of robot, but it is alot closer to what the west sees as war, vs what japan idolizes as war, japan idolizes the sword, America idolizes the gun) I think if ryosuke had made his anime with an American audience in mind, and then sold it to the west, there would've been a better reception of his work. Drop some of the blatant hamfisted spiritual stuff. The spirituality can be there but as a background element (like his work on flag). Instead he made his mecha and sold it to the Japanese. The majority of the japan prefer flashy super hero like mecha stories where its thinly veiled samurai drama. They are probably more receptive to the overt spiritual stuff, but the mecha isnt right for the intended audience. This is just my personal observation about it. It seemed his work is more influential in america then many realize. His dougram series probably had the biggest influence on Battletech (the biggest western mecha franchise). When I was Watching dougram it was fun to see mechs that would be adopted in early battletech, and the combat in the series isnt so different then what is canonical in battletech. In comparison the macross designs adopted in battletech only influenced visuals, but not the spirit of the battletech franchise. The glassed head cockpit design of dougram mechs can be seen as the foundation of almost every original mech in battletech. I think if votoms and dougram had been ported over. Dubbed and sold in America early enough, it wouldve made ryosuke much more famous. But again, this is just speculation and theory .
@@jaromswenson7541 I think that's pretty spot-on, yeah. It's a pity Dougram's animation is just janky enough for it to be a hard-sell for most people. Quite often when I hear Gundam fans describing their ideal version of the show I'm like 'oh yeah that's dougram' lol
The small mecha go along with the realism. As much as I like Gundam, a 60-foot-tall walking robot will never be a practical, realistic war machine. And I've always found it amusing that one of the most grounded Gundam series is also the one where two star-crossed lovers fight a reddit atheist and his superweapon.
@@pyramidinu9449 man, dougram is a small treasure, but you are right, the older animation isnt doing it favors. i can respect it but that's because i grew up with old jank animation. but heck, give the thing a good dub, and change some of the music (the battle music is often kinda meh), and i think this could have a small resurgence, but then again, that's just probably wishful thinking. what does have a good dougram feel is the patlabor series. but instead of being about a war, its cop procedural with slice of life. ive often wondered what patlabor would be like with a dedicated military series, just fleshing out other characters in the setting, and showing off what war is like with all the military labors being made in the series.
Takahashi is the unsung hero of real-robot mecha. While Tomino might have invented it, Takahashi perfected it with his military-political epic Dougram. And the he further evolved the sub-genre with the energetic action/adventure series VOTOMS, where we see the first use of small, tactical mechs in anime and a shift from young teens as an audience to older teens and adults.
As a kid I used to love watching Gasaraki despite at the time thinking it was pretty bad, just for the art style, atmosphere and designs. As an adult and creator nowadays I realise how lucky we were to be privy to what would now be considered wildly experimental storytelling during these eras
Gosh it’s so nice to see someone acknowledge Gasaraki’s existence. That was one of the underrated gems of my childhood. It rides this strange line between hyper realism while being otherworldly. It’s one of those shows that I was totally fine with not fully getting, but it felt very distinct and unlike anything I’ve watched in a long time. So happy to still have all my DVDs.
I have to agree with the take on Gundam Hathaway, it really made the Mobile Suits feel like a natural disaster, like a Kaiju as you said. Cool video btw, subscriped.
I’ve given Gasaraki multiple watches trying to wrap my head around the plot and I tried. I really tried to enjoy the story but I just can’t bring myself to. I genuinely enjoyed the Middle Eastern war arc in the beginning and the rouge TA’s arc that had gone berserk because of a test gone wrong and even the black ops battle between the American Fakes and the JGSDF TA’s as a last ditch effort to fix the market. Overall, I enjoyed the moments where the mechs fought but everything else its like you said it couldn’t decide on what it wanted to be.
I remember one of the things about Gasaraki that really stuck out to me was the unique interface system the pilots had with their mechs, as well as the detrimental effects that come with it potentially. It's a theme I've seen since then from time to time, even in something like Pacific Rim, but Gasaraki did it in a really unique way that I think sort of pioneered some concepts in a way.
I watched this in my college years before I was really able to critically analyze anime, so you going back and talking about it like this is a huge joy. Thank you for this, it did crystallize how weird the series was and how the right wing narrative hit weird even then.
Fantasy Mecha anime is super underrated, and few shows are around that do it. Because its hard. You usually use sci-fi to set a world where giant robots are a thing. Having spirits and magic and stuff, don't really fit. But those anime that pull it off, like Gasaraki, are usually underrated and not many people see it or remember them. (Well, except Evangelion, but people tend to forget that the series is filled with supernatural elements and only remember the cool looking giant Mecha) Take "Neo Ranga", another amazing series about this giant robot that is driven by bonding of spirits. And we also have "Sakura Taisen" but they are more known for being a video game than the Anime series. But of course the absolute king of Fantasy Mecha will always be the original "Tenchu no Escaflowne". The quality of animation alone of that series makes it still worth watching today.
Dunbine is also really good for the "mix fantasy elements with real robot feel". Even Knights & Magic is really good (the manga more than the anime) as it really takes it time to show you how both the mechas work in "real time" as well as flesh out the fantasy aspect of the world. But yeah, mixing the two is tough because you have to allot enough time to both without one overshadowing the other because of how different the two genres are. It really takes some dynamic characters to pull off well.
I've always enjoyed Gasaraki, if only for how prophetic it was (Iraq war, migrant crises). I've sometimes called it the most right wing anime I've seen, though I think you do the show a disservice by not mentioning Nishida's commitment to disarmament. I actually found it rather odd the way he commits to a 4 year military govt, then let the people decide, only to seemingly change his mind, hoping the sincerity of his suicide will be enough to push Japan on. He's easily the most interesting character in the show, a Mishima style figure who has onboarded more democratic and pacifistic sensibilities. Everyone else is just a pretty blatant archetype, with very little depth to them. I still recommend the show to people because there's nothing else like it, it's really ambitious and I kind of appreciate that.
I somehow totally missed that Nishida wanted to carry out a disarmament. My appreciation has really only grown for Gasaraki, basically for all the reasons you listed.
Bro, that whole US led invasion of a Middle Eastern nation with a not so subtle stand in for Saddam over the pretense’s of nuclear weapons was incredibly prophetic. Like who would’ve thought?!!
Nishida was sorta like a "Tolkien" nationalist. Unlike the stereotypical Japanese nationalist, he wasn't an imperialist but hated modernity and, if I recall, he wanted to re-instate sakoku. You can be a nationalist and also for democracy and against militarism.
@@Utsubu It would be incorrect to say Nishida was "not a militarist", at least in the broad sense. Like Yukio Mishima, he views the samurai as the ultimate symbol of Japanese virtue, Japanese ethics. Even if Nishida is unabashedly "anti-war", he still views military virtues as the greatest values to aspire to. These contradictions likely reflect some ambivalence on the part of the author, Ryosuke Takahashi, who had helmed a number of anti war anime before this. Being "pro-military" and "anti-war" isn't necessarily a contradiction, either. In the mid 30s in Japan, the radical Kodoha faction, were generally more in favor of reconciliation with China then the moderate Toseiha faction that won power in the Japanese Military, though whether such a reconciliation with China was realistic by 1936 is another matter. I refer to such minutiae because what Nishida is advocating, and his general world view, fits the Kodoha to a tee, and I find it inconceivable the show runners were taking zero inspiration from real history on this.
I realized something: Having Nishida turn out to be a pacifist / in favor of disarmament would be a massive subversion of expectations (in Japan). In Japan, the right / left dichotomy is so heavily dominated by a militarist / pacifist dichotomy that it made his character very "redeeming", I think?
Very nice. I really feel the sentiment at the end: exploring everything a director has made really makes you see things through their eyes; for me, digging through the back catalog of Tomino really helped me understand more of why I liked what I did of his stuff. VOTOMS next pls.
Thanks so much for the kind comment! I am actually working on a video right now that engages with Tomino a little bit. Votoms is definitely on the list, and I'd like to do Dougram too, though both are a little intimidating, partially because of how good they are.
I just want to say thank you and I appreciate this video. Gasaraki was one a friend of mine enjoyed back in the 00's, but whenever I would try to watch it I just couldn't do it. This is a nice was to get a grip on it.
Thank you for this video essay! I watched Gasaraki in my teenage years before Evangelion, and I just remembered being confused by the ending. Your video essay gave me a great deal of clarity and closure.
Great job on this review! I tried multiple times to get through this show but always fell asleep... now I know why. love the looks of this series but story wise I don't see me ever finishing it.
Talk about a blast from the past, I haven't watched this series in quite some time. All in all I have to agree with every single criticism voiced in this video, however that doesn't change the fact that I really like this dry and slow mecha anime series. I have to give it credit, I have watched many anime series since then but very few have stuck in my mind the way Gasaraki has. I even remember how prevalent the trailer was on all of ADV's previews back in the day. I really enjoyed the music in this series as well. It was nice seeing this get covered as I doubt most anime fans today are even aware of its existence.
finally got around to watching your first video and man what a hell of a first episode. Not even mentioning the show. i think "yeah but dose it beat the wheat arch from gasaraki" might have to be something i drop when talking about bad arcs in anime
OMG YOU HAVE NO CLUE HOW LONG IVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THAT SCENE! THANK YOU! I kept remembering this scene where a mecha blows up a bunch of US AFV/IFVs and could never find it, I was starting to think I had gone nuts! lol
Im here nearly 11 months after this assay was posted but, regardless, thanks! I got this show on DVD when it was coming out back in the UK... I completed it because yeah by the time things get extremely dry... I was already quite invested. The best part of the show was that whole idea of 'How would you do a mecha in the current military period' and you end up with this machine that is pretty extreme in terms of its pros and cons but also you can imagine fitting rather than being totally out there. I was too young at the time to connect all the dots, but Oh my god the grain prices arc... i understood that and was like "What? Seriously?" given that yeah its like 6-7 episodes which is 2 DVDs worth. THATS a risky move, for a TV show, and for DVD sales. The ending as you said, really seemed to come out of nowhere. Both in execution and in general... all of it. At least for Evangelion they had been teasing this 'human instrumentality project' for the best part of the whole show. At the time, i think i only caught and processed less than half of what was going on by that point largely because of how dry it is. I assumed that the idea behind the oni was that they were actually gods trapped in these structures, which were used for war, so i wasn't far off, but yeah... [Feel free to stop reading here... this goes off on a bit of a tangent] I know sort of where it comes from, this idea that Japan is loosing its soul because of foreign invaders or influence, but like any right or far right narrative its never quite based in reality. Yes its largely based around events of various wars which saw Japan diminished at the time, BUT, Iv been to Japan, 5 times through work. It is the least cosmopolitan place iv visited. The nationalist attitude there or lets call it, ultra protectionism, seems a little bit excessive and again, not really grounded in reality. Like this idea that anyone who is an immigrant is somehow a cockroach or a rat and a detriment to everything is just... ugh... pretty gross, Japans protectionism even in its markets is totally over the top. It strikes me similar to the odd feeling some people in the UK have where they knew we had an empire and were a super power, but now we feel like are just some forgotten vulnerable island. Yes out there China is likely a huge fear, but still, its kinda like how they think or would rather imagine they have no allies in a world than wants to pillage them. When i visited a lot, it was the 2000s, picking up cheap, high quality electronics was a common thing to do during visits... I thought "Lets try and get this Samsung Camera iv been checking out for agers back home" Can I find a single Samsung product in Japans stores? Nope... not a chance. haha The other issue is the reverse, It has a lot of domestic competition for electronics but really not many brands that market abroad.
I forgot all about Gasaraki, I remember it being so weird but the mechs being cool. I totally don't remember any of that ultra nationalist stuff from this show, maybe I didn't finish it, it was a long time ago. As a Canadian I kind of laugh at that sentiment that immigrants make a country weaker when the exact opposite has been show to be the case with my own countries multi-cultural approach to society. We still have plenty of issues sure but all that 'other people are parasites' is complete bullshit. To me one of the greatest challenges for the Japanese, and most other isolationist cultures, is dealing with that toxic outlook on humanity.
Note that within the universe of the show, there were many gangs in the Asian varicose veins that were, in fact, dangerous and violent (in fact they were outright seeking to take advantage of the impending economic collapse), but also of course there were kind immigrants like the ones who sheltered Yushiro. It portrayed shades of grey just like real life. I don't care if countries like the USA, Canada, w/e adopt multiculturalist policies as principle, but I do think countries like Japan, countries in Europe, etc. shouldn't have such extreme multiculturalism & immigration that they allow their native ethnicities to become minorities in their own homelands (which may or may not happen incidentally, but if you look at places like the UK it sure seems they wouldn't do anything to prevent it). This isn't really inherently related to allegations that certain minorities commit more crimes real or imagined, but that's also true sometimes.
I watched it age 14 and the ultra nationalist stuff was so strong that's basically all I remember except the scene where it beats the tank and vaguely that they are based on demons or something.
New viewer here. First Thank-you. Gazaraki is one of my favorite mecha anime. It had what I would call missed potential. Had it been broken into maybe two different series it seems to me like it might have worked one a grounded political drama the other a historical based mystical drama. But the mix just didn’t work well. It was chafing against itself. Still I loved both it’s sub brands of mecha design from the hard conventional aircraft armored vehicles to the grounded mecha that drew me, to the oni inspired kugai. Very unique. The thing I find funny though is the grain price chapter in retrospect of the last year seemed spot on. The panic over a reduction in access to food in light of real political activity has been a big deal, and has likely driven real political issues in parts of the world to the front.
I believe the Rei/Shinji dynamic has reversed in Gasaraki. Yushiro is the instrument by which our baddies does the world-end (instrumentality). Miharu discovers her own agency and is the driver that upsets our baddies and the other baddie's plans. However, I think seeing Gasaraki as an evangelion ripoff does it disservice somewhat. Gasaraki's background is an attempt at a version of Japan that had a moderrn shinsengumi resurrection in the form of the samurai politician, a modern what if we went back to the days during the meiji type of militant conservatism. In this way Gasaraki preceded some contemporary Japanese media's attention to that period. By trying to add various visual and dramatic elements, some other elements are lost, Gasaraki is not cohesive as a whole due to the change in immersive qualities of the story. Audience can get behind a realistic portrayal of bipedal mechs in modern warfare but that whole visage is dropped for reincarnation, mysticism, noh, aliens, without much backlink or reason makes the experience forgettable. The setting and the premise are great but when things fall apart the center cannot hold.
I definitely don't view it as a rip off, it's very much it's own thing (and I feel mecha is always extremely self-referential in a way I enjoy). But yea I think your take on it is a good one.
so for me, the success of eva was that they went full in on doing a pure and raw expression the emotional and psychological arc of the main characters, often to the detriment of the world building. I can see why this show got so unwieldy, with the show runner wanted to do basically military/political bureaucracy porn, but also having the requirement of including emotional and occult elements.
@15:55 You'd be surprised how often nationalism and leftism are intertwined. Much of the nationalist movements of the early 20th century came from a desire to be free from the control of an oppressive empire. Both leftism and rightism are often intertwined in the ideas of "Why should those people control our people?" If I told you that "the people and country are trying to regain what say, the British and French took from them." this could describe any myriad of African excolonial nations or literal nazi germany. This is not an endorsement of right wing ideology in any way. This is a statement about how tragic these movements often end up. Pointing to the holocaust or the Rwandan genocide as examples.
@@lucascoval828Nah. Nationalism is inherently a harmful, exclusionary ideology that narrowly defines who “true” members of a nation are. That’s its whole thing. A healthy dose of patriotism can be a good thing though. That’s more about a devotion to the betterment of one’s country and a pursuit of its ideals, but it doesn’t inherently deny cooperative and diversity.
I remember being very frustrated with this show when one episode would end with an extradimensional portal opening up and 'something' dropping out in front of the main cast. Following that, the cast would discuss politics and it would be episodes before anyone mentioned how weird it was. Just frustrating.
The show definitely asked more questions than it gave answers. Like what the hell happened to the Kugai, and who and what were the bodies in the storehouse.
Follow up: I'd love to see you talk about Votoms sometime, I'm actually about to recommend your videos on the Federation the ideology of Newtypes to several of my other friends who are various levels in the gundam hole.
I think the reason, in my humble opinion, on why most of Takahashi's work seems fairly left leaning, with ideas of rebellion, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and "breaking the cycle of war", while this show starts getting into japanese nationalism and isolationism, is because the later has ideas of the former. Just like other fascist movements adopted left-wing idealogy (see german National Socialism) or arose from politically left movements (see North Korea and China), Japanese Nationalism always had an outward tinge of anti-imperialism, even if only skin-deep. 20th century Imperial Japan framed its brutal conquest, occupation and outright genocidal warcrimes across Asia under the effort to "de-colonize Asia from western influences". Modern, revisionist japanese nationalists have never dropped this angle, reframing and trying to "re-educate" Westeners on this false history for decades, and many influential and important japanese people have been part of this movement, like the late composer of the Dragon Quest franchise. The defeat of Imperial Japan, and it's restructuring post-war under occupation by the US, is felt by many as the United States basically turning Japan into a vassal, an underling, a colonized state without independence from Big Brother Uncle Sam. Hell, many will argue that this goes back to when Japan was brought out of its isolationist period with "gunboat diplomacy" in the mid-19th century under Commodore Matthew Perry, since it led to radical restructuring of japan on an economic, cultural and social level, something which was excercabated with Post-War restructuring. And the thing is, even moderate and left leaning japanese people may agree with this angle. They may balk at the xenophobic language being used or sweeping Imperial Japans aggression under the rug...but even they can see that, to some extent, Japan is under a lot of control by a foreign power USA, and that this is the case for a lot of states in the 21st century. The US still has military bases in Japan and due to a clause in their constitution, the japanese government and JSDF HAS to communicate and report to the US in case of any extensive deployments of its forces (which is often made a plot point in anime or other japanese media). This sentiment is not even unique, I talked to a very left-leaning person from south america (Argentinia to be precise) about Japan and WWII, and while they also condoned all the horrendous shit that Imperial Japan had wrought, he could, on some level, empathize with the japanese sentiment of wanting to be free of its "american yoke", since many nations in South America had a similiarly troubled history with the US. Again, this is only my 2 cents on the subject. The language and imagery used by Nishida is crass and disgusting, with clear cut modern japanese nationalist ideals of isolationism, remigration and cultural regression to a "purer" time, and as such the guy is set up as a villain...but only for how far he is willing to go and how embittered he has become in his view points. Some of the root ideals and actual problems that lead to that kind of thinking can be found many places in Japan, all across the political spectrum, and abroad. And while I don't think Ryosuke Takahashi personally is that kind of terrible person, I personally don't see a huge clash between the themes in his earlier work and those in late-show Garasaki, considering the historical and cultural context.
Yeah these are good points. This reminds me of Harutoshi Fukui who, while portraying Zeon as a sort of noble "will rise again" underdog, also includes Middle Eastern rebels who he seems to have named after 1920s Black American intellectuals. Mix of postcolonial struggle and imperialist apologism that I guess only really makes sense in this context.
6:36 Operation Desert Storm... This was before going into Iraq. This is what the CNN footage reminds me of. And probably what the source material was for the shot.
God I know you would disagree but I wish more series focused in on worldbuilding rather than characters, and especially romance. That would make things 100% more watchable for me.
the answer is far more simple than you think the death of empires the ancient, shogun Japan, imperial Japan, modern Japan the American Empire all have that in common. all are empires in the series and define the vision of their time.
Say what you will about this show, the mech designs are considerably better than most of the other mech works at the time, especially comparing it to takahashi's dougram and votoms. I get that the production time periods are far apart, regardless Gasaraki designs are top tier.
A part of the reason is the mech designs feel real, but still really cool. You could see a military realistically piloting them but at the same time there's some real personality to the mech designs.
This show is a beautiful, hot mess. It's basically 3 distinct shows that don't really fit together well, but I will always love it. Although their experiment failed, I still applaud them for taking such a huge risk with it
I strongly disagree with notions about Gasaraki being a response to Evangelion, all the more so as I made my way through Takahashi's back catalog. Gasaraki is very clearly inspired not by Evangelion but rather Takahashi's past works, most notably Dougram and Votoms. One can struggle in comparing the character focus of Gasaraki where it is largely an afterthought to Evangelion, where it is so much in the forefront. Which totally makes sense to me because that's exactly what Takahashi did in Dougram, which was a total counter to the style that was handled in the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Dougram's focus was far more on the politics and the logistics than the character drama that we got in Gundam, and that's the case here in Gasaraki as well. That's why we have very lengthy focuses on the technicalities of the TAs or massive 10 minute monologues from Nishida about the mentality of the Japanese people. This goes to its biggest extreme with the grain export plotline whose level of focus is just so totally over the top absurd to one watching this in a vacuum, but is more in line with Takahashi's works once one has seen Dougram (although I'd say Gasaraki takes it more to an extreme). Any comparisons of Yushiro and Miharu to Shinji and Rei is also total nonsense to me as the two are clearly expies for Chirico and Fyana from Votoms. Yushiro is very stoic just like Chirico was. He doesn't whine and complain like Shinji, he just goes and takes action without saying much. Mysterious woman who works for the enemy and may or may not really be human... that's totally what Fyana was and that's totally what Miharu is here. Really the only time for me that Gasaraki feels like Evangelion is in that bonkers final episode. Although as you pointed out in the video, Ideon was probably a big part of the inspiration for that rather than Evangelion.
It's less so that I think it's a direct response to Eva, and more Takahashi working in that post-Evangelion mold (organic mecha; emphasis on occult secret societies and plans). Miharu is a good example of this because from a visual and marketing level it's very "oh neat, a Rei character", but she does end up fitting very exactly into Takahashi's character styles. Ultimately it's a show defined by Takahashi's fixations.
This was one of the first series I started to collect when it was being released back in English back in 2002. The grain price and such was really interesting to see because at that time there was a lot of political talk about the international grain market in Australia due to acts of corruption coming to light and going through the new media and Australian legal system. Which I am sure watching it again without that going on it probably would seem like a strange subject. As for the right wing ideas not getting a left leaning counter. I like it in a narrative sense. Because we have a group that have already committed to an action and before making their appearances they would have weighed up the ideas. So it stops a cold dry and some what slow show being slowed down further with back and forward arguments between straw men and propagandists.
Please add an epilepsy warning for the later content in the video. The flashing red and blue lights came without any warning and can trigger epileptic seizures.
I wanted to like Gasaraki. I tried hard to like it. But it was just so boring. Omg it was watching paint dry boring. The pace was glacial. I just gave up a few episodes in. I think it could be saved by editing out half of it.
So uh... if I were China watching Japan, a country we don't have the best history with and would benefit without, cut off all its connections in the world, bankrupt itself, and fall to a fascist coup to a bunch of weirdos... I think I'd start painting our ships black, if you know what I mean.
just so specify, I def don't think that Gasaraki is an Eva clone, just that it has some post-eva fixations (organic mecha, occult societies, mysterious rei-type girl, etc. though it ends up going in very different directions). About to watch RahXephon with a friend of mine, looking forward to it!
@@pyramidinu9449 To be honest I sort of miss Real Robo and Post-Evangelion era. Though creator of RahXephon claim that show was inspired by Raiden. I personally do feel some parallels to Eva, but made in way what in my opinion actually work. Eva itself is hit and miss. While I absolutely adore designs and epic scale of the show. I'm from the camp, who think that its characters are pretentious and actually do not make sense. RahXephon do not have this problem.
@@TheRezro Yeah, that post-Eva period of robot shows has its own very evocative vibe. The greater emphasis on horror elements, the more organic designs, the maximising of bishojo elements. It's also closer to when I was getting into mecha, so I probably have some nostalgia for it.
Love the video, and it's very clear you've done your homework. Just one thing with your delivery, you tend to start your sentences at a good volume, but taper off to almost a mumble at the end making it hard to hear what you are saying. Try and keep the same volume/pitch as you deliver a sentence, obviously there will be peaks and different emphasis. Not being negative, just a tip? Who am I to give you a tip? Nobody. Haha
Gasaraki could have been killer if it focused on the mysticism more... And if it didn't go for that mind-bogglingly moronic ending. Unfortunate how it ended up.
@@chaosgrunt9554 two subpar interpretations of armored Core in a row killed the franchise. I bought that game expecting an armored Core game and I got something completely different. I took it back immediately. It almost felt like one of those top down shooters. It's funny though because The Witch of Mercury mobile suit design was by the same guy that designed the machines for armored Core. IDK if you tried to recreate mobile suits in armored Core but I did.
The "Feudal Japanese Warlords piloting oversized oni-themed samurai armors through Shinto ceremony" premise of Gasaraki is really interesting, but my God the execution is just boring. I actually fell asleep halfway through watching the show, and the ending just left me with "What that's it? Did anything actually happen?" feeling. There is a significant difference between "thematically rich show that needs multiple rewatch to truly appreciate" and "perfect cure for insomnia disguised as a boring show".
I'm pretty sure that yes, the plight of the Gasaraki (the aliens who are trapped by their technology) was supposed to theme with Nishida fighting against becoming that way. You showed the clip yourself - Phantom said that Nishida's goals were admirable at the Noh theater and Phantom is basically one of them. He probably sympathized since he fully understood losing yourself to technology. I thought that was kinda obvious. Phantom was even "F" -the Symbol CEO. He secretly ran Symbol for the purpose of contacting Gasaraki. Furthermore, your argument that it's "weird" that Takahashi seemed left-wing because of his past shows having anti-imperialist themes remains on having a really simplistic idea of politics. Note that Nishida wasn't pro-imperialism much like the stereotype of Japanese nationalists, but was more of a Tolkien-esque isolationist nationalist. There's no real contradiction here. I think it's fallacious to put people broadly in boxes like "left" and "right" - especially in non-western countries where people don't subconsciously conform to political boxes the same way. Takahashi just has views and wants to reference things and that's fine. I found the gray morality refreshing and nationalist politics expressed in a nuanced way as opposed to being cartoonishly demonized is underrepresented in fiction. I'm glad Nishida wasn't some cutout villain. Also, the flashback episodes take place in the Heian period.
This guy just wanted to shit on the right wing. Its not like we can't find any examples of nationalism and xenophobia in socialist countries. Anything this guy disagrees with is right wing.
I was too little to understand this show. It felt to me like a lesser Patlabor. I should have given it a fair shot, but I cared about the mechs more than world building.
Not to be a pedant, but it bares clarification: Battle of Algiers and Jean-Pierre Melville are great, but they aren't New Wave. There. That's been my pedantry for the day.
I got a rather nice pirated digipak box set of this on dvd in like 2002 from ebay not knowing it was pirated (cause back in the day the pirates made far far better more official looking copies of anime dvds it turned out ). I initially really liked it and the way it kind of made a niche for mechas that was believable. However at an age where I was barely aware of politics as a teenager and even I thought this was worryingly right wing to the point it genuinely spoiled the entire thing. I think I'd also watched Patlabor 2 not to far before. And that's a film where the good guys stop a right wing isolationist military/paramilitary coup not join it.
I hated the ending. I liked how the mecha were treated more like machines and military equipment. Gasaraki was very good until it went all evangelion in the ending.
15:40 It is not really right-wing. It was anti-globalization and it used to be a leftist political position. Noam Chomsky softened his stance on it in the past decade, but a July 1996 Interview from Humanscape had him describe globalization as being tyrannical and totalitarian. Anti-globalization was the primary political stance presented in the 1999 Seattle WTO protests where leftists protested neoliberalism. They didn't resent the immigrants themselves, but saw it as a way for corporations to pay native citizens less. From what I understood, he was calling the non-Japanese corporations parasites.
After he says flies and parasites, it cuts to the illuminated 'veins' in Tokyo, which the show has established are where Chinese immigrants live, so I don't really agree that this line is intended to represent foreign corporations. I certainly agree that there are leftist critiques of globalism, but the show pretty firmly articulates a right-wing critique through Nishida, and doesn't really present the left-wing alternative.
Gasaraki probably failed because it tried to incorporate a kind of Japanese style mysticism into the story's plot, much of which, during the time of Gasaraki's release , was not really well understood, let alone appreciated by the majority of Anime fans then, or I suspect, even now. This is why when the tactical CCG Gasaraki game was eventually created and released, very little of this Japanese mysticism was incorporated into the gameplay. The game focused more on the military/tactical aspect of the series using a novel, though a bit awkward card frame system to facilitate the operations of the two and a half meter tall combat mechs, their being closer to VOTOMS size than even PATLABOR mechas. If the series had put more effort into developing a CLEARLY UNDERSTANDABLE connection between NOH mysticism and the operation of the mechs in GASARAKI, I believe that the series would have been better appreciated. In a sense, GASARAKI was the anti-thesis to most other mech centered Japanese anime like Evangelion where over emphasis on the ideas of Emotional Trauma was core to the plot. In GASARAKI, Calm Stoicism (almost inhuman stoicism at times) is central. If GASARAKI's creators were hoping to encourage viewers to acquire an interest into Japanese NOH mysticism, they were sadly to be disappointed with their "elitist" approach. Having said all this, i did find the anime series interesting, and my friends and I even got into the card game until we all hit our university years.
Must really suck to be so close-minded and sucked up in ideological paranoia that you can't watch some of the greatest stuff because it could cover anything that doesn't fit your political agenda and triggers you therefore.
I'm glad people like Nishida haven't had any success in Japanese politics since this anime was made! I appreciate the realistic Takahashi approach but yeah these politics are disgusting. We can see similar sorts of right wing screeds in the late chapters of Otagaki's Front Mission: Dog Life and Dog Style manga. I guess it's just a common theme in this line of mecha fiction...
It’s funny that you want to put European right wing left wing titles on Japanese ideals. So did the introduction of 70-80’s American values really help japan? And if you think a wheat arc is odd go watch spice and Wolfe. Pretty profetic considering the issues the Ukrainian conflict is going to bring about. A literale wheat crisis.
Spice and Wolf is literally about economics so unless Gasaraki positioned itself as an economic themed anime the comparison isn't too hot. And being prophetic is nice and all but doesn't really mean squat if the execution fails to land and what you watch fails to engage the viewer.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and it occupies the same niche as a duck you're still gonna call it a duck even if the Japanese word is "Ahiru". Same goes with political elements. Unsurprisingly there are countless ways you can oppose foreign exploitation and explore national identity, and there are obviously niche details that change between locations and cultures, but there was no mistaken identity here in what ideologies were on display. After all, Germany and Italy both openly practiced and promoted fascism despite the many practical differences for how it looked. And both nations had reasonable anger and fear of exploitation thanks to their relationships with other countries in the 20's and 30's. But a duck's a duck, and even though a duck can feed you it is loud, dirty, and prone to destroy your house if you're not careful.
i love the work of Ryosuke. I remember watching gasaraki when i was young. the plot really went past my head, and even when older the plot is hard to get through. but what i love most is his preference for more gritty realistic military mecha, and he usually has them be some of the smallest mechs in anime.
i love small military mecha. its something i cant get enough of. so much so that ive had to draw my own ideas and dabble in some animation just to see more of it, because barely anyone in anime is making what i love.
the most recent anime that comes close to my tastes is "obsolete" on the "emotionlabelchannel" here on youtube. it has that sort of ryosuke vibes to it. i can only hope this very niche mecha genre gets more attention. lord knows there is too many gundam and gundam wanabes already (i like gundam to an extent, i liked 8th ms team and other such gundam series, i loath the super robot aspects of pretty much the rest of the franchise).
thanks for your review, earned my subscription.
Yeah, Takahashi is really special. I do think its a shame that aside from Votoms his stuff is kind of overlooked.
Thanks for such an insightful comment! :)
@@pyramidinu9449 what I think is possibly the issue of why ryosuke isnt that popular, is that he is makeing western mecha for a Japanese audience.
(I use the term "western" not because the west invented that type of robot, but it is alot closer to what the west sees as war, vs what japan idolizes as war, japan idolizes the sword, America idolizes the gun)
I think if ryosuke had made his anime with an American audience in mind, and then sold it to the west, there would've been a better reception of his work. Drop some of the blatant hamfisted spiritual stuff. The spirituality can be there but as a background element (like his work on flag).
Instead he made his mecha and sold it to the Japanese. The majority of the japan prefer flashy super hero like mecha stories where its thinly veiled samurai drama. They are probably more receptive to the overt spiritual stuff, but the mecha isnt right for the intended audience.
This is just my personal observation about it. It seemed his work is more influential in america then many realize. His dougram series probably had the biggest influence on Battletech (the biggest western mecha franchise). When I was Watching dougram it was fun to see mechs that would be adopted in early battletech, and the combat in the series isnt so different then what is canonical in battletech. In comparison the macross designs adopted in battletech only influenced visuals, but not the spirit of the battletech franchise. The glassed head cockpit design of dougram mechs can be seen as the foundation of almost every original mech in battletech.
I think if votoms and dougram had been ported over. Dubbed and sold in America early enough, it wouldve made ryosuke much more famous. But again, this is just speculation and theory .
@@jaromswenson7541 I think that's pretty spot-on, yeah. It's a pity Dougram's animation is just janky enough for it to be a hard-sell for most people. Quite often when I hear Gundam fans describing their ideal version of the show I'm like 'oh yeah that's dougram' lol
The small mecha go along with the realism. As much as I like Gundam, a 60-foot-tall walking robot will never be a practical, realistic war machine.
And I've always found it amusing that one of the most grounded Gundam series is also the one where two star-crossed lovers fight a reddit atheist and his superweapon.
@@pyramidinu9449 man, dougram is a small treasure, but you are right, the older animation isnt doing it favors. i can respect it but that's because i grew up with old jank animation. but heck, give the thing a good dub, and change some of the music (the battle music is often kinda meh), and i think this could have a small resurgence, but then again, that's just probably wishful thinking.
what does have a good dougram feel is the patlabor series. but instead of being about a war, its cop procedural with slice of life. ive often wondered what patlabor would be like with a dedicated military series, just fleshing out other characters in the setting, and showing off what war is like with all the military labors being made in the series.
Takahashi is the unsung hero of real-robot mecha. While Tomino might have invented it, Takahashi perfected it with his military-political epic Dougram. And the he further evolved the sub-genre with the energetic action/adventure series VOTOMS, where we see the first use of small, tactical mechs in anime and a shift from young teens as an audience to older teens and adults.
Preach.
Grain price manipulation doesnt sound so crazy nowadays, now does it?!?!?!
As a kid I used to love watching Gasaraki despite at the time thinking it was pretty bad, just for the art style, atmosphere and designs. As an adult and creator nowadays I realise how lucky we were to be privy to what would now be considered wildly experimental storytelling during these eras
This one had some of the best mecha design in my opinion. They feel so realistic and grounded.
Gosh it’s so nice to see someone acknowledge Gasaraki’s existence. That was one of the underrated gems of my childhood. It rides this strange line between hyper realism while being otherworldly. It’s one of those shows that I was totally fine with not fully getting, but it felt very distinct and unlike anything I’ve watched in a long time. So happy to still have all my DVDs.
Aww this is exactly the kind of comment I was hoping for when I made this video.
I really love people talking more about Takahashi's shows.
I have to agree with the take on Gundam Hathaway, it really made the Mobile Suits feel like a natural disaster, like a Kaiju as you said.
Cool video btw, subscriped.
I’ve given Gasaraki multiple watches trying to wrap my head around the plot and I tried. I really tried to enjoy the story but I just can’t bring myself to. I genuinely enjoyed the Middle Eastern war arc in the beginning and the rouge TA’s arc that had gone berserk because of a test gone wrong and even the black ops battle between the American Fakes and the JGSDF TA’s as a last ditch effort to fix the market. Overall, I enjoyed the moments where the mechs fought but everything else its like you said it couldn’t decide on what it wanted to be.
I remember one of the things about Gasaraki that really stuck out to me was the unique interface system the pilots had with their mechs, as well as the detrimental effects that come with it potentially. It's a theme I've seen since then from time to time, even in something like Pacific Rim, but Gasaraki did it in a really unique way that I think sort of pioneered some concepts in a way.
I watched this in my college years before I was really able to critically analyze anime, so you going back and talking about it like this is a huge joy. Thank you for this, it did crystallize how weird the series was and how the right wing narrative hit weird even then.
Fantasy Mecha anime is super underrated, and few shows are around that do it. Because its hard. You usually use sci-fi to set a world where giant robots are a thing. Having spirits and magic and stuff, don't really fit.
But those anime that pull it off, like Gasaraki, are usually underrated and not many people see it or remember them. (Well, except Evangelion, but people tend to forget that the series is filled with supernatural elements and only remember the cool looking giant Mecha)
Take "Neo Ranga", another amazing series about this giant robot that is driven by bonding of spirits. And we also have "Sakura Taisen" but they are more known for being a video game than the Anime series. But of course the absolute king of Fantasy Mecha will always be the original "Tenchu no Escaflowne". The quality of animation alone of that series makes it still worth watching today.
Dunbine is also really good for the "mix fantasy elements with real robot feel".
Even Knights & Magic is really good (the manga more than the anime) as it really takes it time to show you how both the mechas work in "real time" as well as flesh out the fantasy aspect of the world.
But yeah, mixing the two is tough because you have to allot enough time to both without one overshadowing the other because of how different the two genres are. It really takes some dynamic characters to pull off well.
watched the Dougram video and had to hear more of the anime whose plot was bread XD
time well spent.
I've always enjoyed Gasaraki, if only for how prophetic it was (Iraq war, migrant crises). I've sometimes called it the most right wing anime I've seen, though I think you do the show a disservice by not mentioning Nishida's commitment to disarmament. I actually found it rather odd the way he commits to a 4 year military govt, then let the people decide, only to seemingly change his mind, hoping the sincerity of his suicide will be enough to push Japan on. He's easily the most interesting character in the show, a Mishima style figure who has onboarded more democratic and pacifistic sensibilities. Everyone else is just a pretty blatant archetype, with very little depth to them. I still recommend the show to people because there's nothing else like it, it's really ambitious and I kind of appreciate that.
I somehow totally missed that Nishida wanted to carry out a disarmament. My appreciation has really only grown for Gasaraki, basically for all the reasons you listed.
Bro, that whole US led invasion of a Middle Eastern nation with a not so subtle stand in for Saddam over the pretense’s of nuclear weapons was incredibly prophetic. Like who would’ve thought?!!
Nishida was sorta like a "Tolkien" nationalist. Unlike the stereotypical Japanese nationalist, he wasn't an imperialist but hated modernity and, if I recall, he wanted to re-instate sakoku. You can be a nationalist and also for democracy and against militarism.
@@Utsubu It would be incorrect to say Nishida was "not a militarist", at least in the broad sense. Like Yukio Mishima, he views the samurai as the ultimate symbol of Japanese virtue, Japanese ethics. Even if Nishida is unabashedly "anti-war", he still views military virtues as the greatest values to aspire to. These contradictions likely reflect some ambivalence on the part of the author, Ryosuke Takahashi, who had helmed a number of anti war anime before this.
Being "pro-military" and "anti-war" isn't necessarily a contradiction, either. In the mid 30s in Japan, the radical Kodoha faction, were generally more in favor of reconciliation with China then the moderate Toseiha faction that won power in the Japanese Military, though whether such a reconciliation with China was realistic by 1936 is another matter. I refer to such minutiae because what Nishida is advocating, and his general world view, fits the Kodoha to a tee, and I find it inconceivable the show runners were taking zero inspiration from real history on this.
I realized something: Having Nishida turn out to be a pacifist / in favor of disarmament would be a massive subversion of expectations (in Japan). In Japan, the right / left dichotomy is so heavily dominated by a militarist / pacifist dichotomy that it made his character very "redeeming", I think?
Thank you, love your style of retrospectives.
Very nice. I really feel the sentiment at the end: exploring everything a director has made really makes you see things through their eyes; for me, digging through the back catalog of Tomino really helped me understand more of why I liked what I did of his stuff.
VOTOMS next pls.
Thanks so much for the kind comment! I am actually working on a video right now that engages with Tomino a little bit.
Votoms is definitely on the list, and I'd like to do Dougram too, though both are a little intimidating, partially because of how good they are.
I just want to say thank you and I appreciate this video.
Gasaraki was one a friend of mine enjoyed back in the 00's, but whenever I would try to watch it I just couldn't do it.
This is a nice was to get a grip on it.
Thank you for this video essay! I watched Gasaraki in my teenage years before Evangelion, and I just remembered being confused by the ending. Your video essay gave me a great deal of clarity and closure.
Fantastic video. Despite the thematic shift in the last half you've really made me curious to see this whole series, but I gotta watch VOTOMS first.
Great job on this review! I tried multiple times to get through this show but always fell asleep... now I know why. love the looks of this series but story wise I don't see me ever finishing it.
Thank you for your work.
Thanks for watching!
Talk about a blast from the past, I haven't watched this series in quite some time. All in all I have to agree with every single criticism voiced in this video, however that doesn't change the fact that I really like this dry and slow mecha anime series. I have to give it credit, I have watched many anime series since then but very few have stuck in my mind the way Gasaraki has. I even remember how prevalent the trailer was on all of ADV's previews back in the day. I really enjoyed the music in this series as well. It was nice seeing this get covered as I doubt most anime fans today are even aware of its existence.
I agree. Despite my criticisms in the video, I have a very warm place for Gasaraki. So ambitious and singular.
finally got around to watching your first video and man what a hell of a first episode. Not even mentioning the show. i think "yeah but dose it beat the wheat arch from gasaraki" might have to be something i drop when talking about bad arcs in anime
I really like the design of the mechas.
It's a shame you can't find this show on CZcams anymore. Good show IMHO.
I watch this anime once a year. I have always enjoyed Gasaraki.
This sounds really interesting!
I need to find Gasaraki in high quality video, that anime looks too good
I totally see why you are fascinated this kind of anime
This exploration of mesh traditional stuff, robots, and of course, wheat prices
OMG YOU HAVE NO CLUE HOW LONG IVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THAT SCENE! THANK YOU! I kept remembering this scene where a mecha blows up a bunch of US AFV/IFVs and could never find it, I was starting to think I had gone nuts! lol
Im here nearly 11 months after this assay was posted but, regardless, thanks!
I got this show on DVD when it was coming out back in the UK... I completed it because yeah by the time things get extremely dry... I was already quite invested.
The best part of the show was that whole idea of 'How would you do a mecha in the current military period' and you end up with this machine that is pretty extreme in terms of its pros and cons but also you can imagine fitting rather than being totally out there.
I was too young at the time to connect all the dots, but Oh my god the grain prices arc... i understood that and was like "What? Seriously?" given that yeah its like 6-7 episodes which is 2 DVDs worth. THATS a risky move, for a TV show, and for DVD sales.
The ending as you said, really seemed to come out of nowhere. Both in execution and in general... all of it. At least for Evangelion they had been teasing this 'human instrumentality project' for the best part of the whole show. At the time, i think i only caught and processed less than half of what was going on by that point largely because of how dry it is. I assumed that the idea behind the oni was that they were actually gods trapped in these structures, which were used for war, so i wasn't far off, but yeah...
[Feel free to stop reading here... this goes off on a bit of a tangent]
I know sort of where it comes from, this idea that Japan is loosing its soul because of foreign invaders or influence, but like any right or far right narrative its never quite based in reality. Yes its largely based around events of various wars which saw Japan diminished at the time, BUT, Iv been to Japan, 5 times through work. It is the least cosmopolitan place iv visited. The nationalist attitude there or lets call it, ultra protectionism, seems a little bit excessive and again, not really grounded in reality. Like this idea that anyone who is an immigrant is somehow a cockroach or a rat and a detriment to everything is just... ugh... pretty gross, Japans protectionism even in its markets is totally over the top. It strikes me similar to the odd feeling some people in the UK have where they knew we had an empire and were a super power, but now we feel like are just some forgotten vulnerable island. Yes out there China is likely a huge fear, but still, its kinda like how they think or would rather imagine they have no allies in a world than wants to pillage them.
When i visited a lot, it was the 2000s, picking up cheap, high quality electronics was a common thing to do during visits... I thought "Lets try and get this Samsung Camera iv been checking out for agers back home" Can I find a single Samsung product in Japans stores? Nope... not a chance. haha The other issue is the reverse, It has a lot of domestic competition for electronics but really not many brands that market abroad.
Really enjoyed reading this.
great video
Grain prices, boring....
Well, how can you make a good pizza without wheat dough?
I love the you have the battle theme of Parasite Eve playing in the background lol
The wheat is supposed to be a parallel of the rice grains shortage that ultimately contribute to the famine in North Korea.
Hey congrats on one year of videos
Thanks!
Wheat prices is where it's at!
Haven't watched Gasaraki yet, but the wheat prices stuff might be a reference to the Japanese rice riots
You can complain all you want about the grain values plot... But the pizza joke makes it so much worth it I can't see it as a flaw
I forgot all about Gasaraki, I remember it being so weird but the mechs being cool.
I totally don't remember any of that ultra nationalist stuff from this show, maybe I didn't finish it, it was a long time ago. As a Canadian I kind of laugh at that sentiment that immigrants make a country weaker when the exact opposite has been show to be the case with my own countries multi-cultural approach to society. We still have plenty of issues sure but all that 'other people are parasites' is complete bullshit. To me one of the greatest challenges for the Japanese, and most other isolationist cultures, is dealing with that toxic outlook on humanity.
ironic comment when you compare the crime rates and average standard of living between the two countries lmao
Note that within the universe of the show, there were many gangs in the Asian varicose veins that were, in fact, dangerous and violent (in fact they were outright seeking to take advantage of the impending economic collapse), but also of course there were kind immigrants like the ones who sheltered Yushiro. It portrayed shades of grey just like real life.
I don't care if countries like the USA, Canada, w/e adopt multiculturalist policies as principle, but I do think countries like Japan, countries in Europe, etc. shouldn't have such extreme multiculturalism & immigration that they allow their native ethnicities to become minorities in their own homelands (which may or may not happen incidentally, but if you look at places like the UK it sure seems they wouldn't do anything to prevent it). This isn't really inherently related to allegations that certain minorities commit more crimes real or imagined, but that's also true sometimes.
@@Utsubu some nasty racist, ill informed far right conspiracy nonsense you are spewing
I watched it age 14 and the ultra nationalist stuff was so strong that's basically all I remember except the scene where it beats the tank and vaguely that they are based on demons or something.
I mean Japan has and always be isolationist and more than a tad xenophobic. But who are we to tell them how to be?
A hard plot to like but they really went for it. Can´t say I regret watching it but this is a C+ at best. Looks real neat though.
RICE PRICES
Thanks for this video. I'll check out the anime. I watched Evangelion when it came out but did not hear of this show.
New viewer here. First Thank-you. Gazaraki is one of my favorite mecha anime. It had what I would call missed potential. Had it been broken into maybe two different series it seems to me like it might have worked one a grounded political drama the other a historical based mystical drama. But the mix just didn’t work well. It was chafing against itself.
Still I loved both it’s sub brands of mecha design from the hard conventional aircraft armored vehicles to the grounded mecha that drew me, to the oni inspired kugai. Very unique.
The thing I find funny though is the grain price chapter in retrospect of the last year seemed spot on. The panic over a reduction in access to food in light of real political activity has been a big deal, and has likely driven real political issues in parts of the world to the front.
I believe the Rei/Shinji dynamic has reversed in Gasaraki. Yushiro is the instrument by which our baddies does the world-end (instrumentality). Miharu discovers her own agency and is the driver that upsets our baddies and the other baddie's plans. However, I think seeing Gasaraki as an evangelion ripoff does it disservice somewhat. Gasaraki's background is an attempt at a version of Japan that had a moderrn shinsengumi resurrection in the form of the samurai politician, a modern what if we went back to the days during the meiji type of militant conservatism. In this way Gasaraki preceded some contemporary Japanese media's attention to that period. By trying to add various visual and dramatic elements, some other elements are lost, Gasaraki is not cohesive as a whole due to the change in immersive qualities of the story. Audience can get behind a realistic portrayal of bipedal mechs in modern warfare but that whole visage is dropped for reincarnation, mysticism, noh, aliens, without much backlink or reason makes the experience forgettable. The setting and the premise are great but when things fall apart the center cannot hold.
I definitely don't view it as a rip off, it's very much it's own thing (and I feel mecha is always extremely self-referential in a way I enjoy). But yea I think your take on it is a good one.
Really great video! pls put a list of the music used, i noticed a track from armored core near the end so i wanna know the others
so for me, the success of eva was that they went full in on doing a pure and raw expression the emotional and psychological arc of the main characters, often to the detriment of the world building. I can see why this show got so unwieldy, with the show runner wanted to do basically military/political bureaucracy porn, but also having the requirement of including emotional and occult elements.
When this came out from ADV I really wanted to get into it, but man yeah I struggled with those first episodes.
Ah I didnt know Dougram was by the same person, it explains why it felt so similar. I loved Dougram though.
I mean, the Arab Spring was also about bread prices
Absolute cruelty that CZcams put an Evagnelion ad under this
@15:55
You'd be surprised how often nationalism and leftism are intertwined. Much of the nationalist movements of the early 20th century came from a desire to be free from the control of an oppressive empire. Both leftism and rightism are often intertwined in the ideas of "Why should those people control our people?" If I told you that "the people and country are trying to regain what say, the British and French took from them." this could describe any myriad of African excolonial nations or literal nazi germany. This is not an endorsement of right wing ideology in any way. This is a statement about how tragic these movements often end up. Pointing to the holocaust or the Rwandan genocide as examples.
A little Nationalism doesn't hurt.
@@lucascoval828Nah. Nationalism is inherently a harmful, exclusionary ideology that narrowly defines who “true” members of a nation are. That’s its whole thing.
A healthy dose of patriotism can be a good thing though. That’s more about a devotion to the betterment of one’s country and a pursuit of its ideals, but it doesn’t inherently deny cooperative and diversity.
@thedapperdolphin1590
Assuming the people that come in are on the same page.
I remember being very frustrated with this show when one episode would end with an extradimensional portal opening up and 'something' dropping out in front of the main cast. Following that, the cast would discuss politics and it would be episodes before anyone mentioned how weird it was.
Just frustrating.
The show definitely asked more questions than it gave answers. Like what the hell happened to the Kugai, and who and what were the bodies in the storehouse.
Follow up: I'd love to see you talk about Votoms sometime, I'm actually about to recommend your videos on the Federation the ideology of Newtypes to several of my other friends who are various levels in the gundam hole.
Aw, thanks. I think I'd like to a Takahashi retrospective at some point, but it would take a long time.
That's absolutely fair! I'll look forward to your output as it comes.
Ahh yes just what I watch robot anime for, japanese nationalism and agricultural economics (:
Heck, I didn't watch it, but at least they didn't have Shinji-character so that's one good thing about that anime.
I think the reason, in my humble opinion, on why most of Takahashi's work seems fairly left leaning, with ideas of rebellion, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and "breaking the cycle of war", while this show starts getting into japanese nationalism and isolationism, is because the later has ideas of the former.
Just like other fascist movements adopted left-wing idealogy (see german National Socialism) or arose from politically left movements (see North Korea and China), Japanese Nationalism always had an outward tinge of anti-imperialism, even if only skin-deep. 20th century Imperial Japan framed its brutal conquest, occupation and outright genocidal warcrimes across Asia under the effort to "de-colonize Asia from western influences". Modern, revisionist japanese nationalists have never dropped this angle, reframing and trying to "re-educate" Westeners on this false history for decades, and many influential and important japanese people have been part of this movement, like the late composer of the Dragon Quest franchise. The defeat of Imperial Japan, and it's restructuring post-war under occupation by the US, is felt by many as the United States basically turning Japan into a vassal, an underling, a colonized state without independence from Big Brother Uncle Sam. Hell, many will argue that this goes back to when Japan was brought out of its isolationist period with "gunboat diplomacy" in the mid-19th century under Commodore Matthew Perry, since it led to radical restructuring of japan on an economic, cultural and social level, something which was excercabated with Post-War restructuring.
And the thing is, even moderate and left leaning japanese people may agree with this angle. They may balk at the xenophobic language being used or sweeping Imperial Japans aggression under the rug...but even they can see that, to some extent, Japan is under a lot of control by a foreign power USA, and that this is the case for a lot of states in the 21st century. The US still has military bases in Japan and due to a clause in their constitution, the japanese government and JSDF HAS to communicate and report to the US in case of any extensive deployments of its forces (which is often made a plot point in anime or other japanese media). This sentiment is not even unique, I talked to a very left-leaning person from south america (Argentinia to be precise) about Japan and WWII, and while they also condoned all the horrendous shit that Imperial Japan had wrought, he could, on some level, empathize with the japanese sentiment of wanting to be free of its "american yoke", since many nations in South America had a similiarly troubled history with the US.
Again, this is only my 2 cents on the subject. The language and imagery used by Nishida is crass and disgusting, with clear cut modern japanese nationalist ideals of isolationism, remigration and cultural regression to a "purer" time, and as such the guy is set up as a villain...but only for how far he is willing to go and how embittered he has become in his view points. Some of the root ideals and actual problems that lead to that kind of thinking can be found many places in Japan, all across the political spectrum, and abroad. And while I don't think Ryosuke Takahashi personally is that kind of terrible person, I personally don't see a huge clash between the themes in his earlier work and those in late-show Garasaki, considering the historical and cultural context.
Yeah these are good points. This reminds me of Harutoshi Fukui who, while portraying Zeon as a sort of noble "will rise again" underdog, also includes Middle Eastern rebels who he seems to have named after 1920s Black American intellectuals. Mix of postcolonial struggle and imperialist apologism that I guess only really makes sense in this context.
Probably the most biting commentary of Japan's nationalism in anime, besides some Miyazaki-directed works
As a boomer zoomer eastern European, I understand absolutely nothing, but 13:37 is funny 9
Edit: the 9 is a typo
So Question... if Japan had Oni mechs for like forever...how did they lose ww2? are mecha weak to planes? Is that it. Mecha can't beat an air force?
6:36 Operation Desert Storm... This was before going into Iraq. This is what the CNN footage reminds me of. And probably what the source material was for the shot.
The Nishida ultranationalist subplot was legit interesting
God I know you would disagree but I wish more series focused in on worldbuilding rather than characters, and especially romance.
That would make things 100% more watchable for me.
the answer is far more simple than you think the death of empires the ancient, shogun Japan, imperial Japan, modern Japan the American Empire all have that in common. all are empires in the series and define the vision of their time.
Gasaraki, for when you want a less coherent Patlabor 2.
I do kind of wish it could get a reboot that leaned into the cosmic horror/metaphysics more.
What is the name ofthe site where you found those interviews man?
Tim Eldred's website :) timeldred.com/votomshub/
Can you review blue gender and Argento Soma?
Thanks for the comment - not seen Argento Soma, but I do plan on doing something on Blue Gender. I think it's a really underrated and unique series.
@@pyramidinu9449 excited hear your opinion on blue gender
Yes! Blue Gender is another greatly under appreciated series.
Anyone know the name of the music at 22:45 ish?
Macross plus
Say what you will about this show, the mech designs are considerably better than most of the other mech works at the time, especially comparing it to takahashi's dougram and votoms. I get that the production time periods are far apart, regardless Gasaraki designs are top tier.
A part of the reason is the mech designs feel real, but still really cool. You could see a military realistically piloting them but at the same time there's some real personality to the mech designs.
This show is a beautiful, hot mess. It's basically 3 distinct shows that don't really fit together well, but I will always love it. Although their experiment failed, I still applaud them for taking such a huge risk with it
I strongly disagree with notions about Gasaraki being a response to Evangelion, all the more so as I made my way through Takahashi's back catalog. Gasaraki is very clearly inspired not by Evangelion but rather Takahashi's past works, most notably Dougram and Votoms. One can struggle in comparing the character focus of Gasaraki where it is largely an afterthought to Evangelion, where it is so much in the forefront. Which totally makes sense to me because that's exactly what Takahashi did in Dougram, which was a total counter to the style that was handled in the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Dougram's focus was far more on the politics and the logistics than the character drama that we got in Gundam, and that's the case here in Gasaraki as well. That's why we have very lengthy focuses on the technicalities of the TAs or massive 10 minute monologues from Nishida about the mentality of the Japanese people. This goes to its biggest extreme with the grain export plotline whose level of focus is just so totally over the top absurd to one watching this in a vacuum, but is more in line with Takahashi's works once one has seen Dougram (although I'd say Gasaraki takes it more to an extreme).
Any comparisons of Yushiro and Miharu to Shinji and Rei is also total nonsense to me as the two are clearly expies for Chirico and Fyana from Votoms. Yushiro is very stoic just like Chirico was. He doesn't whine and complain like Shinji, he just goes and takes action without saying much. Mysterious woman who works for the enemy and may or may not really be human... that's totally what Fyana was and that's totally what Miharu is here.
Really the only time for me that Gasaraki feels like Evangelion is in that bonkers final episode. Although as you pointed out in the video, Ideon was probably a big part of the inspiration for that rather than Evangelion.
It's less so that I think it's a direct response to Eva, and more Takahashi working in that post-Evangelion mold (organic mecha; emphasis on occult secret societies and plans). Miharu is a good example of this because from a visual and marketing level it's very "oh neat, a Rei character", but she does end up fitting very exactly into Takahashi's character styles. Ultimately it's a show defined by Takahashi's fixations.
This was one of the first series I started to collect when it was being released back in English back in 2002.
The grain price and such was really interesting to see because at that time there was a lot of political talk about the international grain market in Australia due to acts of corruption coming to light and going through the new media and Australian legal system. Which I am sure watching it again without that going on it probably would seem like a strange subject.
As for the right wing ideas not getting a left leaning counter. I like it in a narrative sense. Because we have a group that have already committed to an action and before making their appearances they would have weighed up the ideas. So it stops a cold dry and some what slow show being slowed down further with back and forward arguments between straw men and propagandists.
What's the song on 22:30?
That sounds super familiar but I can't remember whwre its from.
Its from macross plus
I miss my wife
Please add an epilepsy warning for the later content in the video. The flashing red and blue lights came without any warning and can trigger epileptic seizures.
I wanted to like Gasaraki. I tried hard to like it. But it was just so boring. Omg it was watching paint dry boring. The pace was glacial. I just gave up a few episodes in. I think it could be saved by editing out half of it.
So uh... if I were China watching Japan, a country we don't have the best history with and would benefit without, cut off all its connections in the world, bankrupt itself, and fall to a fascist coup to a bunch of weirdos... I think I'd start painting our ships black, if you know what I mean.
In my opinion only successful Evangelion clone is series RahXephon.
just so specify, I def don't think that Gasaraki is an Eva clone, just that it has some post-eva fixations (organic mecha, occult societies, mysterious rei-type girl, etc. though it ends up going in very different directions). About to watch RahXephon with a friend of mine, looking forward to it!
@@pyramidinu9449 To be honest I sort of miss Real Robo and Post-Evangelion era. Though creator of RahXephon claim that show was inspired by Raiden. I personally do feel some parallels to Eva, but made in way what in my opinion actually work.
Eva itself is hit and miss. While I absolutely adore designs and epic scale of the show. I'm from the camp, who think that its characters are pretentious and actually do not make sense. RahXephon do not have this problem.
@@TheRezro Yeah, that post-Eva period of robot shows has its own very evocative vibe. The greater emphasis on horror elements, the more organic designs, the maximising of bishojo elements. It's also closer to when I was getting into mecha, so I probably have some nostalgia for it.
Love the video, and it's very clear you've done your homework. Just one thing with your delivery, you tend to start your sentences at a good volume, but taper off to almost a mumble at the end making it hard to hear what you are saying. Try and keep the same volume/pitch as you deliver a sentence, obviously there will be peaks and different emphasis. Not being negative, just a tip? Who am I to give you a tip? Nobody. Haha
hopefully less of an issue in recent videos
Gasaraki could have been killer if it focused on the mysticism more... And if it didn't go for that mind-bogglingly moronic ending. Unfortunate how it ended up.
I RECOGNISE THAT ENDING MUSIC! HAVE I FOUND ANOTHER AC FAN?!
AC is good shit.
@@pyramidinu9449 which game was your favourite?
@@chaosgrunt9554armored core? 4 answers. 5 was trash.
@@scottsanders4589 I think V was alright but it felt... Odd, especially after getting used to 4 and FA
@@chaosgrunt9554 two subpar interpretations of armored Core in a row killed the franchise. I bought that game expecting an armored Core game and I got something completely different. I took it back immediately. It almost felt like one of those top down shooters. It's funny though because The Witch of Mercury mobile suit design was by the same guy that designed the machines for armored Core. IDK if you tried to recreate mobile suits in armored Core but I did.
The "Feudal Japanese Warlords piloting oversized oni-themed samurai armors through Shinto ceremony" premise of Gasaraki is really interesting, but my God the execution is just boring.
I actually fell asleep halfway through watching the show, and the ending just left me with "What that's it? Did anything actually happen?" feeling. There is a significant difference between "thematically rich show that needs multiple rewatch to truly appreciate" and "perfect cure for insomnia disguised as a boring show".
Maybe a remake of Gasaraki could perhaps revive the series. Kinda like Gundam The Origin.
Sunrise seem to have doubled down on the right wing isolationism if the recent Kyoukia Senki is anything to go by.
I'm pretty sure that yes, the plight of the Gasaraki (the aliens who are trapped by their technology) was supposed to theme with Nishida fighting against becoming that way. You showed the clip yourself - Phantom said that Nishida's goals were admirable at the Noh theater and Phantom is basically one of them. He probably sympathized since he fully understood losing yourself to technology. I thought that was kinda obvious. Phantom was even "F" -the Symbol CEO. He secretly ran Symbol for the purpose of contacting Gasaraki.
Furthermore, your argument that it's "weird" that Takahashi seemed left-wing because of his past shows having anti-imperialist themes remains on having a really simplistic idea of politics. Note that Nishida wasn't pro-imperialism much like the stereotype of Japanese nationalists, but was more of a Tolkien-esque isolationist nationalist. There's no real contradiction here. I think it's fallacious to put people broadly in boxes like "left" and "right" - especially in non-western countries where people don't subconsciously conform to political boxes the same way. Takahashi just has views and wants to reference things and that's fine.
I found the gray morality refreshing and nationalist politics expressed in a nuanced way as opposed to being cartoonishly demonized is underrepresented in fiction. I'm glad Nishida wasn't some cutout villain. Also, the flashback episodes take place in the Heian period.
This guy just wanted to shit on the right wing. Its not like we can't find any examples of nationalism and xenophobia in socialist countries. Anything this guy disagrees with is right wing.
I was too little to understand this show. It felt to me like a lesser Patlabor. I should have given it a fair shot, but I cared about the mechs more than world building.
Not to be a pedant, but it bares clarification: Battle of Algiers and Jean-Pierre Melville are great, but they aren't New Wave. There. That's been my pedantry for the day.
I am aware, these were intended as separate clauses. He did actually mention Chris Marker when FLAG was screened at that festival, tho.
@@pyramidinu9449 Right on. Those movies rule. Any reason to mention them is a good thing. Love the video.
@@JamesKislingbury Thanks! nice Colonel Blimp avi btw
I got a rather nice pirated digipak box set of this on dvd in like 2002 from ebay not knowing it was pirated (cause back in the day the pirates made far far better more official looking copies of anime dvds it turned out ).
I initially really liked it and the way it kind of made a niche for mechas that was believable. However at an age where I was barely aware of politics as a teenager and even I thought this was worryingly right wing to the point it genuinely spoiled the entire thing.
I think I'd also watched Patlabor 2 not to far before. And that's a film where the good guys stop a right wing isolationist military/paramilitary coup not join it.
I hated the ending. I liked how the mecha were treated more like machines and military equipment. Gasaraki was very good until it went all evangelion in the ending.
I bet that overlong bipedal mecha explanation scene is more bearable when you're not listening to a godawful English dubbing.
I find English dubbing preferable for videos where I assume ppl might occasionally switch to another tab etc.
I loved Legend of The Galactic Heroes, and I thought I'd be into this...but after watching your in depth analysis I think I can skip Gasaraki
I'd say definitely watch a few episodes and decide for yourself. There is stuff to like in there for sure, and it's a fascinating artefact.
I remember liking the atmosphere of this show, but not liking much else. Plodding, ponderous, and pointless.
15:40
It is not really right-wing. It was anti-globalization and it used to be a leftist political position. Noam Chomsky softened his stance on it in the past decade, but a July 1996 Interview from Humanscape had him describe globalization as being tyrannical and totalitarian. Anti-globalization was the primary political stance presented in the 1999 Seattle WTO protests where leftists protested neoliberalism.
They didn't resent the immigrants themselves, but saw it as a way for corporations to pay native citizens less. From what I understood, he was calling the non-Japanese corporations parasites.
After he says flies and parasites, it cuts to the illuminated 'veins' in Tokyo, which the show has established are where Chinese immigrants live, so I don't really agree that this line is intended to represent foreign corporations. I certainly agree that there are leftist critiques of globalism, but the show pretty firmly articulates a right-wing critique through Nishida, and doesn't really present the left-wing alternative.
@@pyramidinu9449
Flies and parasites exist.
You're not always getting "decent" people.
Gasaraki probably failed because it tried to incorporate a kind of Japanese style mysticism into the story's plot, much of which, during the time of Gasaraki's release , was not really well understood, let alone appreciated by the majority of Anime fans then, or I suspect, even now. This is why when the tactical CCG Gasaraki game was eventually created and released, very little of this Japanese mysticism was incorporated into the gameplay. The game focused more on the military/tactical aspect of the series using a novel, though a bit awkward card frame system to facilitate the operations of the two and a half meter tall combat mechs, their being closer to VOTOMS size than even PATLABOR mechas. If the series had put more effort into developing a CLEARLY UNDERSTANDABLE connection between NOH mysticism and the operation of the mechs in GASARAKI, I believe that the series would have been better appreciated. In a sense, GASARAKI was the anti-thesis to most other mech centered Japanese anime like Evangelion where over emphasis on the ideas of Emotional Trauma was core to the plot. In GASARAKI, Calm Stoicism (almost inhuman stoicism at times) is central. If GASARAKI's creators were hoping to encourage viewers to acquire an interest into Japanese NOH mysticism, they were sadly to be disappointed with their "elitist" approach.
Having said all this, i did find the anime series interesting, and my friends and I even got into the card game until we all hit our university years.
I have the same rigtht-wing propaganda problem with the ghost in the shell series. 😔
you might like gunslinger girl, don't be fooled by the name
Must really suck to be so close-minded and sucked up in ideological paranoia that you can't watch some of the greatest stuff because it could cover anything that doesn't fit your political agenda and triggers you therefore.
I'm glad people like Nishida haven't had any success in Japanese politics since this anime was made! I appreciate the realistic Takahashi approach but yeah these politics are disgusting. We can see similar sorts of right wing screeds in the late chapters of Otagaki's Front Mission: Dog Life and Dog Style manga. I guess it's just a common theme in this line of mecha fiction...
everything is right wing
this show was terrible....the mecha were great, the whole concept of ancient alien oni was great...but they had to ruin it .
I'll take Gasaraki over Gundam any day of the week. Mysticism and that perennial anime topic of 'Japan losing its identity'... strange mix.
It’s funny that you want to put European right wing left wing titles on Japanese ideals.
So did the introduction of 70-80’s American values really help japan?
And if you think a wheat arc is odd go watch spice and Wolfe.
Pretty profetic considering the issues the Ukrainian conflict is going to bring about. A literale wheat crisis.
Uploader is an open-borders type?
Spice and Wolf is literally about economics so unless Gasaraki positioned itself as an economic themed anime the comparison isn't too hot. And being prophetic is nice and all but doesn't really mean squat if the execution fails to land and what you watch fails to engage the viewer.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and it occupies the same niche as a duck you're still gonna call it a duck even if the Japanese word is "Ahiru". Same goes with political elements. Unsurprisingly there are countless ways you can oppose foreign exploitation and explore national identity, and there are obviously niche details that change between locations and cultures, but there was no mistaken identity here in what ideologies were on display. After all, Germany and Italy both openly practiced and promoted fascism despite the many practical differences for how it looked. And both nations had reasonable anger and fear of exploitation thanks to their relationships with other countries in the 20's and 30's. But a duck's a duck, and even though a duck can feed you it is loud, dirty, and prone to destroy your house if you're not careful.