I’m not really sure when I first saw Gunbuster – I think it was probably 1995, as by the time I‘d read about Evangelion being in production I was already familiar with Gainax. It seem like eons ago now. Back in those days I was relatively new to all this anime stuff, and if I saw a couple of new episodes of something in a month than I’d have been lucky. In some ways, having to rely on re-watching everything on VHS to death was way more fan boyish than these days, given I treat the stuff in a far more disposable manner given how easy it is to acquire – not that it ultimately makes that much difference, as I still enjoy the stuff as much now as I did back then.

Anyway, it was pretty much love at first sight. Well, second sight anyway – the first episode fell kind of flat with me. Looking back, its probably not hard to see why that was the case – being new to anime meant half the point completely went over my head. I pretty much had the whole thing on endless loop for a few days, and rewatched it frequently up until the point where I stopped using my VHS player at the end of the 90’s (god, even that seems so long ago now!).

With Top wo Nerae! 2 wrapping up in Japan soon, and the announcement of a 90minute digest movie version to be release alongside a Top!2 digest movie, it seemed like a good time to revisit the show.

Looking back, Gunbuster is as good a show as its always been. What Gunbuster is, however, is really, really bizarre. People moan about Top!2 being odd, but I have to wonder how many of those people have rewatched the original recently. I’m sure some have, and have some perfectly valid arguments for not liking the sequel, but that doesn’t stop the fact the original is just as bizarre. Its somewhat rather eclectic in terms to style and mood, starting off modelled around being a parody of 70’s tennis series Ace wo Nerae using mecha in place of tennis, before moving on to more broadly parodying the mecha genre – whilst introducing a genuinely interesting and thoughtful SF plot and keeping things completely deadpan!

Genius!

I’m now going to gush fan boyishly at length – be warned that after this point I’m going to be spoilerising the hell out of the show, so if you actually intend to watch the show at some point you should proceed at your own risk. I’ll probably touch on Top!2 in a few places as well. You have been warned.