The Beautiful Messiness of Getter Robo Armageddon
It's always interesting when you encounter a piece of media where, by most metrics of its medium and genre, is not very good at all, but also rules completely and unironically. Cause that's how I've felt for a long time about Getter Robo Armageddon, the 13 episode 1998-1999 OVA adaptation of the classic Go Nagai, Ken Ishikawa super robot manga, Getter Robo.
I really like Armageddon and think its specific iteration of Getter Robo immediately becomes a foundational text of the mecha genre and any one who likes giant robot shit, especially the extremely heightened and bombastic super robot stuff like Gurren Lagann, G Gundam and GaoGaiGar. But also I truly believe that for most of its run it is not a very good anime TV show to watch. But also the way it's not very good is not in the standard not very good middling anime way where it's tropey and generic and not very impressive but like basically watchable even if it's slop. Armageddon starts off pretty impressively as a remarkable well produced anime and then completely falls apart in a unique and spectacular way.
The thing that happens with Getter Robo Armageddon is that after 3 really good episodes the initial director and head writer, Yasuhiro Imagawa, director of Giant Robo; the Day the Earth Stood Still and Mobile Fighter G Gundam, and a bunch of talented young animators, like Hiroyuki Imaishi, just leave the production and the animation quality craters for the next 6 or 7 episodes. So the middle chunk and majority of this show is treading water in empty wastelands and warehouses occasionally punctuated by unimpressive action scenes while very little story happens because all the principle actors that could progress the mystery of the plot are in varying states of being comatose, suffering from amnesia, or in absentia.
And I recognize that it's a very hard to sell to most people to say "This show will be mostly bad to watch, but it's got some good shit in it." But also I do think the good shit here is just so good. Like there is some excellent expansion of the loric concepts from the original source material to a cosmic level that are exciting in itself but will also become a blue print for some of the most electrifying stuff in Gurren Lagann. There is some bizarre but intriguing gender that I don't know if it resolves into anything productively queer because it is one of those works where cisgender artists are problematizing gender without actually engaging with real life transgenderism but it's still interesting. There's violently (literally) toxic old man yaoi. And there's some all time mecha genre imagery like the incredibly slick design of the Shin Getter Robo which is such a cool and imposing update of the goofy toyetic 70s design of the original, and then the Black Getter which takes that original 70s design and refigures it as a shockingly violent and anti heroic figure. Ryoma's excellent violence hobo design. And there is some truly spectacular climactic super robot action like the stoner sunshine at the end, which is an all time super robot final attack directed with best in the genre execution. Which you should look at here.
It's a really good show when it's not being a really bad show and you should go watch it. All of it is just on youtube right now.