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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 9 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 6 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:1593#1552] |
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This one's quite the mixed bag. Serving as a modern telling of the 1970s super robot series Brave Raideen, this 2007 anime focuses on high school student Junki Saiga coming upon a powerful mecha called Raideen that he must control to protect Earth from a mysterious alien threat. As the alien threat escalates, Junki finds himself contemplating how to handle his role as Raideen's pilot while multiple factions seek to exploit the mecha's power or presence for their personal gain. My reasons for finding Raideen to be a mixed bag come from the mixture of what it does right and wrong with its series elements, and I'll elaborate on what it does right first. For a refreshing twist to the mecha genre, Junki isn't portrayed as an unstoppable pilot when utilizing the Reideen as he finds himself increasingly challenged throughout the series by the alien threat as they continually change their tactics when trying to lure out and capture the mecha with the alien threats unleashed mostly taking more than one episode to resolve. In addition, Junki finds himself conflicted throughout a good chunk of the series with what role he should have in the conflict surrounding Reideen and eventually comes to terms with what he wishes to gain out of it and hints are dropped with some of the characters having bigger roles in the conflict than one would assume on the surface. Also, the presentation to the series is great for the most part with excellent CG animation work on the mecha and alien weaponry, fluid mecha battle scenes against the alien threat and a good number of tense musical tracks with Reideen's soundtrack that are fitting for the show's serious mood. What greatly hurts the series are a number of significant flaws that it has in regards to its storytelling and depth. The series quite often relies on deus ex machina for Junki to get out of any major crisis with the Reideen whenever it seems like he is about to be finished off and this results in a rather poor ending for the series when this lazy storytelling device gets milked to the umpteenth degree. Also, the series does a poor job of fleshing out and focusing on a number of major story elements and characters critical to its plot. The alien Roxell is introduced as a rival for Junki seeking Reideen for his own ends in the middle of the show's run, yet doesn't show up again until near the end of the series and his motives don't get much fleshing out. The mysterious transfer student Midoriko is hinted to have a connection of some sort to Reideen, yet the series never bothers delving into great depth with it. Also, the aliens attacking Earth to claim Reideen also lack depth in their motives and where they come from. Pretty much, Reideen's mixed bag status stems from what it does right and wrong with its mecha storyline. While it offers a great presentation and some solid twists to your typical mecha storyline, it suffers a number of major storytelling flaws due to dabbling in deus ex machina and not fleshing out a number of its major series elements. Your mileage will certainly vary with how you warm up to this modern retelling of the 1970s mecha anime classic. Last updated Saturday, April 02 2016. Created Saturday, April 02 2016. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Jan-Chan
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[series:1593#967] | ||||||
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A young man looking for clues as to the disappearance of his missing father (some ten years ago) finds a strange engraved bracelet. After an earthquake in the area, the bracelet goes missing, but he now has a strange tattoo on his arm. And when a strange 100-meter-tall giant robot begins attacking the city, he finds out that he has an ability to summon the gilded golden behemoth mecha unit known as Raideen and he finds himself entanged in a series of seemly pointless battles to save earth (once again) from the unexplained threat from somewhere beyond. Ummm... While the plot is ever so cynically predictable, the computer-generated special effects are at least done well. Having seen six episodes so far, this is one of the weakest of the seven mecha-story anime series that are currently being aired on Japanese TV. Last updated Saturday, May 19 2007. Created Tuesday, April 17 2007. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Japanese Language Series Web Site | http://www.reideen.jp/ |
