Around 1995, Japanese animation (anime) began pouring into North America, Europe and across the globe in video form. Most of these titles were unknown outside of Japan and never covered by animation journals. Whether a title is highly popular or very obscure, a high quality theatrical feature or a cheap and unimaginative direct-to-video release, they all look the same on a store shelf. Therefore, Animation World Magazine will regularly review several new releases (including re-releases not previously covered) that have merit.

Gravion is a giant robot classic from the 1970s.

Gravion. V.1, Divine Steel. V.2, Knights of Gravity. V.3, Upgrade.
TV series (13 episodes), 2002. Director: Masami Obari. V.1, five episodes/125 minutes; v.2-3, four episodes/100 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: A.D.V. Films.

Modern anime is fine, but sometimes one gets a craving for the old classics. For an anime fan, the classics are the 1970s giant-robot TV series, Super Heavyweight God Gravion (Chojushin Gravion), 13 episodes by Gonzo Digimation broadcast on Fuji TV from Oct. 8 through Dec. 16, 2002, blends nostalgia for the old-time fans with current animation technology plus plot conventions for today’s viewers who don’t like anything “old.”

Gravion is a 100-foot-tall robot warrior who fights invading space monsters with a big sword, while a pulse-pounding rock vocalist belts out lyrics like, “Crush them! With your arms of steel, Soldier of Soldier!” (I had to check the credits to make sure it is not actually by Shunsuke Kikuchi, who penned most of the best `70s giant-robot theme songs.) Gravion looks like a giant metallic heroic Roman warrior formed when five individual fighter planes combine in mid-air during blazing battles. (It also looks like a huge action figure with so many transforming parts that it must be priced in three figures at Japanese toyshops.) But where the actual first giant-robot TV series were in jerky cel animation on threes or fours with angular character designs, Gravion is in smooth CGI with modern, lush character design (and “lush” is certainly the word for the busty girls!).

Where the `70s TV series would have featured heroic teen jock pilots who looked like they were star players on their high school football team when not fighting monsters, Gravion’s 17-year-old pilots are one brave but comically-confused jock (the main protagonist), a definitely effeminate boy (the team commander), and three jiggly cheerleaders in frilly French-maid uniforms. Instead of the robot having been invented and the team assembled by the world’s greatest scientist (or team of scientists) in a futuristic super-laboratory, Gravion is the pet project of the world’s most mysterious billionaire, a Howard Hughes/William Randolph Hearst figure, from his flamboyant exaggeration of a French chateau.

In the mid-21st century, Earth has been at peace for so long that it has gotten soft. Mysterious billionaire Klein Sandman is aware that an invasion fleet of the Zeravire aliens “from the 0th degree of the Milky Way Galaxy” is heading toward Earth, so he finances his own superscientific defense team to protect humanity. The Fellows of the Gran Knights consist of one giant robot, the Gran Kaiser, and four Gran Diva support fighter aircraft; the G-Attacker, G-Shadow, G-Striker and G-Driller. Together they can combine into a single humongous robot, Gravion!

But only people with an extremely rare “G-Factor” enzyme in their bodies can pilot these craft. Sandman intended for the four G-Diva pilots to be all female, but when Akaya Shigure mysteriously disappears during a training session, the only substitute with G-Factor is her kid brother Eiji. When he storms into Sandman’s castle to demand to know why his sister has disappeared, he finds himself drafted to take her place.

Eiji and his fellow teens are humanity’s only defense since the Earth Federation Alliance’s military is defeated in every battle. But Earth’s combined military bureaucracies are jealous at being shoved into the background; especially since Sandman will not even answer the World President’s questions of where he got the technology to fight the Zeravire and even knew they were coming (nobody else on Earth did). Those sound like good questions to Eiji and the other Knights, too, and since they are barracked in Sandman’s castle they are in a position to snoop around for the answers...

None of the actual 1970s giant-robot TV anime series are currently licensed for American distribution. If anyone wants a sample of one of them, GRAVION is an excellent facsimile; and compact at only 13 episodes instead of 40 or more.