karbengo So you now know from where they take inspiration.. Casshern was almost as influential as original 8 Man, but in opposition to it was also good.
karbengo You are half right. If you know Platinum's Vanquish then it was very influenced by Casshern, even as far as having a robot dog transforming into stuff and helping the main character in the concept. But it got cut. And then when they did Rising, they managed to get the robot dog in
For those who don't know, Casshan is originally from Neo Human Casshan(1973) This series, Casshan Robot Hunter is a remake OVA. There are similarities to Megaman and Raiden from MGS because those characters draw inspiration from Casshan. Lot's of other series do too.
This is my favourite of the OVA features that came out at the time. It is not without flaws but for this type of thing, this is essentially a masterpiece.
Paul Hensley Well... He probably won't. I mean all things considered. They don't hold up to well. The only one up on RU-vid is episode 1. And I think it's a reupload.
Zachary Erickson episode 11 was pulled for no real reason, so after that he just really stopped carrying. Though funny enough, he stated that the reason he thinks may have been the reason it was pulled was the very scene he flashed backed too.
I'm currently watching Casshern Sins. I like it so far, but it's taking a while for me to get through it because I often need to take a break from the depressing tone.
Sins sucks ass! Watch Casshan Robot Hunter instead! "Casshern sins" is like watching an insult in slow motion compared to the OVA 1994 Casshan: Robot Hunter
This review could've at least mentioned that the character designs are by Yasuomi Umetsu, the genius behind classics like Kite, Mezzo Forte and recently Wizard Barristers. But, anyway, good review, Sage.
Zedfinite Pity Wizard Barristers last episodes where kinda, horrible.... And that is not in regards to the production issues they had, but the actual plot advancement, a major pity because the show really had potential.
DecoyBlackMage Maybe I went overboard with Wizard Barristers, but at least a little call back to the Kite & Mezzo reviews for Casshern would've helped.
He screwed with Macross, and I absolutely LOVE Macross. As such, I can't see the guy as being a 'legend' of any kind, but I will concede that he did a lot of good with making the anime market bigger in the USA.
Silim's Let's Plays You forget about historical context. Most anime start come to US in 80'ties and those were mostly Super Robo from 70'ties. In that time most people were unaware of Real Robo produced in Japan in that time, and though that MechWarrior is "realistic" when Japanese already made Votoms what is realistic. Adaptation of Real Robo was bold move to do (even if it didn't end well), because most people still see genre as cartoons for kids. We can hate Robotech but we shouldn't forget why it was created. We can now watch easily original Macross, and that was partially because of work of this man.
TheRezro That's why I said I can't deny he did many good things for the industry, but Robotech is STILL a crappy adaptation of Macross, I don't care what time it came from. The worst crime of it, though, is that because of the licensing nightmare that was created by Robotech, the west pretty much NEVER gets the Super Robot Wars games, which is an incredible shame. We could see Shinji Ikari being actually badass! Imagine seeing that!
Silim's Let's Plays I don't think Super Robot Wars would ever get released in the West even if Robotech didn't have those licensing issues, because the other anime titles have copyright nightmare too so no I don't think Macek should be blamed for that one.
Badre Bally Silim's Let's Plays How did I even miss that? Robotech definitely didn't have anything to do with SRT problems, as that is product based on licences itself! Point is that there is in fact only few mecha studios in Japan and Banpresto somehow was capable to buy all licences in stack, but on West those are exclusive release rights owned by many weird exotic companies, sometimes to one series on time (and they would use occasion to grab money, as those property don't have any value in other scenario). So in end doing that it serious pain in but.
Badre Bally I would say the same thing, but then J-Stars Victory VS is coming over and that is made up of different licenses, owned by different publishers.
Svart fra Sor MMX (as well as Zero) takes a ton of inspiration from Casshern (and yes, Sage, it's Casshern. It's how TvC says it, it's how the movie says it, and it's how the reboot says it. Three sources against one. And yes, this matters). Megaman takes a lot from Japanese sci-fi, like Astroboy, Cyborg 009, and Casshern.
GreatAwesomeReviewers Sigma's dog borders outright rip-off territory after looking at this. It's uncanny, breath attacks and all... And now all I can think about is putting a hadouken in that fucking thing.
I guess I have to thank Carl Macek for making me like subtitles. You see, I watched the commercial dub of Fist of the North Star, and then I watched a fansub. The fansub was a 4th generation copy, whited out the blood spatter, and was still better than the dub. It wasn't the voice acting (Streamline had some good VAs for its time), it was the plot. The dub altered the plot, *for no real reason*! They left in most of the violence and gore, and even the brief nudity, so it wasn't as though they were trying for a PG rating, it was altered for the worse for no real reason. Try another title: Windaria, A friend of mine (who obtained the fansub), liked the tragedy enough to buy the Streamline dub. He tried to write down all the differences, but gave up after finishing a page and a half. Here, Macek allegedly did originally alter the movie to make it more suitable for kids (under a different title), but when he had the opportunity to retitle it and release it for an older audience, all he did was put back the brief nudity near the start of the movie. Now, there were plenty of other titles in Streamline I didn't mind, but even then I couldn't watch any Streamline release without wondering whether or not it's plot was originally bad, or had been altered at Macek's whim. I don't blame Macek for altering dialog. As Bennett points out, it is necessary. However, he became known for altering the plot, sometimes for no reason, and that puts a black mark on his otherwise wonderful record.
I don't really watch your reviews and sometimes I don't agree with your opinions, but I loves me some Cassherns. The moment were his mask closes and the visor goes down is so goddamn iconic.
I remember seeing this on Sci Fi Channel's Saturday anime block when I was around 3 or 4 then when I was older I saw Casshern Sins and I thought it was awesome then I re-watched Robot Hunter Casshern and it didn't age well
Wow, I just realized I never said thank you for reviewing this. I actually messaged you about this specific anime many years ago. This is my personal favorite anime movie.
Awesome OVA series. Awesome character. Awesome review. I remember seeing this the first time on the Scifi channel as a single movie. Great childhood memories :)
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Macek at a 2008 con! He was very friendly and signed my Robotech RPG book from Palladium. I saw this anime back in the 90s on Sci-Fi channel. It rocked!
"I'm leaving here, I'm walking out! Let's see ya try and stop me!" … with those dozen or so loaded and cocked automatic guns ready to put a man down at the very utterance of human defiance... yeah, I bet those cold and heartless machines must be pretty taken aback at THAT kind of sass.
Msoulwing To be fair, Sins is one of those "artsy" shows you have to watch over and over again to really get. Which is arguably what makes it harder to stomach.
Msoulwing The story from what I remember is that Casshern was looking for Luna and there was some "disease" that caused robots to rust and decay. Then there was something about Casshern killed Luna in the past that caused the disease. Which kinda makes you think that these two series are linked yet they're not. This is about to make me watch both series again to understand wtf is going on....
personally, i agree with Bennett on the Macek argument. besides, i actually liked both the original Macross and Robotech. especially since Southern Cross and Moespeda, in their Japanese forms, were rather generic and dull mecha. same as Voltron and how its original show was dull and generic.
Ah, so that's Friender. All these years, I was so confused why Matt and Pat called Bladewolf that in the Metal Gear Rising playthrough. Gotta say, an apt comparison.
Fucking Robotech. In Europe, we had these three series separate, as they should be, but in Europe anime never really took-off. So, if butchered, Robotech have it's place in history of anime. But as big fan of Superdimension Fortress Macross, I just prefer original version.
This movie changed my life! I first watched it on Sci Fi channel back when they showed anime around midnight, and the story, mood, and music has possessed me since. Although I now see how cliche and silly it is, at that time everything about it felt completely original and inspiring. The idea that BK-1 regrows the worlds forests and as a bad guy is justified has been my litmus test for justified bad guys. To compare him to the thing from Avengers 2 is shameful. Not even close to the same level of development. This was the first anime I saw after Dragon Ball aired 6am on Fox in the 90s, and it got me addicted. Now I've seen about 80% of the films covered in Anime Abandon. P.S. does anyone know where to get the OST?
8:00 I think he knew exactly what was going to happen, as he was surrounded by robots with machine guns for hands >.> I can understand the mentality of rather being dead then a slave, who's just going to be killed off anyway, at a later date.
I'm actually rewatching Casshern Sins at the moment. The contrast in character design between that series and this OVA is crazy. Not that I'm suggesting one over the other.
Wow you can really tell this was series was originally from the 70s, the glimmering eyes 8:52, the costume that look similar to Gatchaman, the robotic dog and how things just transform into other things without reason, like a super robot show.
TheRezro the original casshern was a little before my time. Saw this in the 90s and the X series was popular so I just always thought this was inspired by that. My bad
I freaking love the original series, still haven't gotten around to watching this particular series though. I despised Sins for just how dark and edgy it was. Ugh. Oh, and the original Neo-Human Casshern had a lot of influence on Mega Man, as your title card implies. Not even just X though, Classic series first and foremost.
***** "Friender JETTTTT" XD the opening always cracks me up. Kinda like Hurricane Polymar's. I didn't hate Sins though as it was more thematically structured and better written than the 73 original. Yea it angst way more than it needed to and became melodramatic but the 73 Casshan was also the same way, just more comical given the content. I mean Hitler robot, a robot swan with his mom inside and robots that seem to be made of paper mache? it was hilarious! I like them all though. Each for their different approach.
I say that because apparently, they found a way to make babies with robots. I think it's just artificial insemination. Luna and another robot are known to possess this trait.
so would you say this is better than Casshern's Sins, Or Worse? Also yeah, Straight translations just don't work, and 'certain anime fans' refuse to admit that. i think the best example of this is Samurai Pizza Cats, where it was technically a Gag Dub, but i think the Creator of the actual show admitted to the Gag Dub being superior due to how generic the original was. Sometimes a show is so cliche or bad that changing the story is the only way to save it, or certain phrases simply don't translate to Latin based languages such as English. I feel like alot of the companies that do Game and Anime localization are slowly forgetting that. (for example, keeping honorifics in dubs is outright pointless.)
ShadowWolfRising Just a slight correction, but English is basically a Romance language's and a Germanic language's sweaty lovebaby, not just pure Latin-based as you seem to imply. Otherwise I agree 94% with your statement here.
Wayland The Bat i believe that given Anglo means the British People, and the Saxons were a Germanic Tribe and in turn the Anglo Saxons were a melding of both the peoples and cultures of the 2. and the Anglos and Saxons and their merging has heavily influenced the British Isles, Europe, and the United States (and Canada).
I agree with you on honorifics, Persona 4 for example is full of them. And sometimes certain shows have way to much exposition, must be something to do with the culture, and having a script that punches it up to make it more engaging. But some script changes are awful Manga UK for instance would add tons of swearing, to the point it didn't even make sense, just to make the show more mature. I know Sage really really likes that line at 17:01, but not only is it hard to work out, I thought he said beast time, but it's pretty forgettable.
CornishCreamtea07 didn't say they were all good, and not all shows even need them. but a good amount need at least small edits here and there, and the really bad ones (coughswordartonlinecough) just BEG for the gag dub treatment.
I'm surprised they even bothered dubbing it, Funi should of gave it to Sentai to just do a sub only release, and instead dub one of the many shows they do sub only releases for. Space Brothers seems more deserving of a dub.
All joking aside, the difference between Gangsta's Paradise and Ice, Ice, Baby is simple: One was good enough that the original artist decided to sing a combined medley with the rapper at the Grammy's, and the other one was so bad that the original artists sued the rapper for besmirching their good name. Seriously, though, that Grammy performance of Coolio, L.V., and Stevie Wonder doing a special version of Gangsta's Paradise is gold and every single person who reads this comment should go look it up right the fuck now.
He can also be forgiven because his attention to detail in adapting all three into one included tons of pages of contextual information that made their way into the novel adaptations and the roleplaying books. It's also worth reminding people that he loved anime and he wanted to bring it to the States but no American network would carry a show unless it had enough episodes for syndication. I have all the game Books & novels and taking them as a whole with the series is impressive there is a coherent story that has a surprisingly good level of dubbing
Makes me think that the matrix universe robots putting people into the matrix is the nicest type punishment they could have ever done live your life out in peace and a sense of normalcy
From the sounds of Robotech, would it be wrong to compare it to Power Rangers and how it basically localized Sentai? Especially the Mighty Morphing era.
CrystalMoonStar I think he hasn't done it because Slayers was influenced by D&D and a lot of jokes would involve a game most of Sage's fans haven't played.
I have to think for him to do that job and make Stream Line Pictures it wasnt just his "job" like people who just work in a office building and at best are indifferent to the job, i think he must have enjoyed his work and saw the potential that anime had here in the West. His job was actually pretty complex ad he was most likely confronted with problems left and right and in order to make a viable product that was cohesive he had to adress each obstacle independently even if did use similar methods to sol e other handle the situations uniquely...other wise it would literally sound like the fan sub of Mars of Destruction.
I do remember one part of this anime, where they have to destroy this bridge before a supply train goes through, and there's this big robot guy driving the train laughing maniacally, like "Mwahahahahaha! I am SO going to be at the station ahead of schedule!"
I saw both Casshan and Casshern Sins. like Casshern more. Ahaha!!!!!! Oh my goodness. First time seeing this guy but that comment nearly made me subscribe right there. But the idea of Casshern and Megaman even so much as facing off is an intense one for me. 8:42-Boy, watch back, before I pull out this atmo-gun I got from the other reality-me. Bennet everyone loves that freakin killer dog. He's great. 15:03-Holy crap! The "Black" King enslaved the humans. Well....guess he really wanted that forty acres and a mule.
I haven't seen the american adaptation but the original animation, and I can say that this sort of a sequel from the 1973's "Neo-huma casshern" is an incredible masterpiece. I totally agree with Bennett, this is not meant for any person, but for people who really love retro-anime with all the cheesiness and argumental flaws they have. To understand how much of a masterpiece this anime is, it's imperative to watch the 1973's version (which was a mess in argumental terms, but realty good and deep if you take your time and analise it). First, Robot hunter casshern did a great job taking the main story and giving it a lot more sense, without losing the cheesy aspect. Second, It took a lot of of the original material and didn't change it at all (Friender becoming a jet and other vehicules ignoring physics's laws, as well as melting enemies with just a flame, or Casshern as an allmighty being, killing robots as if they were made of paper...god, even Tatsuya's mother doomed to live forever into the robot-swan) Finally, it gave all the characters a defined personality, something that the original series lacked a bit(with the exception of Cashern and Braiking boss, the rest of the characters were very plain) Anyway, enjuyable analysis. Just one complain: way too much credit to Carl Macek, but that's just my opinion.
Not really pissed of at Mace...considering that he made Southern Cross watchable in the first place. I'm serious, when they brought Robotech to Japan, some of the folks there were stunned that Southern Cross is somehow watchable now. However...I am pissed at Harmony Gold for being lawsuit happy dicks.
I watched this one after watching Casshern Sins a few years ago. And that's mostly because Sins feels like a post-apocalyptic sequel to a previously fought war. And that intrigued me. So I watched this one and got no real big answer, just a feeling of an alternate reality where things have run differently. All in all I found this one to be okay, but not that memorable. I found Sins to be a better one to watch. Though I can't comment on the original tv-series. Didn't bother to watch that one yet.
I find it funny that Sage didn't mention the 1970s Casshern series as it was his animated starting point. If you're interested there are some episodes up on RU-vid, but the only ones I found were done with a Italian language track. The animation is on par with the original Mobile Suit Gundam series.
He seems to avoid the 70s when he did Cutie Honey he didn't touch the original 70s show, instead doing the 90s version, and when he did Devilman he made no mention of the 70s TV show.
Now, Sage, find a copy of Hurricane Polymar: Holy Blood for next year's Tatsunoko month, and try to not lose your mind from how batshit insane some of it is.
Another fantastic video, Sage. Hats off to you. Might I recommend, if you havent already, taking a look at the anime Gatekeepers? I recently picked this anime back up and... Well... Its something you have to see for yourself to gain an understanding... Or lack thereof... Think about it, "Bloody" Jack Strange
My first exposure to this anime was actually the Live Action Movie, then the Anime, then Sins. I was so Confused when I saw Sins, but it made sense by the end.
You know, Sage... I may be a mac user, but that was a good burn. Kudos. Also, I am actually interested in Macek know. I'm planning to get into Robotech and it's interesting to learn a bit of its roots.
I remember watching a documentary on the code breakers of WW2 when they were interviewing one of the code breaker that helped break Japanese military codes he explain one of thier big problems was the same word meaning multiple things the example he gave is Seiko which is a well know watch brand but also the word for a specific sex act. I came at Casshern backwards having watched the live action movie before any of the anime but I still found it enjoyable if not world changing
if my mind remembers I believe I watched casshan robot hunter in 2012 and it was good even for the fanservice if you overlook that you got a good story
I really like Robotech. The show is overall good, and the multigenerational story is rather epic. Harmony Gold did a very good job of tying 3 series together into a single concise story. Also, what many anime purists forget is that Robotech was created because Macross didn't have enough episodes to meet syndication broadcast requirements at the time, so Harmony Gold had to license and adapt 2 additional series to meet the 65 episode minimum.
Oh, I've seen parts of the new one I think, only that has an apocalyptic aspect to it beyond robots rule forever, in that the robots have mortality and are struggling with becoming more human.
16:00-16:15 This! Unfortunately the current state of the internet would say otherwise. According to them, either you love everything about something or you hate it. That is the worst approach to anything because it limits perception. The world isn't entirely black and white but many shades of gray.
