the guy they keep mentioning, Masami Obari, actually worked on this section. He's famous for basically making some extremely high quality and good looking sakuga despite having a low budget.
To be fair, Obari is a known mercenary that is willing to do quality production for cheap. Just have to be drinking buddies with him. Kinda like Trigger and baiting them with westaboo shit. Also it helps that most animators know all of the Obari-isms and every animator worth their salt can convert any drawing into an Obari scene (Like the Big sword Swing, and the Final Gibal Laser Attack Pose has been a staple of animator reportoir) TLDR - Obari is cheap, is fast, and every animator just knows what to do.
@@janematthews9087 Even more when you combine his ridiculously cool mecha designs too, and how strategically has always shadow covering them and a few key-lights to just make it looks even cooler and dramatic. There is a reason why i love this mother effer mecha designs too, he can and will do it with gusto.
Not mentioning Exkizer & Da-Garn's VA, Shō Hayami (The first & third Brave before Nobuyuki Hiyama's), who's voicing the villain here is an absolute sin. Even the final combination here is literally Great Fighbird.
They only dubbed a few episodes then stopped because the anime wasn't getting views, it's a shame they even got the original English voice for Ash from pokemon and it wasn't a bad dub
This is also why the male voices for the episode are Nobuyuki Hiyama and Toshiyuki Morikawa, they have a history of being in Sunrise mecha shows together.
The producer is King Record. They make music. They just want to make this anime for the hell of it and hired a different animation studio for every episode and a shit load of VA and give them creative freedom.
They were in the X-Omega game. Even the idea started there, since the entire thing was a gag episode too, where both end up in there and became something out of a show design by Masami Obari (known mecha designer, specially for Braves, the DGG , Compatible Kaiser, Gravion, etc). With even the man himself appearing too. Mainly because he was task to design the look of both.
I dunno if they were going for something specific with the Rie Kugimiya and Romi Park duo for this episode but I really liked it. They've been together in Fullmetal Alchemist, Persona 4, and probably lots of other projects I'm unaware of.
They likelly went for a pair joke, they always do. Proof of this is that the male version of this episode were Toshiyuki Morikawa and Nobuyuki Hiyama, both very long standing voices related to mecha stuff. (plus a well known duo of trolls.)
This is actually a GIANT reference to the "Brave" series. I'm seeing references to Gaogaigar (ESPECIALLY that sword pose at the beginning), Exkaiser, Fighbird, and the giant cannon could be any of them, but it makes me think of Mugenhou from Dagwon.
At the end it showed the insides of the mecha, they really pulled out all the stops for this. It was really impressive. Also, for some reason Popuko has the Tower of Fangs necklace from Sorcerous Stabber Orphen at 2:38 really cool obscure reference
I believe in season 1 she gets that as a gift from Pipimi in one of the shorts. She goes like 'oh, is this a novelty keychain?' then the screen turns darker and a deep voice from the pendant asks if Popuko is its new master and she goes 'wait, is this a real magic item?'. so, it is even taking from one time gags from the manga and the show haha
Masami Ōbari, so it's more of a Brave series. His other representative works are Gravion Gundam AGE, the Gundam Build series, and Sakuga in Iron-Blooded Orphens The voice actor is Show Hayami, he is also in Brave Exkaiser and Gravion (He is good friends with Masami Ōbari)
While the robots are tributes to the legacy of the 90s Braves, the art style of the girls are 100% late 90s, early 00s Saber Marionette J!!! I wish they would play Saber Marionette J's first OP Successful Mission during the final gettai! Love love love it!
King Recorder is voiced by Hayami Show, who played Popuko in Season 1, episode 12-B. He was also Brave ExKaiser, the first Brave super robot series made as a collab between Sunrise and Takara. Kugimiya Rie and Park Romi both have roles in Gundam 00, though Park also played Loran Cehack in Turn A Gundam. For Part B, Hiyama Nobuyuki (Popuko) was King of Braves, GaoGaiGar, in addition to Shiro Amada of 08th MS Team, AND appeared AS HIMSELF in Pop Team Epic Season 1, Episode 2-A. Morikawa Toshiyuki (Pipimi) was Duke Fire in Brave Police J-Decker, Tekkaman Blade, and Shagia Frost in Gundam X.
Just a few specific references I noticed: 0:46 classic shot from Gurren Lagann 1:14 Guren's right arm in Code Geass 2:03 the remains of southeastern Australia in Mobile Suit Gundam 4:05 Freedom Gundam / Strike Freedom Gundam's waist-mounted railguns in Gundam SEED (the term "Full Burst" for the attack comes from here too) 4:10 Wing Gundam Zero's Twin Buster Rifle in Gundam Wing
Yeah the antagonist robot is Hayami Sho. In S1 Tomokazu Sugita and Yuuichi Nakamura Already voiced them. Here's the list: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Team_Epic
Sometimes, I'm kind of wondering what kind of sorcery that Hibari's use to create an awesomely epic mechs fight with a low budget that he was presented to.
People have done a great job pointing out all the Brave series references (since Obari did those), but the bit in the intro where they're fighting on the moon and Popo charges with her sword and gets covered in bird-like energy? That's the Crush Intrude from Tekkaman Blade, another early-90s anime Obari worked on!
The plot of this necessarily for comedic value high-budget animation is about how high-budget it is. This is the most meta thing I've seen all year and I did see Zuckerberg's VR selfie.
If you told me this was Pop Team Epic, I wouldn't believe you! With how it's animated, I'd think that this was a different show all together! That's pretty metal!
