Anime review: Brave Express Might-Gaine

[Captain of the SDF-1 Macross]

Brave Express Might-Gaine

Sunrise/Nagoya TV, 1993-1994 (42 episodes)

English distribution pending

Not rated (contains violence and mild language)

With oil supplies now dwilndled, people use alternate energy sources and use public transit. However, crime syndicates also run rampant in the city of Nouvelle Tokyo. With the city's Government Dog Force Police helpless in taking out rampaging robots, billionaire youngster Maito Sempuji takes the fight himself with Brave robot Gaine. Should things become tough, Gaine, Might Winger (piloted by Maito) combines with Locomeizer to form the mighty robot -- Might-Gaine.

Story: (three-star/four-star)

While GaoGaiGar took the whole cake in regards to the Brave Robot series, it's hard to look up into older Brave series such as Might-Gaine. From those who had saw all of the Brave series, they say that it takes time to get into any of them, including GaoGaiGar. Once one goes through after watching the premiere and a certain number of episodes, it picks up in seriousness as a super robot anime -- heroic defenders, your basic supervillains and mecha anime action.

While Mamoru from GaoGaiGar is an in-nod to Superman, Maito is an in-nod to Batman -- parents murdered mysteriously, classy mansion with hidden superhero gear, bulter and secretary under his command and joins in the action in his Might Winger train/jetfigher vehicle with human and robot sidekicks. Yet, Maito had revealed his identity to his love interest, Sally. Completing the picture is Nouvelle Tokyo police inspector Ozawa Syouichirou, who is your typical bumbling police officer.

Maito's the man when in combat, but works in tandem with Gaine when both work together as Might-Gaine. In this case, Maito operates the controls by hand unlike Guy controls the whole body of GaoGaiGar. As for Might-Gaine in action, he hones in battle as a swordsman with his sword, in which is an in-nod to Star Saber, the leader of the Autobots in Transformers: Victory.

Unless the fansubbers pick up the slack, it'll be hard for me to watch Might-Gaine after I took a liking to GaoGaiGar.

Animation: (three-star/four-star)

Yet again, GaoGaiGar took the whole cake in the animation department. Still, the mechanical designs show the Brave Robot motif that all Brave series have in regards to style. The use of cel-quality art is well done in its era, which is hard to evaluate when compared to today's animation quality.

Character-wise, the art style shares similarities with the other Brave series. While Sally doesn't hold a candle to GaoGaiGar's Mikoto and Swan, Sally looks cute.

Soundtrack: (two-star/four-star)

Music department's isn't grandouse like GaoGaiGar, but Might-Gaine's musics holds a tune to its own. The opening theme's great and the BGMs use a rock motif, especially when the Braves combine and BGM rock tunes blare out.

Cast:

Finding info on other Brave shows are difficult, so I can't make an analysis on this one nor I know who are the cast.

My say:

GaoGaiGar may be crowned as King of Braves, but it owes its existance to other Brave predessesors who also pave the way. It's hard to look onto the older Brave shows due to GaoGaiGar but it's worth a look on how the Brave Robots got popular.

Fansub link:

http://animesuki.com/series.php/224.html

Link:

Sunrise's Official Brave Express Might-Gaine page

Anime News Network's entry of Might-Gaine

[Captain of the SDF-1 Macross]

Can anyone guide me to websites that has info on all of the Brave series? Info is scant and I found more than enough info on GaoGaiGar.

Also, can anyone help me on why the linked picture on this thread is not showing up? The hosted image is there but why I can't get it to appear. <_<

[DestroidsRage]

I dont like Gaogaiger, its just /too/ Gimicky. I dont see why so many people like it. The Might Gaine robot itself is SO much cooler. The animation style of Might Gaine is so much more awesome. Might Gaine should definitely be the premiere Brave Series show.

And there isnt really much information on all the other series. Dagwon, Goldoran, Exkaiser, Fighbird, or any of the others. And its not like its a new style of series, the old show Muteki Robo Trider G7 was basically the same. Gimicky robot that all the little kids use and kill badguys with, even that had the silly aspect and all of that Brave stuff in it. But yah, Brave series are cool. Might Gaine is definitely the best in my oppinion. The art style is /beautiful beautiful beautiful/. The main guy looks /awesome/.

-BEN-MAN-

[Prowlus]

you know now that you mention a brave show does anyone think that the upcomming Optimus Prime look like might gaine's Guard Diver ?

[bob joe mac]

Awww come on Ben-Man you know you like GaoGaiGar. How could you not like it its got kick@$$ mechs and decently designed weekly bad zonder dudes. While I saw Might-Gaine and the first little bank robbery scene was way to stupid and the bad guys looked like these bad guys I saw one morning in this show called metal bots or something where they wore all spandex. The music besides the opening was blah and the only cool things were the mechs and some of the character designs.

Now I know GGG would NOT be nearly as good if it was made way back when this was made but GGG is spectacular. I mean how can one NOT love volfogg him and his little ninja buddies that make Big volfogg I mean dude he is awesome.

[Radd]

I don't agree that it takes time to get into Gao Gai Gar. I was interested from the opening scene, and completely hooked the moment the theme song roared into existance for the first time.

It's not fair to really compare two series when I've seen the entire GGG TV series, but only the first episode of Brave Express Might Gaine, but on the merits of only the first episodes for each show, I'd have to say the Brave formula was refined to perfection in the time between Might Gaine and the big GGG. I'm looking forward to downloading more episodes of Brave Express, but the first episode hasn't really grabbed me the way Gao Gai Gar did the first time.

This has nothing to do with dated graphics (the animation in Brave Express is mighty fine for a tv series even today), the story to GGG kicked in right away and so far Might Gaine seems episodic from the first episode. The events weren't tied together very well, it didn't seem like a cohesive whole, more like a jumble of action and non-action scenes that had little relation to each other. Drama was also put to much better use in the first episode of GGG. There was little 'edge of the seat danger' in Might Gaine. I never felt he was in any real trouble, he just seemed massively overpowered compared to everyone else. Sure, in the first episodes, the hero has to awe and inspire, but you gotta lead into it. Otherwise you fall into the Gundam trap.

"Oh no, here comes the White Thing. Do we even need to have the fight scene? Maybe we should all just go back home and watch that rerun of SD Gundam's Counterattack?"

On the other hand, much like all the robots from GGG, Might Gaine's got class and style. It doesn't help that he looks awesome in both modes we've seen so far.

As for why some of us adore Gao Gai Gar so much? For me it's the over the top, completely shameless, utterly pretensious yet not for a moment taking itself entirely seriously attitude that the show has. You just know that the people behind Gao Gai Gar put their heart and soul into it, and what's more they had a damn good time making it. I even heard that the creator of the show insisted he get to sing the opening theme song.

By the time the show does hit an overly serious moment (which I don't believe the Anime in Action fansubs have yet), you're completely absorbed in the show.

The characters, one and all, are incredible! Choryu and Enryu! Volfogg! Guy! The President! Mamaru! And of course, the man, the myth, the legend himself, Mic Sounders the 13th!

Every episode builds on the last, as if the creators made it their first priority to top every single episode by introducing something bigger, better, and more exciting than the last! The first time you bear witness to Goldeon Hammer, it's absolutely incredible. To see this topped by what happens in the next episode, how they take this incredible thing and just make it the most perfect final attack in all of anime!

If you can completely let go and let a well written adventure just take over, then this show is a Holy Grail.

In a way, Gao Gai Gar takes the 'powering up' aspect of DBZ and does it far better. Instead of waiting a dozen episodes for the next big thing, it happens every single episode, one climax after another, building up through the episodes! But instead of that getting old and everything else in the show seeming insignificant, it's written well enough that everything in the show just seems that much more dramatic. I mean, the President is one caffiene pill short of jumping up onto the desk and shooting lasers from his fingertips whenever he shouts, "FINAL FUSION APPROVED!" That energy is just found everywhere in the show.

Anyways, back to Brave Express Might Gaine, the show has potential. I can definitely see how this show is a step on the evolutionary ladder leading to GGG (Even Might Gaine's base looks like an unfinished version of the GGG Tower). I do hope that it picks up soon, though. The first episode just oozed with possibilities, but ended up lacking. If they can just manage to direct that potential better in the following episodes.