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Detonator Orgun 2009-02-01


Plot Summary

Detonator Orgun is set on a futuristic Earth in 2292 – although its futurism is more decorative than anything. There are many daily life conveniences, from sliding doors to automatic waiters, but there seems to be hardly any technological progress in important sectors like communications, space exploration or even weaponry. Having grown up in such an environment, pre-graduate student Tomoru Shindo feels out of tune and cannot decide his next steps in life. Fortunately (or not) for him, an intelligent mecha called Orgun seems bent on crossing deep space to meet and attune with him.

After fusing with Orgun, Shindo finds himself with lots of work in his hands. It seems that Orgun is an outcast hero of the Evoluder, a whole tribe of battle-thirsty mechas, which have followed him to Earth in a planet-sized battleship (aptly called “Battle Planet”), aiming to destroy him and the humans with which he mingled. In the end, Orgun sacrifices himself in order to prevent the Evoluder’s antimatter cannon from destroying Earth.

The major plot twist of the story is that the Evoluder are actually descendants of a volunteer crew launched from Earth centuries before, who had stumbled into a spacetime distortion field which sped up their evolutionary process and adapted them with their exoskeletal spacesuits into cyborg mechas. Having acknowledged that, the new, reformed leader of the Evoluder leads the Battle Planet away from Earth with promises of redefining their morality.

Review

Detonator Orgun sounds like a pile of clichés on first sight, and sadly it does nothing to ameliorate this impression. Although I suppose that the elements used in this OVA were much less stretched-out in 1991, that only affirms that it hasn’t managed to stand up to the test of time.

The biggest gripe one can have with this anime is that it is ill-fitting to its genre. It stands to reason that an anime whose protagonist and title character is a battle mecha (and a “Detonator” at that) would be full of action sequences. The premise is there; after all, Orgun is compelled to defend the Earth from a planetful of evil counterparts of himself. There is even a production line of manmade mechas further into the story. But none of those benefits from much screen time.

Instead we get more than enough of angst and sulking, due to a subplot where Orgun and Shindou can merge a finite amount of times before they lose their individuality. The obvious reason for the existence of this subplot is to prevent Orgun from being present to fend off every single Evoluder attack. That way, some casualties and destruction manage to take place, giving fuel to even more drama. But Shindou’s angst is really overplayed, especially considering the limited screen time. It would be an interesting tangent to explore in a longer OVA or a TV series, but in a 5-part OVA there is simply not enough time to make Shindou or Orgun likeable enough to sympathize with their prospected loss of self-consciousness.

Which is really a shame, considering that animation and character design are very competent. Outdoors settings like landscapes and space environs are very well drawn and action sequences, although scarce, are nevertheless quite detailed and nicely choreographed.

In addition, completely superficial love triangle among Shindou, a young scientist and a military pilot rears its ugly head. There is not enough interaction among the characters for it to get really annoying, but it definitely feels unnecessary and the outcome is rather glaring even from the first few minutes of the first episode. At least it serves as an excuse to flesh out the thoughts and motives of Professor Kanzaki, who is one of the more interesting characters in the anime. In fact, other than Shindou’s growing-of-age, Kanzaki’s emotional progress throughout the anime is probably the only element of character development.

All these conflicting story threads constantly struggle for the attention of the viewer. Nevertheless the various elements are brought together pretty well, other than some pacing problems.

As far as audio is concerned, there is not much to say. Voice acting is very good, as every one of the major characters has a manner of speech according to their educational and social background. There is nothing extraordinary about the voices, but they get the message across very nicely. The music score, wherever it does exist, is minimalistic; epic space fight riffs are mostly absent from Detonator Orgun. The sound effects are, again, pretty competent but not noteworthy.


In conclusion, I think that Detonator Orgun represents an experiment to break the mold of its genre and include more focus on the dramatic aspects of the characters, at the cost of fight scenes and space vistas. Although it did not manage to be successful in that venture for the most part, the quality of its parts marks it as definitely watchable.

Stats
Type: OVA
Length: 3 X 50 min

Rating
Production: 7/10
Plot: 6/10
Setting: 6/10
Characters: 6/10
Overall: 6/10

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