Densetsu Kyojin Ideon (Space Runaway Ideon)

Mankind has traveled to the stars and come across various alien civilizations, now long dead. Upon discovering the archaeological remains of such a civilization on the planet Solo, humanity finally has its first encounter with a living alien species: the Buff Clan. When Karala Ajiba, the daughter of the Buff Clan's military leader, sets foot on the surface of Solo, the Buff Clan launches a brutal assault on the colony to retrieve her.

In order to escape, Cosmo Yuki, Kasha Imhof, and Bes Jordan climb aboard three trucks, which soon transform into the giant humanoid robot Ideon. When the settlement on Solo is destroyed, the survivors board a recently discovered spaceship—the Solo Ship—and flee, endeavoring to get away from the aliens and finally find peace. The relentless Buff Clan, however, is still in hot pursuit and will not give up so easily.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

The series won the Animage Anime Grand Prix Award in 1980.

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Related Anime

Summary:	Densetsu Kyojin Ideon: Sesshoku-hen
Sequel:	Densetsu Kyojin Ideon: Hatsudou-hen

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Jordan, Bes

Main

Tanaka, Hideyuki
Japanese

Yuuki, Cosmo

Main

Shioya, Yoku
Japanese

Ajiba, Karala

Main

Toda, Keiko
Japanese

Formossa, Sheryl

Main

Inoue, You
Japanese

Imhof, Kasha

Main

Shiraishi, Fuyumi
Japanese

Zaral, Gije

Supporting

Hayashi, Kazuo
Japanese

Piper, Lou

Supporting

Inoue, You
Japanese

Fatomu, Moera

Supporting

Sasaki, Hideki
Japanese

Narrator

Supporting

Shiozawa, Kaneto
Japanese

Afta, Deck

Supporting

Matsuda, Tatsuya
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Tomino, Yoshiyuki

Director, Storyboard, Theme Song Lyrics

Urakami, Yasuo

Sound Director

Takizawa, Toshifumi

Episode Director

Sadamitsu, Shinya

Episode Director

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Opening Theme

"Fukkatsu no Ideon" by Taira Isao

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Ending Theme

"Cosmos ni Kimi to" by Toda Keiko

Reviews

Mar 27, 2022

Spirit_Chaser

Recommended

Back in 1980, Mobile Suit Gundam had already been released. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam was on it's way. The history of anime demands that the viewers acknowledge that a fearsome roar cried out from far away in the distance of space between their releases. Space Runaway Ideon is one of the most terrifying pieces of fiction I've come to know, and another work of Tomino. The opening, as iconic and upbeat as it is, was already warning the viewers about it. There was no way for me to understand until "Be Invoked" grabbed me by my emotions and scarred me with it's brutality. I couldn't ... help but constantly cry, gasp out of shock, and hold my face out of terror. Still, There is a beauty to this story just as much as there is horror to it. In the 90s, and as an influential and important work, Ideon were the hands that helped mold what became Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Based on the way this story folds out, it wouldn't surprise if this was a prequel to Mobile Suit Gundam. Many of the characters here mirror others. There are the very similar relations between Cosmo and Amurou, and Bright and Bes, for example.

The story involves a group of humans who find a red giant robot and ship underground and take refuge in them. They were made by an intelligent ancient civilization that died out after its creation. Suddenly they get attacked by aliens in a misunderstanding, and the struggle begins. it was the struggle to control the mysterious power of the Ide, and yet they were all playing into it's own hands instead. As the crew of the Solo Ship and Ideon try and figure out how it's mysterious powers function, they are forced to flee from the Buff Clan in a never-ending game of cat and mouse where time and supplies are running out. As they battle, the Ideon begins awakening its true powers, and it's a sight to see how it can cause multi universal destruction. But for the crew on board, they begin to feel frightened of it. It's a power that they cannot only not control, but is appearing to look more and more frightening and undesirable to have.

This series does not slow down. Past the half way mark, it only accelerates and doesn't slow down in quality. It did rush at the end because it got canceled, but more than made up for it in the end with the movie sequel. The ending here is abrupt and weird enough, but doesn't spoil anything for the horrific but beautiful experience that is The Ideon: Be Invoked.

The entire cast features great and memorable characters. Many viewers did get annoyed with Lou at first and the constant crying, though later one can't help but feel bad and sympathize for the baby and what he has to see.

The Ideon is a frightening giant robot. Sentient and all powerful, it posses infinite power but is difficult to understand and control. Ultimately, it's an apocalyptic peacemaker that sometimes acts like a mother, mirroring the Evas from Evangelion, and demands that resolve takes place for conflicts between intelligent life. It feels for the life around it, as it can be angered and roars from the killing of innocent animals and people. It is a protector of the pure and just. If upset, it can unleash enough power to slice a planet in half or shift reality itself. As the humans and the Buff Clan continue to fight, the Ideon puts them on a test.

The music of Ideon is by the composer of the Dragon Quest series. It's a legendary soundtrack with many militaristic and guitar solo infused tracks that remind me of original Star Fox's soundtrack. As the Buff Clan and the Solo ship move out and Ideon begins to dock, the drums start rolling, the trumpets yell out for the battle to start again and help uplift with perfect execution. As the viewers move on to The Ideon: Be Invoked, the music takes an abstract and surreal turn into sounding like something out of the most intense songs from End Of Evangelion. The battles stay fresh, and not a single episode disappointed me.

The animation of Ideon takes the brutal depictions of war to a whole different level from Mobile Suit Gundam. I can't help but have the highest respect for the attention to detail. It is tragic that older animation in anime always seems to get dismissed because it's "too old." The animation of Ideon is beautiful, and something worthy of respect that can no longer be done with today's technology and must be appreciated. It is wonderful and unique to its time. I'll always cherish my memory of watching this and the movie for the first time. I finally felt something that could threaten my favorites.

The main cast are a colorful set of characters with an unshackle will to survive. Bes is the courageous captain of the Solo Ship that led a comfortable upbringing until forced to lead this desperate struggle. Cosmo is the brave and cunning lead pilot of the Ideon who leads an emotionally painful journey. Kasha is the rational and logical second pilot who is hot headed and too honest for her own good. Sheryl is a researcher who summed her character up well enough in one word: Petty. Deck is among the child soldiers and carries a pet animal on his shoulder. Lotta is one of the non-combatants who helps raise the children and raise the animals for food. They also farm and do all they can to help the crew survive with their limited supplies.

On the Buff Clan's side, Karala sees this is all a misunderstanding, and that instead of going to war, the different civilizations should try to understand each other. Gije is another who as wicked as he is, becomes better and better of a character further into the series. They want the red giant, and go one to advance in all sorts of military technological advancement to try and seize it.

After the Ideon resurrects, and goes on to observe and cast judgement, as if it was on a side of its own, the two races take the viewers on a journey filled with death, destruction, bittersweet romance, amazing tales of redemption, and more. For who does the Ideon decide is worthy?

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Jul 19, 2018

ggultra2764

Mixed Feelings

Following his work on the famous Mobile Suit Gundam, director Yoshiyuki Tomino moved on to direct what is yet another one of his famous works in the mecha genre with Ideon, an entry in the super robot genre focused on humanity's clash with the alien Buff Clan by utilizing the titular mecha of the series.

Personally for me, Ideon felt like a step down with what Gundam contributed in being one of the grandfathers of the "real robot" anime genre, though has some glimmers of potential. Whereas Gundam took the time to explore its world and offered enough fleshing out of both the Federation and Zeon ... factions to show both had their morally grey areas, the same can't really be said for Ideon to a good extent. While a number of the human characters do get some fleshing out like Cosmo and Bes, nearly all members of the Buff Clan remain as two-dimensional characters in conflict with the human crew of the Ideon. Also, the series mostly focuses on the Ideon crew's conflict with the Buff Clan, with the latter continually spawning "mecha of the day" plots to attempt getting the Ideon in their possession and killing its human crew. Not helping matters is that it does take the series nearly a dozen episodes to start picking up steam with offering up some story development.

And said story development does gradually start to deliver if you can survive past Ideon's earlier episodes. Later episodes of the series offer some interesting twists in the anime's story as the Ideon's crew start to learn more about the mecha's mysterious origins and question the very force that empowers it. Some solid character development is offered with the character of Karala, a Buff Clan member who defects from her race to join the human Ideon crew and develops a relationship with Bes. Also, the anime tosses in some twists to the "robot of the day" formula for later episodes when the Ideon crew also have to evade apprehension from human military forces who want to claim Ideon's power for themselves or assume the crew is in league with the Buff Clan. Still, this doesn't stop the formulaic plot setup and largely shallow members of the Buff Clan from rearing their heads throughout Ideon's run and the anime is also left abruptly unresolved during a major point in the anime's plot thanks to the series abruptly being cancelled during the time it aired. However, this issue would be resolved a year later with the release of Ideon's film sequel, Be Invoked.

Visually, Ideon hasn't aged all that well. The character designs are a product of their time with the seemingly disco vibe that many characters sport with their appearance like Cosmo's afro and the Buff Clan's clothing looking like anything you may seen worn in retro sci-fi titles like The Jetsons and Flash Gordon. The animation quality can vary from looking terrible to decent during battle scenes, which are mostly not too spectacular to see for their choreography due to how slow and played out they are.

Overall, I suppose my reception to Ideon is mixed. While touches of Tomino's story direction are on display in later episodes to make the series somewhat engaging, its flaws still stick out like a sore thumb compared to other mecha titles of the time period he directed like Gundam and Aura Battle Dunbine. Still as I hear Be Invoked is what is Ideon's most memorable use of Tomino's "Kill Em All" moniker, I suppose I'll be continuing my viewing of Ideon by checking out the film.

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Jun 21, 2023

sirap

Not Recommended

The first few episodes of this anime were interesting and showed great promise with interesting ideas being introduced. I felt excited to find out what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, after only a few episodes the anime stopped being interesting because instead of building on the ideas that were introduced at the beginning of the show it became boring and the plot started to barely move forward at all and nothing interesting happened. It became repetitive and each episode was basically just about that single episode on its own without contributing almost anything to the overall plot.

So it became a repetitive anime where each ...

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Poll: Densetsu Kyojin Ideon Episode 13 Discussion Hannah_Ana - Feb 8, 2014	11 replies	by Kuruna_Dagurasu »» Apr 1, 6:46 AM
Poll: Densetsu Kyojin Ideon Episode 28 Discussion Hannah_Ana - Mar 5, 2014	7 replies	by Alita »» Feb 29, 11:28 AM
. offmodel - Apr 21, 2015	1 replies	by KanekiKen523 »» Oct 15, 2023 9:26 AM
Poll: Densetsu Kyojin Ideon Episode 33 Discussion Hannah_Ana - Mar 6, 2014	3 replies	by Lesturr »» Sep 7, 2023 8:23 PM
Poll: Densetsu Kyojin Ideon Episode 26 Discussion Hannah_Ana - Mar 5, 2014	8 replies	by Lesturr »» Sep 1, 2023 5:54 PM

Densetsu Kyojin Ideon

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Ajiba, Karala

Formossa, Sheryl

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Densetsu Kyojin Ideon

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Synopsis

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