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

Feb 21, 2015

TwoSevenTwo

Recommended

Let's be honest here. You're probably interested in this series because of the movie's reputation, and you're wondering if the TV show is worth watching. Let's get this out of the way first: you CAN skip the TV series and just watch A Contact (the compilation movie) followed by Be Invoked (the new and improved ending). This may be fine for you: you'll get skip some of the repetitive bits of the series, but you'll also skip characterization. While the TV show is a bit slow at times, A Contact and Be Invoked try to cram everything together... things develop a ... bit too fast.

The problem with Ideon becomes apparent as soon as you watch the first episode. At its core, the show is a series of 22-minute commercials for toys which haven't been sold in decades for a country on the other side of the world. Animations are reused heavily, early plots mostly follow a predictable formula (land on new planet, aliens attack with new strategy, mech pilots save the day), the characters can be hard to like, and you get tired of the revolving door of villains. But there are also episodes where the show takes itself seriously. Tensions between the main characters are handled with respect, and most of the main cast develops quite wonderfully, even if it seems a bit slow. The plot is sometimes stitched together with crude seams, but at other times it flows quite well.

Once you get to episode #23, the tone changes, and the series discovers its purpose. Remember how the conflict in episode #1 seemed almost accidental in origin? By episode #23, the conflict has grown so large that no matter what anyone says or does, the fighting will continue, and the consequences are always serious. Even if you save the day, you can't save everyone. Even if you surrender, you can't stop fighting. Even as you work towards the same goals, you can hate and betray each other. The plot picks up the pace, characters develop and break down quite spectacularly (they don't cope with things by whining about them, thank goodness), and even the deus ex machina that saved the day in the first half of the series gets turned on its head. Everyone gets a moment before the end to show their true depth.

Episode #39 should be skipped, just watch "Be Invoked" instead, since episode #39 was recut, improved, and made into the beginning of the movie. It is a great episode, but the movie gives you a better version.

All said, I would give a 5/10 or 6/10 to the first 22 episodes, with the acknowledgement that a few of those episodes are fairly good. I'd give the last 17 episodes a 8/10 or 9/10—again with the acknowledgement that there are a couple stinkers, such as episode #34. I might rewatch this someday, but I'd skip over most of the episodes.

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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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Nov 25, 2009

Tydus

Not Recommended

Being an adventurous anime watcher, I decided to embark on taking on anime that appeared to be interesting from reading a summary of it. At first I did not realize that it was an old anime but I decided not to let that deter me from giving it a go.

STORY - 5/10
The story begins with the discovery of the Solo ship and the giant mecha Ideon by the Logo Dau. At the same time this discovery was happening, the younger daughter of the most important person in the Buff Clan happens to crash on the same planet that the discovery is made. Fate is ... what pits her and Jordan Bes together supposedly in the hope of uniting the both clans. The Buff Clan is looking for the legendary Ide as well, which is said to possess limitless powers and they attack the Logo Dau when they realize that they have found it. It is during this raucous that the Logo Dau is forced to use the Solo Ship as well as fight using the Ideon which is how they referred to the giant mecha. From this point onwards, an endless battle begins between the Logo Dau and the Buff Clan, fighting to take control of the Ideon, which grew stronger with every battle fought, thereby causing all efforts made by the Buff Clan to obtain it futile.

ART – 5/10
Giving consideration to the time the anime was released, which was in 1981, for people of that time it would have been fantastic. But, given the time span and the quality of anime that is done now, it’s a little too grainy with not so much detailing given to characters and the setting of the anime. Nevertheless, the costumes of the Buff Clan were original and tastefully done.

SOUND – 3/10
The sound effects in this anime were pretty awful. It didn’t have much musical pieces and the audio was really bad in some episodes. There was even an episode where it appeared that there were other voices besides the anime characters that could be heard in the background, which killed it for me.

CHARACTER – 3/10
Wow. Where do I begin. Most of the characters in this anime were static throughout the course of the series. Yuuki Cosmo is the only memorable character in this series that happened to be a well rounded, well developed character. The main pilot of the Ideon, he displayed courage, spirit, a high level of maturity in such a short amount of time and the ability to make important battle decisions, make him stand out in the series as the most extraordinary character. Also, there were lots of characters who did not last even two episodes well until they died so it did not make much sense to even want to get acquainted with them.

ENJOYMENT - 4/10
With regards to my personal satisfaction in watching this anime, I struggled to get through it. At times it would be very engaging but then at times it became a bit repetitious because of the realization that the battles between the Buff Clan and the Logo Dau were pointless because no matter what tactics or measures the Buff Clan employed, they would never be able to defeat the Ideon simply because it was the source of limitless power and it got stronger and stronger with every battle fought. The ending was rushed and did not give any explanation about the people of the Sixth Civilization, who was the ones to create the Solo Ship and the Ideon, the purpose for which they did it, and it lacked any true closure.

OVERALL – 4/10
After listing everything above, I gave this anime a rating of 5 simply because I believe that the story did not develop at all. There were too many battles that did not make much sense. No explanation was given why the people of the Sixth Civilization created the Ideon and the Solo Ship; too many characters came and died almost instantaneously and the other characters that were involved in the anime could have been developed more.

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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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Jordan, Bes

Yuuki, Cosmo

Ajiba, Karala

Formossa, Sheryl

Imhof, Kasha

Zaral, Gije

Piper, Lou

Fatomu, Moera

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Densetsu Kyojin Ideon

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Information

Statistics

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Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

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Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

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