Chikyuu Bouei Kigyou Dai-Guard

Anime Review #1: Dai Guard
Even a salary man can save the world. This sentence does well to sum up the general storyline of Dai Guard. Imagine a show like the Office but with no comedy and every episode has a new monster to fight. On the surface this may seem bland and boring, but it actually is refreshing to see a show tackle the real world elements of having a giant robot fighting to save you. Other mech shows tend to gloss over the logistics of things such as insurance and property damage. But in Dai Guard there is a constant pressure on the pilots ... to not only win, but to do so with as little damage done to the city as possible. Corporate power struggles along with an ideal that true justice is saving people vs. fighting the enemy holds together the tense moments of the show when the main characters are not having to fight off each new threat. Some deep psychological theories and ideas are presented as well, and through these some characters display growth, which greatly helps fight against the episodic nature that this show has. Science also has a backing with the story, with characters learning about ways to manipulate energy and some real world concepts that they use to fight effectively. Very minor romance scenes in this show, so if you like more concrete romance stories, this is not the show for that. Overall I'd say this show is great to watch if you are older and can put yourself in the mindset of an average worker trying to deal with the problems of a daily job, along with the mech fights of course.

So, I have been trying to broaden my anime horizons, and in the process I found Dai-Gaurd. Overall I view this show as a 7 but don't take the score at face value. The show has been around for over 20 years after all and in all honesty, after watching it I don't know why more people haven't seen it.

On the surface, this show is primarily about a kid named Akagi and his 2 friends Aoyama, and Momoi who pilot the mecha Dai-Gaurd and prevent Tokyo from being attacked by Heterodyne.

This show is so much more than that ... though. It has a monster of the week feel for over half of the series, but as the series goes on we learn more about what it truly means to fight. You see the fight isn't just happening against the monsters. There is a fight between Dai-Gaurd and the military, and the fight against our past.

This show is more than just the pilots of team Dai-Guard. What makes this show awesome is the entire ensemble of characters. The creators of this series put a lot of time into developing the background characters. There is such a large variety of characters here that I can't name them all, but here are a few. We have a sweet, but eccentric scientist in Rika, a gruff military man with a heart of gold named Shirota, and the rest of 21st Century Defense Security, who are all normal everyday office workers that are just as much a part of the fight as everyone else.

In team Dai-Guard you come for the Mecha fights, but you leave with a family.

This is actually my first review here, but I thought Daiguard was a pretty interesting anime to write about, even if it wasn't technically brilliant.

Perhaps an 8 is overstating the value here, as this show nothing spectacular, but does a few things well. Something that I quite appreciate is the treatment of the characters. They start out seeming fairly archetypical, but some realistic portrayal keeps them from becoming two-dimensional. Furthermore, they avoid several cliches, such as the leading female falling for the leading male.

The producers could have made this a very dark show, but despite the circumstances, everything remains somewhat happy-go-lucky. Actually, my initial ... impression was that this was a shameless Evangelion clone. This similarity however, is only skin-deep. The monsters may be interchangeable, but the story-telling and tone are completely different, as are the mechanical designs and level of violence. Even for 1999 the design of Daiguard seems a little dated, but this along with the PG action creates a somewhat nostalgic experience.

All the characters a very likable, and have surprising realism. I feel it would have been very easy for each of them to stick to their archetypes, but they all have a little depth and development, except perhaps for Akagi. Maybe I just feel this way because I'm a car nerd, but I think that even Aoyama's blue Impreza was a likable character. Unlike Ibuki's book, it's never introduced, talked about, or even really focused on, but it's always there. They could have given Aoyama something non-descript, easy-to-draw, but they chose this specific model of car, and I feel that adds something to the depth of Aoyama's character.

---Minor Spoilers---
I think my favorite piece of this puzzle though, is the lesson that anyone can be your ally. Shirota and Saeki, who are both introduced as unbearable assholes, eventually become very likable. Shirota may have even become one of my all time favorite characters. Even Busujima, playing the villian up until the last minute, is mentioned as siding with Shirota in the end.
---End Spoilers---

Overall, Daiguard is a pleasant experience, if not a completely novel one. If you want a mech anime that's more about the people than the fighting, and that leaves you feeling warm inside, watch Daiguard.