Uchuu Senshi Baldios

Baldios is basically a string of tragedies born from human greed and ambition. If you like old school space dramas, the chances are that you will enjoy this. I found it to be on par with the original Yamato, and even better in some ways.

Like many shows of the era, it is heavily influenced by Uchuu Senkan Yamato. So much so that the plot of Baldios and the original Yamato are basically the same thing, with the only real differences being that the alien race isn't blue and there is mecha action involved. Well, there's a bit more to it than that, especially at the ... end, but the set up is almost identical.

The story is told at a mostly gripping pace. The first episodes are great and lock you in right away. Things inevitably slow down a bit, but there are some great two parters in there and overall I never felt like it came to a drag. The story is basically where this series is really going to shine. Trust and betrayal are a commonly occurring theme, as a big part of the show is about the struggle of the main character, Marin. He puts himself between a rock and a hard place as he decides to pilot the Baldios and fight against his own people on behalf of the people of Earth. The people of Earth are not very trusting of him though, including his own comrades, as he is one of the aliens. He goes through a lot of mental anguish over this and even goes back and forth between sides a bit. His motives and morality aren't really black and white, and he often succumbs to the overwhelming amount of stress put on him. He makes for an interesting, if not believable lead character, and is less one dimensional than the lead characters in these shows typically are.

The music is fantastic. Being the handiwork of Kentarou Haneda, this is no surprise. Although it's not his best work, it's still very good. His style and signature guitar riffs permeate all throughout the series and truly make up much of the personality of the show. It wouldn't be the same without him. There are great insert songs as well, with the most memorable one being a Isao Taira (Ideon, Bryger, Daiohja) tune. The show was produced in the early 80s, but for the most part it looks (and feels) like it's straight out of the 70s. There isn't much that is remarkable about the art, you can pretty much assume what to expect if you've seen an Ashi/Reed show or any old mecha.

One particularly weird thing about this show is the mecha elements. They are extremely tacked on. This show could easily exist without any mecha stuff, and whenever it comes up it feels forced. It really doesn't come up much to be honest though, and there are entire episodes with no mecha action. The beginning is a bit misleading with this. It feels like they wanted to make the mecha stuff feel important, but ultimately the emphasis put on the Baldios machine is all but completely dropped after the first half dozen episodes. You won't be coming out of this with many memories of the mecha using signature attacks and poses. Baldios certainly looks awesome though.

The production history for Baldios is a bit wonky. According to whatever info I could dig up (there isn't much), this is yet another cancelled series. The show was originally planned to have 39 episodes, or at least storyboards were conceived for 39 episodes. Only 34 episodes were produced, and 31 of those episodes actually aired. When the series was released on video, all 34 episodes were included though. If the movie is the canon ending, then episode 34 is not canon. It is basically a completely different ending, that is simplistic and leaves important questions unanswered. It is probably the result of a rush job/cancellation. The movie does some recap, but essentially picks up at the end of the huge cliffhanger in episode 33.

As for the movie itself, there are already some good reviews on it. It's great, and the best part of the entire experience. The grim atmosphere is at its most oppressive and the harsh reality of what has been going on is finally set in stone, and we watch everything crumble and hope completely fade. It's a powerful ending, and likely one you won't forget. I wouldn't really advise skipping the series if you want the full experience, as the characterization in the movie (recap parts) is weak, and not a very good substitute for the series. The recap parts also feel very janky and random, unfortunately. The new content in the movie though, is all excellent. Lastly, there are several versions of the movie. There is a lot of blood and violence, and it seems that most versions are edited. You'll want to watch the Japanese version if you want to see the original movie.

Space Warrior Baldios is an anime TV series that originally aired from 1980 to 1981. At this time, the super robot genre from the 1970s was still raging on, and at first glance, Baldios looks to be yet another one of those shows. Three separate fighter crafts combine to form the titular mecha, which was quite the standard at the time. The well-known Mobile Suit Gundam, which premiered a year before hadn’t yet had have enough of a ripple effect on the industry to firmly establish the “real robot” genre. Despite this, Baldios does a fairly good job at distinguishing itself for the time.

Baldios begins ... on the planet S-1. Hopelessly polluted, the leaders of S-1 have two choices, either go along with military leader Gattler, who seeks to invade and take over another, less polluted planet, or the scientific community, led by Dr. Reigan, who are working on a device that they hope can help repair the environment. Gattler stages a military coup where S-1’s emperor is killed and he imposes himself as leader (or “fuhrer” as stated in the official US subtitles). Dr. Reigan is soon killed as well and his son, Marin is forced to flee in the craft Pulseburn. Gattler leads S-1’s populace and military forces, known as Aldebaran to space and Marin’s craft warps along with them to Earth.

Gattler puts top underling, Aphrodia, in charge of Aldebaran’s forces as it seeks to take over Earth. Aphrodia has a personal grudge with Marin, who killed her brother while seeking escape. Marin makes his way down to Earth and becomes a key part of the Blue Fixer organization, the main force fighting off Aldebaran. Although initially doubted as an alien invader, Marin becomes a key part of Blue Fixer, who soon create the Baldios robot as their main fighting force.

With the main narrative established, Baldios settles into its groove. Each episode tends to feature Aphrodia and the Aldebaran forces launching a new attempt to defeat Blue Fixer and take over Earth. And while the show is made up of mostly stand-alone episodes (with the occasional two—parter), it does a fairly good job at providing us with entertaining and non-repetitive storylines. In fact the mecha action of the show seems to take a back seat and is not a major part of each episode (although they do find a way to fit in the Baldios combining sequence in pretty much every episode). The character development of the show is fairly strong. Along with Marin, there’s approximately a half dozen central characters in the Blue Fixer organization and each gets some room for development and growth with their own focused episodes. Things rarely feel stale or repetitive. We also have several episodes that eschew the formula and focus largely on the Aldebaran side of things. While Gattler is pure evil, Aldebaran has several good people with in it as well and we meet several sympathetic characters in its ranks. Aphrodia gets a fair amount of development and it is interesting to see her views on Marin soften as the series goes on.

Technically, the series is never going to really impress. The character animation is rather shoddy, the music is repetitive and the mecha design is nothing special. Technically, other shows of the same era like Gundam and Ideon outshine it here. Yet the story and characters more than make up for it.

Things move to a head as we near the end of the show. The attacks by Aldebaran get more and more fierce, to a level where Gattler doesn’t care how much he environmentally damages the planet he is hoping to move his followers to. The show ends very abruptly (in the middle of a 2-parter in fact), and quite grimly. From what I have read, the show was cancelled, originally planning on 39 episodes, but only 31 got to air. This clearly shows. The recent US bluray release features 3 more episodes that were produced, one which acts as the penultimate episode and the latter 2 which take place after the aired finale and continue things. Although they don’t fully conclude the storyline they do feature a major plot twist which while shocking is also quite fitting. In order to see the complete ending, one will have to resort to the movie, which as of this writing I have yet to see.

Anyway, for ones who like mecha/sci-fi shows, and anime from the late 70’s and early 80’s, this show is worth the experience and comes highly recommended.

Space Warrior Baldios was a 1980s entry in the "super robot" mecha genre focused on the settlers of the ravaged planet S-1, who choose to invade and attempt to conquer Earth as their new home world following a military coup organized by the military fanatic Zeo Gattler. One of the S-1 residents, Marin Reigan, is opposed to Gattler's plans following his father's murder during the coup and allies with the human members of the military organization Blue Fixer to combat them. Using the technology of his spaceship, Blue Fixer are able to use it to form the mecha Baldios to combat the threat from Gattler ... and his regime.

Much like several of famous Gundam director Yoshiyuki Tomino's mecha titles of the time period, Baldios carries a somber and bleak tone in focusing on the conflict between S-1 and Blue Fixer over the Earth's fate. There is a good deal of destruction and a high kill count that unfolds throughout the anime's run to show how conflicts such as war can lead to pointless death and destruction of all that we would care for. This is best reflected in Gattler's regime, as his single-minded desire to conquer Earth at any cost prevents him from realizing that he is leading Earth down the same path of destruction that led his home world of S-1 to the state that it was left in. As the series progresses, attacks from S-1 grow more merciless and causes friction internally within the military's ranks as the war between S-1 and Earth drags out. While the regime is mostly depicted as ruthless in their goals, some characters in their ranks are depicted in a more sympathetic light. This is most notably depicted with Gattler's second-in-command, Aphrodia, who is shown to gradually become more conflicted in her thoughts of Marin and her loyalty toward Gattler as episodes in the series progress.

Outside of the anime's focus on the conflict between S-1 and Earth, Baldios also devotes time to exploring the personal lives of several of its major characters and how each are affected by the ongoing conflict. The various members of Blue Fixer have varying circumstances within their personal lives which affects them and that specific episodes within the series are devoted to exploring, particularly when an S-1 attack affects an element to said character's personal life. Marin also gets focus at a number of points in Baldios as he deals with prejudice from humanity at first for assuming he's a spy for S-1 and the hard decisions he is forced to make to ensure Earth's prosperity against his own race. For an early 80s mecha anime ran in a somewhat episodic format, Baldios is surprisingly solid with exploring how each of its characters are impacted by the conflict between S-1 and Earth.

Praises aside, Baldios isn't without its issues. Due to the series being abruptly cancelled due to low TV ratings during its original airing, Baldios does lack a conclusive ending as it ends during a rather major point in the anime's ongoing conflict. While there was a compilation movie for Baldios that later came out to provide a proper conclusion to the series, said conclusion did alter some plot elements from the TV anime that affect its consistency with some plot details.

The presentation for the series hasn't aged too well as the animation is rather rough to look at compared to modern titles and there are a good deal of animation shortcuts employed throughout its run. Plus, the anime's soundtrack is rather underwhelming at a number of points with properly conveying mood during key scenes. There are a couple lyrical tracks that do well at conveying a melancholic mood with Baldios' developments, but the frequency of their use does get repetitive over time.

The final issue stems from the titular mecha of the series. While many mech titles of the era prominently featured their mecha as a vital part of their premises, the presence of the Baldios mecha felt largely unnecessary throughout the show's run as any conflict it gets used in largely plays second fiddle to the anime's focus on exploring its characters and how Earth is affected by S-1's attacks. Some episodes of the series don't even feature Baldios, as the series is instead focused on exploring a plot element occurring with the conflict or the show's characters.

These hiccups aside, Baldios is a solid entry in the mecha genre for its time period that depicts the brutality of war and how those involved in the war between S-1 and Earth are affected by the increased brutality of the conflict. If you're a fan of old-school mecha titles, I'd at least recommend checking out the series at least once.

In short, Baldios is like what happens when Grendizer and Layzner make a baby.

Baldios tells the story of Marin, who left his planet fleeing from a traitor Hitler-like bad guy called Gattler, who killed Marin's father and the planet leader just to overtake command and invade other planets.
both Marin and Gattler forces leave the dying S-1 planet and accidentally stumble upon the earth with Marin deciding to help Earthlings while Gattler deciding to invade Earth.

I came to this show not expecting much since it looked cheap and kinda generic at first but surprisingly, it had interesting new ideas, good character development, and tragic moments.

The animations, ... however, are pretty bad and might send people off but for those who don't mind (like Gundam 0079 animations) won't have much trouble enjoying this series.

What I liked the most about this show is how the bad guys don't rely on their mechs all the time like in other super robot shows, but they even plan disasters like floods, poison crops to make people starve to death, mess with other planets to hurt Earth's gravity, etc... it's pretty much a series of brutal disasters.

It also has a nice touch of random background characters contributing to the drama like how some of the good guys base employees try to threaten Marin for being an alien whenever they feel desperate to save their families.

Since this show is canceled, the show ends with a cliffhanger but luckily there's a movie to fill in the ending.

Overall, I give this show a 8/10 for having great drama, new ideas, and for its brutal nature. (it's a low-key kill 'em all show like Ideon)

If you like vintage super robot shows regardless of animations quality, you will like Baldios.