Yuusha Exkaiser

Ah, the series that started the whole Yuusha franchise... Yuusha Exkaiser is the 1st installment of the 8 Yuusha (Brave) series that have been released.

For those who don't know about the Yuusha series, here's some brief information on it. GaoGaiGar, being arguably the most well known out of them all, Yuusha series all involve giant transformable mechas (robots) that basically fight evil and save the world. Although they all have "Yuusha" in the title, they are not connected to each other story wise. Here are all the series listed chronologically.

1. Yuusha Exkaiser (1990)
2. Taiyou no Yuusha Fighbird (1991)
3. Densetsu no Yuusha Da Garn (1992)
4. Yuusha ... Tokkyuu Might Gaine (1993)
5. Yuusha Keisatsu J-Decker (1994)
6. Ougon Yuusha Goldran (1995)
7. Yuusha Shirei Dagwon (1996)
8. Yuusha Ou GaoGaiGar (1997)

You could say that I basically grew up watching the Yuusha series! I decided to write a review on Exkaiser first as although it's not a popular one, it is the one that started it all.


STORY

This series is aimed towards children. The episodes are not related to one another for the most part. Most episodes follow a same formula. I will not get into the specifics of the story as I don't want to spoil anything here, but basically, you could skip a couple episodes here and there and you really wouldn't be lost until you get to the later part of the series when the storyline really starts to count. If you try to have a marathon of some sorts, you might get kind of tired of it as it does kind of get repetitive.


ART

This is an old school anime. The transformation/combination scenes are still quite impressive, bust just don't have a high expectations. When you look at the character designs, there's definitely that 80's~90's feel to them. The characters designs remind me of Hayao Miyazaki’s characters. The animation’s nothing too extraordinary, but it really isn’t too bad if you think about when it came out and how many episodes there are. Now, the highlight of the series: the mechas! Many of them transform from vehicles to robots (should remind you of Transformers) and they combine to form bigger and more powerful robots. I’ve always loved combination sequences... The animation and art quality is much better in those scenes as they are reused. The mechas are quite nicely designed and although I would be biased in saying this, I do like them better than the Transformers franchise.


SOUND

Voice actings are well done as they are done nicely to fit into the show smoothly (kind of cheesy as the intended audience is children, but it’s not too terrible). The soundtrack’s quite nice and they kind of have that nostalgic feel to them. Unfortunately, the OP and ED songs stay the same all the way through the series, but it really wasn’t a huge factor for me. Basically, the music tracks are quite good and they fit the "good vs. evil" theme of the series.


CHARACTERS

The main characters of the show are a boy called, Kouta and a transformable car called, Exkaiser, who actually is a space police (don’t worry this is revealed in the beginning of episode 1). Kouta is a typical boy with good nature and Exkaiser has that perfect trait as a hero – a dedicated and an unshaken will to fight evil and protect others. I’ve felt that Kouta could’ve had a little more distinct personality rather than being a typical boy. There are other transformable mechas, some good, and some bad. From what I remember, no personalities were extreme or really unique, which was a little downer for me.


ENJOYMENT & FINAL THOUGHTS

This is one of the series that you should watch without huge expectations. It was worth watching for me, because it is the first Yuusha series. I’ve actually watched many of the later Yuusha series before watching this series. People who have little or no experience with older anime might find it a little difficult to keep watching, which is understandable. Still, if you're fan of the Yuusha (Brave) series, or just a mecha fan in general, this series is certainly worth taking a look.

First off, I've been a huge Transformers fan for my whole life, yet I had only a very vague knowledge about the existence of the Yuusha/Brave franchise until recently. I decided that, if I was going to get to know this franchise better, I should start from the very beginning, even though I really didn't expected much from Exkaiser exactly for being just the first series. I have to say, though, that this show really exceeded my expectations.

It is, of course, a very formulaic "monster-of-the-week"-style anime designed to sell some cool-looking robot toys to children at its core, but I believe the right way to ... look at it is by appreciating how exciting it gets every time the Kaisers (the heroes) show up to fight against the bad guys, and how lovable and funny all the human characters are without ever getting annoying or uninteresting.

One aspect that can throw some people off is just how absurdly stupid all the villains, called Geisters, can get all the time. They make any Decepticon ever (the villains from Transformers, just in case) look like an absolute evil mastermind in comparison. But, at least for me, their immense incompetence was also part of the fun of it all. They also get very creative with the wildly different monsters created by the main villains that appear during the course of each episode.

Basically what I'm trying to say here is that this show never gets boring because of the combination of all the elements I just mentioned. It could've been a tad shorter, sure, as it can get a little repetitive to see the exact same animations being reused over and over again, but it will never fail to pump your blood once that amazing rock'n'roll-like soundtrack starts playing while the robots transform and/or perform their strongest moves.

I was expecting something much more similar to the Transformers series that came right before it, such as The Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce and Victory, but what I got instead was a show that is actually much more fun to watch and has a much better pacing than all of those. I do like those series a lot as well, but they admittedly can get pretty bad at times, while Exkaiser never let's you down once you get in the right mood.

Simply put, this is a perfectly innocent show that does its job pretty decently. For anyone looking to have a nice time watching an old school, very well defined battle between "good vs. evil" with no real consequences other than learning about the value of goodness just for the sake of it, I highly recommend you to check this one out.

It also works pretty well as an introduction to the Yuusha/Brave franchise, as I am now a lot interested in checking out all the other series very soon. I hope that the next one doesn't disappoint me just as this one surely didn't!