"Operator 7-G, please respond!"
Teenager Shogo Yahagi is a motorcycle nut with few cares in the world; he and his friends do little more than ride around and have fun. This all changes when one of his older friends leaves a mysterious, incredibly-advanced motorcycle called the Bahamut in Shogo's possession. The Bahamut is far more than it seems, and a mysterious cabal of
men in black seems willing to do anything to get it back. Soon, Shogo discovers some of the secrets hidden in the Bahamut, and it leads him to even more — secrets that will completely change his understanding of the world he lives in.
Now if only he and his friends can survive his discoveries...
Released somewhere around 1986,
Megazone 23 is historically signficant for being one of the very first
OVAs and also was one of the first anime to extensively interweave music with the plot. The story itself was a mindbender at the time, and is a forerunner of such later American works as
The Matrix and
Dark City. Since then, the plot twists and the character types have become standard in anime, almost cliche in some instances, but as a certified classic it is still worth seeing.
The original American distributions of
Megazone 23 were anything but impressive. It was briefly released in North America by Harmony Gold as
Robotech the Movie. Carl Macek crudely spliced in footage from
Robotech to force a linkage between the two shows, and of course the
usual Macek dub script was conjured up out of nothing to replace the original dialogue. Macek and Harmony Gold also produced a dub of
Part 2 (with a different cast and set of character names), which was only released in Japan as an aid for teaching English. (It also used footage of the alternate ending for
Part 1 that was produced for the Robotech movie as a prologue).
Streamline Pictures later produced a straight dub of Part 1 with the same cast as the International Part 2 (but Japanese character names), but couldn't release Parts 2 and 3 due to their financial problems and inevitable shutdown. Later,
Manga Entertainment released an un-butchered version of Part 3 for the UK on VHS, but the result, reportedly, was still horrendous.
For decades, only bootleg
fansubs of the original show were available in America, but it was rereleased with a new English dub in the summer of 2004 by
ADV Films.
Megazone 23 was revived in 2007 with a Playstation 3 RPG game,
Blue Garland; the game takes place in an
Alternate Continuity that diverges after
Part I, and revolves around Hiroto Takanaka,
the son of heroine Yui.
Not to be confused with
MegaZone.
* Brian Bikowicz, the co-author of
Undocumented Features, legally changed his name to MegaZone because he was such a big fan of this anime.
This show provides examples of:
- Adam and Eve Plot: Eve's interest in Shogo turns out to be in determining whether his love for Yui, and to a lesser extent his concern for his friends, might make them all candidates for repopulating earth after A.D.A.M. destroys the Megazone.
- All Bikers Are Hells Angels: Averted in the beginning of Part I, where Shogo and his friends are completely harmless enthusiasts (though Shogo likes to pull off crazy stunts), but played straight in Part II with the bosozoku gang Shogo and Yui join up with.
- All There in the Manual: There is an unbelievable amount of information out there that isn't even hinted at in the released episodes. For instance, the identity and history of the enemy, why the deserted levels of Megazone 23 where B.D.'s forces hid from Bahamut existed, et cetera. This is to be expected since the first OVA was a compilation of animation from a scrapped TV series.
- Almost Lethal Weapons
- Art Shift: Most obvious between Parts I and II, which feature the same characters. Eve stays almost exactly the same, however.
- Bland Name Product: A fairly notable aversion - brand names are used very regularly. When's the last time you saw a for real Coca-Cola can in an anime, honestly?
- Bloodier and Gorier/Hotter and Sexier: While the first OVA was hardly kid friendly, featuring its fair share of nudity and some scenes of gore, the second OVA absolutely demolished the first in those areas. The second OVA was filled to the brim with graphic depictions of extreme gore and bloodshed that would make Quentin Tarantino orgasm, and speaking of orgasms, the women in the second OVA were so sexed up that one couldn't go a full five minutes without a slipped nipple. And that isn't even getting into Yui and Shogo's completely-gratuitous sex scene and the sequence of Yui and the female gang members in the shower.
- Bolivian Army Ending: How Part II ends for B.D. and what's left of the Army
- Burger Fool: Shogo's day job.
- Casting Couch: Aspiring dancer Yui isn't above resorting to this for the sake of her career. Shogo isn't above using his Garland to "rescue" her before anything happens.
- Chase Scene
- City in a Bottle
- Combat Tentacles
- Cool Bike: The Garlands
- Cyber Punk
- Decoy Getaway: "Who? WHO did you say? Johnny... Winters? So sorry, I DON'T KNOW THE GUY! [Laughs]" (From the Harmony Gold dub of Part II.)
- Even in the new dub, the line's pretty narmy. "Huh? Yahagi? Sorry, pal, WRONG ASSHOLE!"
- Defictionalization: So now Virtual Idols like Eve actually exist, huh?
- Did Not Do The Bloody Research - the video game "Hard On". *snicker*
- Disney Death
- Distressed Damsel
- Downer Ending: To Part 1 — after Storming The Castle, Shogo is soundly defeated by B.D., who decides that he's Not Worth Killing - or thinks he's dead but doesn't even care enough to check.
- The Dragon: B.D.
- Earth That Was: The Megazone ships were sent away to preserve humanity while giving a ruined Earth time to heal.
- Evil Diva: Arguably, Eve.
- Evil Minions
- Eye Scream: The aliens in Part II love doing this to people. The very first guy they kill gets his eye popped straight out of his head and it gets better/worse from there.
- Face Heel Turn: Shogo became Bishop Won Dai
- Fanservice: Shogo and Yui's sex scene in Part I serves only to provide eye candy while Shogo delivers a big load of Expo Speak in voiceover. Conversely, their sex scene in Part II is completely gratuitous, just like the violence.
- Fanservice Pack: Inverted in Part II — Yui's still cute and all, but she's got absolutely nothing on the Yui in Part I.
- Fighter Launching Sequence
- Fountain of Youth: In part II, B.D. looks at least ten years younger than his part I self. And is also more buff.
- Generation Ship
- Gorn: Part II is pure Gorn.
- Government Conspiracy
- Gratuitous English: the video game "Hard On"
- Heel Face Turn: In Part 3, Eiji switches from E=X to Sion's side
- Humanity on Trial: The effective purpose of Eve's talk with Shogo about life, the universe, and everything in Part II.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Intentionally done by the Orange corporation in Part III.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: When Shogo first drives off with the Garland, the enemies get a nice tight grouping of bullets on everything to the side of him.
- Important Haircut: Yui gets one, along with trying to Take a Level in Badass, while trying to rekindle her relationship with Shogo in Part II.
- It's Personal: In Part II, since B.D. framed Shogo for Tomomi's murder.
- Knife Nut: Eiji Takanaka's fighting style while in a Garland
- Left for Dead: At the end of Part I, B.D. gives Shogo the beating of his life - and doesn't even bother to see if he's alive before he leaves.
- Ludicrous Gibs: See Combat Tentacles.
- Macross Missile Massacre: used by the Army in Part I against the alien threat with dubious results.
- Magical Security Cam
- Mega Corp: E=X and Orange are the main rival corporations in Part 3
- Mini Mecha: The Maneuver Slaves.
- The Masquerade
- The Men In Black
- My Nayme Is: The title was once commonly transliterated as Megazone Two-Three, and may have originated with the Robotech fandom. Carl Macek was known to use this title when discussing the film. The actual title is an indirect reference to the 23 districts of Tokyo.
- The title of the series in rendered in Katakana as "Megazon Tsu Suri", So "Megazone Two Three" IS the intended pronunciation. Has nothing to do with fandom or Macek (thank God).
- New Eden: What Earth became after humanity left for 500 years.
- Ontological Mystery
- Phlebotinum Rebel: Shogo Yahagi and the Bahamut.
- Real Men Wear Pink: The crazy badass bikers love bubblegum pop star Eve.
- Road Block
- Roboteching
- Robot Girl
- Shōnen
- Shout Out/Cultural Cross Reference: The Silverhawks and Thundercats pinball machines in Part II.
- Sparkling Stream of Tears
- Super Robot Wars: Appears in Super Robot Wars D.
- Fix Fic: This version follows the plot of Parts I and II (putting the "Trash" gang On A Bus), until Eve sends the entire Megazone to another dimension to keep ADAM from destroying everything.
- Stuff Blowing Up
- Time Skip: Between Parts 2 and 3.
- And to a much lesser extent, between parts 1 and 2, with a gap of only about six months.
- Took a Level in Badass: Shogo starts out as a hapless twentysomething nobody. Then he gets a superbike that turns into a robot. Then he becomes and outlaw and starts hobnobbing with dangerous lunatics.
- Totally Radical: Done deliberately in the new dub, mainly because it fits completely with the faux-80s setting.
- Transforming Mecha
- Unexplained Recovery: At the end of Part 2, the bike gang members who were previously shown getting knocked off their bikes, shot up, and otherwise (apparently) dispatched by the baddies in various ways show up almost entirely intact with a few bandages on them. No explanation is provided.
- Virtual Celebrity: Eve Tokimatsuri
- Wave Motion Gun / Chest Blaster: One of the enemy Garlands has this in Part 3 and it is also something that Eiji may Attack Its Weak Point For Massive Damage
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