MrMouse
Since: May, 2013
07/31/2013 00:00:00
"Most of the reviews here"
lol you mean mine?
And what do mean not properly noting? None of the reviews here were asking for a real super robot show. Heck, if you were talking 'bout mine, I was in favor of the real robot in real life show without the super robot ideals. Super robot ideals work in super robot shows because they are detached from reality, were hot bloodedness and never giving up can always win the day.
"robot is the only thing stopping the eeeeevil monsters from killing stuff" That's actually pretty much what it is, seeing as to there is somehow no equipment precise enough or other pilots competent enough to get the job done.
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A different view of a show that takes a different view to mecha.
Most of the reviews here on Dai-Guard are either scathing, pointing out all of the flaws of the show and very little of the good, or at the best somewhat negative, not properly noting what the show is about.
First, let's get this out of the way - going into Dai Guard and looking for a mecha show is a terrible idea. You don't get one. This show takes the old idea of "robot is the only thing stopping the eeeeevil monsters from killing stuff" and smashes it into every wall it can get to. In that, it actually reminds me more of Dancougar than any other show in the genre, except while Dancougar was a Super Robot show that had a Real setting, Dai Guard is more of a Real Robot show and setting with Super Robot characters and idealism - in a way, more like Nadesco than anything else (and yet very different from Nadesco.)
The first nine episodes (the first "arc") are about what you would expect out of the genre. Giant monster of the week shows up, Dai Guard shows up, stuff happens. Except it isn't just that. Episode Eight is entirely focused on the exploits of the team off the job, and even when the Heterodynes appear, it's less of a whole episode focus than it is part of a plot of an episode (which I'll get to later, because it applies more later.) The team may be "generic stereotypes", but their quirks and individual foibles are somewhat enjoyable, and since the show takes time to go through the lives of the characters, we see this out of them. Wheras most shows either have the characters as an extra piece of the mecha effectively (pretty much all classic series), have them not be explored as much (a lot of the rest), or focus on the characters only as something for conflict (some early Real shows, Ideon, Evangelion), this is rather refreshing.
Also of note is the Lensmen's Arms Race that goes on. Surprisingly, these episodes pretty much make all the weaponry that you'll see - the rarely used Net, the impractical yet situationally useful Drill, and the weapon that would become very important, the Knot Buster (which was only a prototype to later things) - and in the end, the "threat" of the monster is gone... setting up the second arc. More on that soon.