Gad Guard Volume One - Lightning (Animé
TV)
Picture: C+ Sound: B- Extras:
C Episodes: C+
Gad Guard, a recent
release by the creators of Last
Exile and Hellsing, shares a few of the
less favorable aspects of those two series, while still retaining some promise
of becoming a decent “good old-fashioned” superhero story.
The plot is
straightforward, at least thus far. In
the opening scenes, a terrified man is being chased; he’s trying to escape with
a locked box. It turns out to contain a
stone called a Gad, a blue cube with the ability to form an empathic bond and
turn into a Techode, a giant robot that can only be controlled by the will of
the person it’s bonded to. Unlike the
other Heavy Metals (larger giant robots that can be piloted by anyone), a Techode
is only useful to its owner. Everyone
seems to want a Gad, though, and that’s what leads to nearly every fight scene
in this show. The first Gad changes
hands a few times before it finally finds its way into the possession of the
main character, an adolescent delivery boy named Hajiki Sanada. Hajiki is mysteriously compelled to keep the
resulting Techode, although he does little with it other than evade attacks by
people who want it for themselves.
Other Techode owners are more inclined to use their machines for
vigilante-style justice.
The characters, as in most
anime during the first few episodes, are vaguely defined. It’s hard to overcome the fact that the
world is virtually populated by stock characters, all of whom have yet to be
rounded out. Hajiki is fatherless,
streetwise, and sullen. Hajiki’s mother
works in a restaurant, supporting Hajiki and his sister, and does little other
than cook and clean and fuss over her son, whenever he drags himself home. The main female character, a classmate of
Hajiki’s, seems like she’s fighting to keep herself in the story by popping up
wherever Hajiki goes. All of the
villains are – pardon the pun – cartoons.
The current “bad guys,” a league of bounty hunters, is a motley group of
bad stereotypes: the boisterous, crude cowboy, the supermodel vamp, the bald,
glasses-wearing scientist, and, of course, the Mysterious Bishonen. For those of you who are unfamiliar with
Japanese animation, a bishonen is, literally, a “pretty boy” – and apparently
someone’s learned that nothing sells a cartoon quicker than a dark, brooding,
ruthless bishonen. Even if no one has a
clue why he has such an attitude problem.
Or why a small child would follow him around begging him to play,
despite the fact that he’s attacked people mercilessly with an enormous robot
in broad daylight.
Okay, so this show’s
headed nowhere deep. But that doesn’t
mean it’s unredeemable, just that it’s less of a cohesive work of art than some
anime I’ve seen, and more of an episodic, comic book tale that borrows its look
and its sound from anywhere that strikes its fancy. The music is surprisingly good – stylistically reminiscent of the
soundtrack of Cowboy Bebop,
and well-matched to what’s on the screen.
As for visual design, the Techodes bring to mind a few earlier breeds of
mecha (giant robots), ones whose pilots rode on the outsides of their
machines. Gad Guard’s target audience is unclear. The almost Disney-esque Techodes, teenage
heroes, and simple do-good plots suggest that it’s aimed at a younger crowd,
while the unnecessary sexual antics of the antagonists would never make the cut
for daytime programming.
As in Hellsing, one of this series’
worst downfalls is its fluctuating animation quality. Most of the time, its animation is run-of-the-mill for a
television series. On a few rare
occasions, the fluid motion, dynamic angles, and even choice of palette are
successfully breathtaking. On other,
sadly more frequent, occasions, the animation takes a turn for the almost
comically inept: characters sport thick, black outlines, women’s overly-full
lips appear to float independently of their faces, and the poor locations of
people’s limbs and facial features challenge the basics of human anatomy. And, much like in Last Exile, the animators seem enamored of the “soft light”
effect. Ninety percent of the show
takes place out of focus, with some kind of computerized white blur used
alternately to represent sunlight, artificial light, and fog. It’s employed so often that it could easily
be headache-inducing. Fortunately, Gad Guard doesn’t share Last Exile’s tendency to computer-animate every mechanical object and
setting. The few CGI sequences in Gad Guard, mostly the transformations of Gads to Techodes, are mercifully
brief.
If you can get past the
picture quality, the simple characterization, the frequent lack of clear
motives, and the fact that there’s little rhyme or reason for some of the
writers’ choices – okay, so maybe the kids go to a Christian school, but is
there a reason why it’s in a
church? The show still makes for a nice
diversion. It helps to get into the
comic book mindset. Good guys are good,
just because; bad guys are bad, just because; and the good guys who were lucky
(or fated) enough to stumble upon the Gads will use their newfound Techode
powers for justice and defending the downtrodden . . . because that’s just what
good guys do.
- Anne Moffa
