Quick thoughts on GaoGaiGar and GaoGaiGar FINAL

Most of this was originally posted as a response to a question on Tumblr.

The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar is a cult classic super robot anime from 1997, and the final entry in the Brave franchise, which was kinda sorta a spinoff of Japan's version of Transformers. It whips ass. Except for the weird decision to include a lot of strobing effects that make the show require a serious epilepsy warning, I guess. GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences, and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

"Wow, cool robot," indeed. Can you blame me for immediately buying the Real Grade kits after finishing the series?

Due to the popularity of the series, a few years later it received a sequel OVA. But unlike the main show, The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL is the perfect level of quality to make it a total pain in the ass to decide whether or not I would recommend it. It’s not nearly bad enough to say you should just skip it as a fan of the original, and it definitely doesn’t ruin GaoGaiGar or anything, but it’s also not good enough to say it’s a must-see sequel to the original.

There IS a lot of good stuff in there. It’s fun to see the characters return, and they have a lot of fun (particularly in the first few episodes) riffing on the things you remember from the original show. It answers some lingering questions from the original series, in particular what actually happened to Kaidou and Soldato-J. And, of course, the robot fights continue to be very cool, if you wanna see more knock down drag out no holds barred super robot fights like the most beloved episodes of the original show.

But, as I’ve complained about a lot elsewhere on social media, it feels like they shoehorned in some uncharacteristically “mature” content that clashes with the kids’ show stuff. It never, ever misses a chance for a boob shot, and there are some weirdly dark moments that feel like surface level attempts to make the show more mature. (Much of this is apparently censored in the TV version, which I skipped because its additional connections to Betterman would have been meaningless to me.) A lot of this centers around the most significant new character, Renais, who gets a lot of screentime despite feeling like she doesn’t add much of value to the series. All this while still being a show where characters all but look directly into the camera and go “Kids at home, you too can do anything if you have courage, just like Guy.”

I think it also suffers because like… when you’re constantly trying to fire on all cylinders, to crank up the drama, to make almost every fight as Epic as ones like the battle with EI-01 or the showdown from the finale… you just kind of get desensitized to it? I think it retroactively proves that the monster of the week format was really valuable for the original show, making certain moments stand out way more when they shake up the familiar rhythm of the show. Same goes for elements like Mamoru’s silly little classmates and other civilian characters, who are largely sidelined - especially once the action leaves earth. That might not be “the cool stuff” to mecha fans, but the show hits different when the focus is shifted.

And I’m not crazy about the note it ends on, which tries to be a definitive but bittersweet ending while ALSO teasing that maybe it’ll get ANOTHER continuation someday, which I guess it did via the obscure GaoGaiGar vs. Betterman stuff as well as maybe some Super Robot Wars plots? I don't know. I kind of hate that the thing literally named “GaoGaiGar FINAL” ends with sequel bait.

But again, it’s not like I thought it was BAD. It just didn’t quite hit the same way that the original show did for me, even as someone who literally just watched both for the first time and as such isn’t speaking from a place of nostalgia. GaoGaiGar was a show that knew exactly what it was and had a lot of fun with it. GaoGaiGar final is a sequel that wanted to be something a little different and didn’t entirely succeed. But a lot of fans seem to hold FINAL in very high regard, so I might be an outlier here.