Gravion - Volume 1

If The Princess Bride can have it's ROUS's (Rodents of Unusual Size) then Gravion can have it's BOUS's (Breasts of Unusual Size). I'm hardly complaining, in both movies each plot element was a vital aspect of the storyline, character development and overall feel of the film. OK, maybe that doesn't apply to BOUS in Gravion, but they're there in your face all the same.

STATUS CLITICAL!!!

A term has been coined in the Anime community, "Fanservice", referring to gratuitous scenes or single shots of a softcore nature. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give Gravion a Fanservice rating of 4, thanks mainly to the Character Mizuki and the inexplicable presence of French maids in Sandman’s castle.

"On the eve of an invasion by a soulless army of robots known as the Zervire, the enigmatic billionaire known as Sandman gathers the world's leaders at his castle to unveil the ultimate weapon that is Earth's last hope, a gravity-powered god of circuits and steel called Gravion!"

The star of the series is of course Gravion, the metal robogod designed to protect the earth from the evil Zervire, but there are a cast of other characters, mostly orphaned teenagers, with a power known as G-factor which enables them to pilot parts of Gravion to full deadly effect. G-factor? Voluptuous breasts? Must quell thoughts, it's a cartoon dammit.

"All Most Danger"

The first volume contains 5 episodes of the 13 episode series, clocking in at 22 minutes per episode. In the first episode we meet the Gran Knights:

Sandman
Sandman is a golden eyed, mysterious billionaire and creator of Gravion and the Gran Knights.

Eiji
Eiji was tricked into becoming part of the Gran Knights after the disappearance of his sister (who was also a member), but has become a valuable member if a little bit of a cowboy. Eiji pilots the Gran Diva G-Attacker, a highly mobile and agile attack fighter (and Gravion's right leg)

Toga
Orphaned as a baby, Toga has been under the care of Sandman for as long as he can remember. Trained to handle the mighty Gran Kaiser mech from an early age he is the ultimate warrior and a killing machine without a concience. The Gran Kaiser is the core unit of Gravion, armed with only melee weapons Toga must pilot Gran Kaiser into close range until he can combine into the mighty war machine Gravion by combining all the other Gran Diva units.

Luna
Her father was recently killed fighting as one of Sandman's top Lieutenants so Sandman has taken her in and she now pilots Gran Diva G-Driller with Ena.

Mizuki
Mizuki is the only female adult member of the Gran Knights; she is as mysterious as she is beautiful. An accomplished martial artist she pilots Gran Dvia G-Striker, the agile and powerful jet fighter (and Gravion's left leg).

Ena
A kind hearted girl and head maid of the Sandman's castle, she also co-pilots Gran Diva G-Driller with Luna.

BOUS, GROUSE!

Leele
Leele has an extremely powerful G-factor rivaling that of even Toga, and as such, she was selected to join the Gran Knights as the pilot of the mysterious G-Shadow stealth bomber.

Volume one is packaged as either a single disc or a disc in a collectors box (with space for the remaining volumes), so you can continue to buy the volumes and eventually form a box set. Great news for fans (or future fans) is that a second series is also in the making.

Disapointingly, Gravion is presented in 1.33:1 full frame aspect. For a modern animated series I would expect a 16:9 anamorphic transfer but you can't have it all. The picture is spotless, most animation looks particularly good on my projector and Gravion, while simple and low on detail, is no exception.

All 5 episodes in volume 1 are presented in either Japanese Prologic 2.0 or English dubbed Dolby Digital 5.1. I would suggest it is a personal choice about which track to listen to. For the purists, the Japanese original is the obvious choice (with subtitles) and for the rest the English language track, although the English dubbing has been done very well and doesn't detract from the experience at all. I’m a bit confused as to why the Japanese track is not a 2.0 mix and it definitely suffers from not being 5.1.

Hey, who died?

I watched Volume 1 almost exclusively using the 5.1 sountrack so the following comments apply mainly to that format. Excellent use of center channel produces crystal clear dialog in either language and as you would expect. The subwoofer also gets a decent workout with music, explosions and various other battle sounds although at times it seemed unnatural and misplaced. The surround channels are also used to produce an effect giving the listener an all around experience.

Subtitles are available in English, it's interesting to turn the subtitles on with the English soundtrack and watch as you realise that they show only a passing resemblance to what is actually being spoken.

More BOUS than you can poke a stick at.

The extras are listed as:

Japanese Trailer
Just as it sounds, a trailer used to promote the series on Japanese television.

Design Sketches
A series of design and concept sketches in the usual slideshow format.

Textless Opening / Closing
The into and outro of the show, presented without the credits scrolling by.

Madman Propoganda
A number of trailers for other Madman distributed shows, namely Infinite Ryvius, .hack//Legend of Twilight, Voltron and GAD GUARD.

Never let your hand towel touch water, good advice.

Gravion has all the elements of great Anime, gigantic robots, space battles, voluptuous scantly clad women, tough guys, cutesy innocent girls, big guns, evil aliens, did I mention voluptuous scantly clad women? Unfortunately it falls short in a number of areas, mainly the animation, which is mostly oversimplified cel shading as well as originality, which it sorely lacks in. We've seen the story of gigantic robots and quirky teenagers too many times before.

Produced by Gonzo, a studio responsible for well known series such as Full Metal Panic!, Hellsing and Vandread I expected more from Gravion. Unfortunately the recycled "giant assembled robot" theme, which has been done a million times before, seems old and tired here even if you view Gravion as a bit of a parody on the genre.

Despite this, Gravion is an action packed and engaging enough story (if not completely original), I enjoyed it for it’s light hearted and fun feel, but I confess to not being an overly critical hardcore anime fan so your mileage may vary.