tek's rating:

Android Kikaider: The Animation, on Kids Station
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Made in 2000, this is based on a tokusatsu series from the 70s. I haven't seen the tokusatsu series, and I'm not too interested in that kind of stuff, really. But the anime ain't too bad. The animation definitely has a 70s look to it, though it's also obviously more modern. Anyway, there was this roboticist named Dr. Komyoji who was forced to create monstrous robots for a villain named Professor Gill (who seems to be the head of a secret criminal organization called DARK). But Komyoji created an android, which can transform into a battle robot, in the hopes of stopping Professor Gill's evil. The good guys call this android Jiro, though the bad guys call him Kikaider.

In the first episode, Komyoji starts to activate Kikaider for the first time, but finds there is something wrong with his Gemini (conscience circuit). Just then, Gill's robots attack and destroy Komyoji's lab, and Gill kidnaps Komyoji. Later, Jiro is wandering around with no memories or understanding of what he is. Komyoji's daughter Mitsuko and young son Masaru find Jiro, and while Masaru thinks of him as a big brother, Mitsuko is troubled because she knows there's a problem with his Gemini and there's no way to fix it. Eventually she gets over that, though, and I guess she falls in love with Jiro. There's also a detective named Hattori, and his assistant, who Mitsuko hired to look for Jiro one time when he'd run away, and they remain involved even after he's found. There's also a robot called Saburo or Hakaider, who had been created to destroy Kikaider, though he wanted to do it his own way, ignoring Gill's orders.

Dunno what else to say right now, except that the show is rather somber, and that there's a major Pinocchio theme to it. Definitely has an introspective, philosophical element which seems to be common to a great deal of anime, though some series seem to do great with that and some do it very badly. This one seems okay for awhile, though at times it's kind of slow. Anyway, the first 12 episodes that Cartoon Network aired weren't bad, though I didn't exactly think the show was great, either. But the last 4 eps were a different story (from an OVA) with mostly different characters, and I thought these final episodes kind of sucked. They could lower my overall rating of the series, but I think I'd rather just ignore them.


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