But despite its lack of availability besides YouTube clips and old DVDs, Garzey’s Wing is the anime disasterpiece that refuses to die. These days, anime that aired just months ago is inevitably swallowed by the next big thing. The chat was full of folks yelling “My sword is incredibly dull!” A brave soul out there has even devoted themselves to reading every volume of the original Garzey's Wing novel series in Japanese and summarizing their findings. At this year's online convention Anime Lockdown 2021, a whole hour was set aside to discuss the history of Garzey's Wing's production. It lives in the dub that brought us lines like: “You certainly got sexy!” It’s with the DVD menu, which cannot be described, merely witnessed. Tomino helped create Garzey’s Wing, but the legend of Garzey’s Wing transcends Tomino. Tomino himself has been brutally honest about what he sees as his past failures, perhaps even more so than those past “failures” really deserve.Īt the end of the day, auteur theory only goes so far. Having put countless long-running shows out the door for decades, I can’t begrudge the man for an off day. But following the tortured production of Victory Gundam, Tomino sunk into a deep depression. The novel series the story was based on must hold some cache for him, being set in his original setting of Byston Well. Garzey’s Wing’s production caught Yoshiyuki Tomino at a bad time. So while there are enough outright bonkers sequences in Garzey’s Wing to solidify its reputation among the bad anime classics, I won’t deny that some energy drained out of my friend's college dorm room in between the start and the finale. The animation isn’t spectacular but never descends into entertainingly poor draftsmanship like in Chargeman Ken or Musashi Gundoh. Despite the hilarious dubbing, the scenarios the characters fall into never escape fantasy boilerplate, closer in spirit to Dungeons and Dragons than The Eye of Argon. There are many other choice sequences throughout Garzey’s Wing - another fan favorite: “I must make sense of this convoluted situation!” - but a good amount of material following that incredible first episode is excruciatingly dull. The first ten minutes are packed with so many other fantastic lines, given unnatural life by the OVA’s infamously bad dub: “You’re so easygoing!” “Who are you, a damn ghost?” “Show me the ancient Japanese man’s spirit!” The cut from Chris yelling “What is going on?” to the revolutionaries shouting “Hahh!” makes me giggle every time. My favorite moment in perhaps the entire OVA is the abrupt transition between the hero Chris falling into Tomino’s fantasy universe Byston Well and a squad of revolutionaries jumping over a wall to attack a dinosaur. The first ten minutes of Garzey’s Wing is a descent into madness: motorcycles, the Shiratori shrine, a giant swan, fairies, nakedness. These qualities are well on display in Garzey’s Wing. But there are aspects of Tomino’s style that have been smoothed over in later Gundam projects - for instance, tin-eared dialogue and uneven pacing. The best of Tomino's work (like his masterpiece Turn A Gundam) remains essential viewing today, ripe for rediscovery and reinterpretation by old and new fans. Finally, you can’t discount the stubbornness that allowed Tomino to persevere over the decades, producing new work well into his old age. Second are the outrageously talented peers he was able to draw upon, like mechanical designer Kunio Okawara and animator Ichiro Itano. Mobile Suit Gundam, Zambot 3, and Space Runaway Ideon all sought to push the boundary of what was acceptable in shows designed to sell children robot toys. First and foremost is his ambition: to tell bigger, more complex stories than had been told before in anime. Yoshiyuki Tomino has many laudable qualities as a director. It’s the kind of bad anime only master director Yoshiyuki Tomino could create. Garzey’s Wing - the infamous three-episode OVA championed by folks like Justin Sevakis as one of the worst anime ever - is more than just another bad anime. Garzey’s Wing has all of Tomino’s weaknesses and none of his strengths.” After watching Garzey’s Wing together with him and some friends a few days later, I could only agree. Tomino has strengths and he has weaknesses. “The thing about Garzey’s Wing,” he said, “is that you can tell Tomino directed it. I say this to you so that you, dear reader, may understand his reaction when I asked my friend about Garzey’s Wing one day. He's even played through earlier Super Robot Wars titles in Japanese. He’s familiar with Aura Battler Dunbine and the rest of the Byston Well saga. His laptop’s background showed two dueling robots from Heavy Metal L-Gaim. A friend of mine from college is a big fan of Mobile Suit Gundam director Yoshiyuki Tomino.
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