They Shouldn't Have That Much Fluid In Their Whole Bodies

Recently, my sister and I watched the complete DVD release of Teknoman, a series which I'd only ever seen an even-more truncated version of. (Teknoman is an adaptation of Tekkaman Blade, which was, or so I've read, 49 episodes. The Teknoman dub that aired in the United States was only 26 episodes. The longer international dub, which is the basis for the DVD release, is 43. Incidentally, if you check the labels, I've actually talked about this series a fair bit.)

Curious to see if there was anything else to see, I naturally scoured YouTube, which usually at least has some kind of information on the subject. I already knew about Tekkaman Blade II, which by most accounts is off-putting to American audiences, but I kept hearing about other material.

Eventually, I found that there were three "specials" or OVAs related to the series.

One, "Missing Link," was actually a trailer for a longer OVA that never got made, and wasn't much worth watching. Another, "Burning Clock," was a completely ridiculous emo character scene/reinterpretation, which was distressing to watch because a character watches his mother burn to death in front of him, and then her charred body somehow continues standing and starts falling apart afterwards.

The last one (as listed arbitrarily by me), "Twin Blood," was better, admittedly mostly because the bar was low, but also because in its own way it was actually pretty awesome.

(WARNING: Pretty mindlessly violent and gruesome.)



Intense violence? Sure. I can't really say I much care for that aspect of it, although the fountain of blood when Blade gets impaled is kind of hilarious.

Completely inconsistent with the series? Yeah. It reminds me of the Escaflowne movie, which my sister describes as "totally spoiler-free, if you're interested in watching the series later."

Cool anyway? Of course. I do have to admit that the character animation from the original series wasn't always terribly dynamic, and the designs here actually sort of make more sense than what was in the series. (The characters were transformed into superhumans by aliens; the aliens were always depicted as entirely organic, which makes the Tekkamen's obviously technological forms a bit odd if you bother thinking about it.)

So, yeah, worth watching for the cool fight and especially the animation.

The only other part of the "Tekkaman Blade Specials" that is remotely worthwhile, in my opinion, is a line from "Missing Link" which is made completely ridiculous by context: A character is having sex (or trying to, anyway) with Blade, and screams "You call yourself the hero of the Solar System?!" apparently because she's disappointed (in context, it looked like he was disinterested because of depression). And that's not because it's good, it's because it's so bad it's hilarious. (That's also why I didn't bother linking anything for that video.)

-Signing off.

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS THE SPACE KNIGHT

I used to think that Rom from Marvel Comics was the talkiest space knight ever.



I was wrong.

-Signing off.

VOLTEKKAAAA

They call it the attack/shout that breaks the microphone. (I don't particularly know why; it's probably a memetic thing that has to do with the series.)



Incidentally, he's shooting down a nuclear missile the size of a football stadium.

When it comes to flashy anime/video game attacks, nobody outside of Super Robot Wars does it quite like Tekkaman Blade. (And since he's been in at least one Super Robot Wars game...)

What makes this even funnier is that the other Tekkaman can Voltekker/Voltekka as well, but his is usually less impressive.



And gives him a headache.



And they deal billions of damage in combo attacks.

-Signing off.

Super Robots Enjoy Messing Guys Up

Here's Vaikanfu/Baikanfu, a super robot from one of Japan's Machine Robo (i.e. Gobots) anime.



Things that aren't clear from this clip alone:
-The robot's "pilot" is actually an android, and so is that chick who nearly falls into a crevasse, and so is the pilot's father (the spectral image who talks to him). For that matter, the cyborg dragon monster thing is probably a robot too.
-The hero's name is apparently Rom. (Obviously, no, not that Rom.)
-The "attack" that let Vaikanfu/Baikanfu rip out the heart of his enemy is actually a simple (albeit absurdly powerful) "martial arts move" instead of, well, something else, and Rom learned it from his father.

It's interesting to note that the earlier super robot, Gold Raitan Lightan used a similar "finishing move" and that the later and considerably more famous super robot, GaoGaiGar, would also use a variation on the idea (this time with two hands) to finish off its enemies.

The key difference with GaoGaiGar, and one that I think is brilliant, is that GaoGaiGar's "finisher" was actually what one might call extremely brutal (but still ultimately beneficial) intervention. How could ripping out an enemy's heart be helpful?

Because the enemy's heart (or core, in this case) is actually an innocent human being who needs to be rescued. (It's a bit of a long story. Short version: Innocent human beings get corrupted by magic metal from space, which transforms them into monsters called Zonders, who build bodies for themselves out of local machinery and structures. And the only way to stop these Zonders is with giant robots that tear their hearts out.) I even find that kind of touching, honestly.

-Signing off.

ROM, Spaceknight: The Commercial

(I just figured out my 700th post was Spider Plus Mummy. Fitting.

Also, I don't know what butthead designed this keyboard, but why did the Insert key get moved up out of reach of my fingers? I use that key a lot.)

This commercial is totally rad. (Wait, since when do I use the word rad?)



That is all. (Unless you want to look at my past "space knight" posts. Just click the label. You know you want to...)

-Signing off.

Space Knights vs. Sequels

I've talked a fair amount about space knights as a concept in the past; now, with Siskoid drawing near the end of his Spaceknight Saturdays, this seems as good a time as any to revisit the notion briefly.

As observed in this post, it is interesting to note that the "sequel" Galadorian spaceknights (within the context of continuity, the third generation of spaceknights) are able to transform back and forth much as their Japanese cousins from the Tekkaman series do. (In Siskoid's words, "I guess Rom didn't want anyone to lose their humanity ever again. Those things are so easily mislaid, stolen or destroyed." Yes, it was a plot point of sorts.) Considering there appears to be a moderately significant anime influence on the art, it is possible that this was intentional; it could also just be the influence of series like Power Rangers. There's no way to know for sure.

Anyway, the 2000 Spaceknights series was generally considered to be a bomb of a series. It didn't do well, and the writer admitted the only reason he was involved in the project was because he wanted money to spend on his boat. As it happens, there was a similar issue (sequel fatigue, that is) with Tekkaman/Teknoman.

I should clarify-Tekkaman Blade/Teknoman was not a sequel to the original; it was more of a remake/spiritual successor. It certainly wasn't even close to being "in continuity" with its predecessor. No, we're talking about Tekkaman Blade's sequel, which was reasonably popular in Japan, but which most Western fans hated with a passion.

Here is a passage from Wikipedia, of all supposedly neutral places, which has remained unaltered for at least half a year, probably more, on the subject of Tekkaman Blade II.

He also appears to be less charismatic and less experienced in martial arts combat th[a]n he was in original Tekkaman Blade w[h]ere he defeats many elite fully-fledged Tekkamen including: "Tekkaman Axe" his Master Martial Artist instructor, "Tekkaman Lance" a Super Human Tekkaman, "Tekkaman Evil" his twin brother, and Tekkaman Omega his eldest brother who is a "Tekkaman Warlord". In this he is seen struggling to keep up with "Dead End" an enraged Transvestite who steals a Radam Tekkaplant and becomes a Tekkaman, he does not display the ability to become a Blaster Tekkaman anymore, but his former 30 minute time limit seems to have also expired.

If you can't detect the poorly concealed fanboy rage (bolded text added for some emphasis) in the above paragraph, you have no subtlety. It should also be noted that not one or even several of the various protagonists introduced within the OVA were able to defeat Dead End, and it ultimately still fell to D-Boy/Slade/Blade (the character the above passage is referring to) to win the battle. Not only that, but Dead End had a cheaty hax power: He could absorb Voltekkers/Teknobombs and use them to power up his own Voltekkers; this is a big deal, as the Tekkaman Blade Voltekkers are devastating. Furthermore, the trick didn't work twice; the next time Dead End used it on him, he copied the maneuver somehow, and totally blasted him with it.

It is rather interesting to note that, in both sequels, the problems they suffer seem to have much to do with disconnects between the "source" material and their own contents. (That, and in the case of Tekkaman Blade II, the weird obsession with sex, which when you consider the magical naked transformations and the high female proportion of the cast, was apparently inevitable.) Neither series had exhausted its idea potential (at least not completely); someone had just stopped caring in the board rooms.

-Signing off.

Cartoon Profiles: Silverhawks

Silverhawks was one of a number of '80s era cartoons that people still sometimes talk about. Produced by Rankin/Bass (which made a bunch of old Christmas specials including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman), it was considered more or less the spiritual successor of the slightly earlier cartoon of mostly similar nature, Thundercats, which is a tad more well-known.


The main reason I remember this series, the only reason it made as strong an impression on me as it did, is because I really like the animation. It's nice. (My sister comments that it animates shiny stuff the same way '80s anime does-i.e. the right way. She also says she likes they way they draw hands.)

However, the series itself does bear some discussion, and it'd be really dumb for me to do this post and not talk about how cracky it was.

Silverhawks features a galaxy called Limbo which is most unusual. It has air in the regions between its planets and stars, for instance. (Hmm, I seem to be talking about a lot of nonsensical outer space ideas lately.) The bad guys fly around in what are essentially rocket-powered, wheel-less, convertible Cadillacs. In fact, the only closed spacecraft I can remember are the Mirage (the Silverhawks' jet-like spacecraft) and a craft that was equivalent to an armored car from one episode. Wackier still, when characters fall off of things that are transporting them through space, they fall downward relative to the orientation of the transport. That's not what Einstein meant, dudes!

Of course, it was kind of necessary the way they made the series, especially since one of the badguys had weather powers (SPACE WEATHER! SCIENCE!), and I suppose it was pretty nifty when they did this kind of stuff in Treasure Planet... Although Treasure Planet was more sensical when it did it.

Moving on. As many shows like this do, Silverhawks has a motley crew of colorful and hideous monster/alien/robot guys of indeterminate nature as the villains. (If you remember Skeletor's guys, these guys were pretty much just like that. For that matter, so were these guys.) There was Windhammer, the aforementioned weather guy, who manipulated outer space weather with his, you guessed it, giant tuning fork. There was Melodia, an '80s style rocker gal who used music as a weapon. There was Mumbo Jumbo, a minotaur man who turned into... a larger bullish thing. There was Hardware, obviously the technical guy. There was Mo-Lec-U-Lar, who could turn into anything in a flash of light. (He also, on at least one occasion, seemed to teleport.) And then there was Buzzsaw, whom everyone I've seen the opinion thinks is awesome. Buzzsaw was a robot (gold in the show, green as a toy) armed, as his name suggests, with circular saws. He could throw them, and he could rev them up by pulling on one of the starter cords in his chest. He also just had this air of menace and bulk that the other bad guys couldn't match.

Then there's Mon*Star, who I'll talk about in a moment.

Basically all of the Silverhawks except for the kid character, the Copper Kid, and the pilot of their ship, Bluegrass, had exactly the same basic power set. Even their pet bird Tally Hawk.

Yes, you read that right. Tally Hawk had the same powers they did.

All of the Silverhawks could fly in space except for Bluegrass. (He was always sitting in the cockpit of the Mirage, which could detach as a fighter craft, strumming his guitar. I am so not making this up.) All of the Silverhawks except for Bluegrass and the Copper Kid had built in laser cannons. Yes, even Tally Hawk. Giving a bird laser cannons doesn't seem like that good an idea, does it? (Bluegrass probably used his guitar as a weapon on any occasion where he needed an individual one, which couldn't have been often; it probably shot lasers or something. The Copper Kid threw boomerang discs as weapons. Sure, give the kid character a weapon more likely to backfire on him as well as less effective, why don't you? Apparently it was a traditional weapon from Kid's home planet, though. The planet of Mimes. Yes, the planet of the Mimes.)

What this ultimately means is that the Silverhawks are lightweight Space Knights. I want to say that they're Space Infantry, but that's not right-Space Infantry would only have enough flying power to manage short-distance jaunts, such as a boarding action. Maybe Space Light Cavalry? I dunno. I think I had a phrase coined for it the other day, but it's not coming to me.

What makes this more interesting, though, is that they aren't the only ones. Their archnemesis Mon*Star actually is a fully fledged, 100% genuine Space Knight, with the armor, the strength, the space flight, and the weapons (although sadly he rarely demonstrates this physical power, and there are never really any big spacecraft for him to demonstrate it on). He even has a magical transformation, initiated by exposure to the light of a star called the Moonstar, and in perhaps the most awesome iteration of the concept, Mon*Star's Space Steed is a freaking GIANT SPACE SQUID name Sky-Runner. That totally beats Pegas(us).

And if Rankin/Bass did one thing right with its '80s cartoons, it did the big bads right. Mon*Star was not only a huge and scary guy in general, he had the power to paralyze or mind control almost anyone. Granted, he seemed to have a limit on how long he was able to maintain his Space Knight form and the mind control alike, but still. On one occasion he used his paralysis and mind control powers on three of the six main Silverhawks (Quicksilver, Steelwill, and Steelhot-er, Steelheart), while Bluegrass and Copper Kid were stuck outside and Tally Hawk was attached to a machine that was sucking out his lifeforce. (Yeah, that would be the other reason I remembered the show which I forgot about earlier-Mon*Star was terrifying. He was showing Tally Hawk to the guy he had under his direct control, Quicksilver, just to be a jerk.)

-Signing off.

High Concept: Space Knights

The concept of the Space Knight is one that is inherently intriguing. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, there are two kinds of Space Knights: The Japanese kind, and the American kind. (Also, I'd be very cruel not to mention that Siskoid has done an excellent job of writing up reviews of the ROM comic, and it's a very informative read.) Both versions are essentially identical with only minor twists between them.

The central "Space Knight" concept is that a human(oid) either dons or is merged with some kind of super-high tech armor, and then becomes a tiny flying warship, capable of walking the street as easily as blasting space invaders whilst in space. The mind boggles-only the thought of shaking hands with Superman can really be scarier than shaking hands with a tiny interstellar warship, and the problem with the warship is that it's scary looking. Never mind that Superman could crush your hand into coal, at least he can smile at you while he's doing it.

Both Tekkaman/Teknoman and ROM are essentially exactly this concept. The only differences are in little niggling details such as:

• ROM uses space guns and space mitten-fists. Teknoman uses space swords and space whips and giant mega space shoulder blasters. (Win: Teknoman.)
• ROM kills (sort of not really) Dire Wraiths and Skrulls the whole way, leaving piles of ash throughout his travels, and leads Galactus to destroy his enemies' homeworld. Teknoman kills his friends and family because they've been brainwashed into Teknomen. (Win: ROM, if only for style points.)
• ROM comes from outer space. Teknoman comes from Earth, but was part of an exploration mission to the outer solar system. (Win: ROM.)
• ROM is able to journey across the entire universe, sometimes with help from others but apparently usually under his own power. Teknoman usually has to ride a rocket just to get into orbit, though once he's in space he can usually move pretty well. (Win: ROM.)
• ROM can fight space warships hand to hand. Teknoman can fight space warships hand to hand, and also fights space monsters in space hand to hand (ROM only really seemed to fight space monsters on the ground). (Win: Teknoman.)
• ROM must, if he ever wishes to become human again, undergo surgery which will more or less place his brain back in his body. Teknoman takes all of fifteen seconds of transformation sequence to go back and forth at will. (Win: Eh, take your pick.)
• ROM's world made many Space Knights, and he usually had them as allies, although he sometimes was forced to fight them. Teknoman's creators were the alien invaders and created many Teknomen, and he was usually forced to fight them (despite the majority of them being his family members). (Win: Teknoman.)

The thing that makes the Space Knights intriguing yet highly unsettling in both settings is still the fact that they're simply tiny warships in human shape with giant warship power. These guys split big battleships in half for the heck of it, and sometimes they break into enemy warships and go hand to hand with the pilots, apparently mostly for the heck of it. I know I'd get the heck out of any military, no matter how strong, that had to fight a few dozen Space Knights. Too much risk I'd get mitten-chopped/saber-chopped by some boarder, and that's assuming no explosive decompression.

Of course, the question one must always ask when faced with the Space Knight is: How can they be powerful enough to fight warships? And further, if the Space Knight can be that powerful, why don't they just put that technology into far bigger warships than a tiny person-thing?

Questioning it, though, is pointless (especially in the ROM setting, where ROM coexisted with the Hulk, and occasionally sparred with him). Space Knights are great fun, and they need to have more written about them.

-Signing off.

That Thing Seems Impractical...

So Teknoman/Tekkaman Blade has this weapon called the Teknobomb/Voltekker (Voltekka).



Kinda cool, yeah? Of course, since this is the second Tekkaman, and the Japanese are very slavishly conventional and give every sequel guy an imitation of everything the original had, it means the original also had a Voltekker, right? So let's take a look:



BOOM! HEADSHOT! Heh heh heh heh.

So how does a little whirly fan blade shot from the forehead evolve into a gigantic multicolored storm of energy blasts fired from big shoulder weapons? The world may never know.

-Signing off.

Police Brutality

(If anyone notes a sudden drastic change in typical post time, it's not actually a change; it's just that, despite my settings, the blog was set to Pacific time [and I just corrected it]. WHAT THE HECK BLOGGER.)

No, I'm not talking about any incidents that were in the news. Forget Rodney King.

Behold the worst case of police brutality I've ever seen.



I have this suspicion that one difficulty people had watching the first Tekkaman series has mostly to do with scenes like this one. Subject A, "George" (apparently that was his Italian dub name or something), breaks into an enemy warship and then starts smashing stuff. This is horribly cruel. He could easily have cut the warship in half from outside, and then the guys inside would have been resigned to a quick decompression death or vaporization depending on what exploded.

But no, he had to kill them to their faces.

Et tu, ROM?

-Signing off.

Goodbye, Lance.

The guy who put this video on YouTube says "Hey, just listen to Lance scream like a little girl here."



Note to self: When a guy who is covered in magical armor says "You think so?" when you tell him he's the same old lame guy, run first, shoot later.

Also, HULKNOMAN SMASH! (Look at 1:50 to 2:00.)

-Signing off.

Super Robot Profiles: Tekkaman

(In the unlikely event you might be curious about my earlier mention of a speech in the area by Scott McCloud, no, I didn't go. Ah, well. Considering I didn't know about it 'til the day before, it isn't surprising.)

Tekkaman is kind of an odd duck to be included in "Super Robot Profiles," as the series fails to meet one very significant aspect of my super robot definition: Size. Tekkaman (also known as Teknoman, and I may slip and call him that by accident for reasons I'll explain) is only marginally bigger than a human being. Primarily, this is because Tekkaman actually is a human being.

See, it's all through the powers of magic anime physics that he actually mass-shifts and transmutes himself into a towering, red and white metallic pseudosamurai. (Well, I don't really know about the original Tekkaman, although it sounds like it must have been reasonably similar to the one I'm familiar with.) If you're a fan of Western media, particularly comics, you may snort, but don't bother telling me it's goofy-it's hardly any goofier than a guy suddenly turning into a giant green invulnerable bodybuilder. And a big mecha samurai man certainly seems like it'd be more dangerous than some dumb lug. (Please disregard the inherent goofiness of the preceding sentence.)

I suppose that the series makes up to a small extent for Tekkaman's small size by including an actual giant robot, although not a "true" giant:



Of course, in the first Tekkaman, this is counteracted by the robot's sheer ugliness. It might not be such a bad idea to have Tekkaman riding around on a spaceship/robot (named Pegas or Pegasus, depending on whom you're asking) if he weren't so darned ugly.

A decade or so after Tekkaman came Tekkaman Blade. No, I don't know why there was such a long gap.



Tekkaman Blade, unlike its predecessor, looks FREAKING AWESOME. (cough) Even Pegasus looks like total awesomesauce, if a bit too Gundamy for my tastes. And it was a pretty good series, too.

See, unlike a lot of these series that I profile, I actually saw a good-sized chunk of Tekkaman Blade. To hear anime purists talk about it, it was horribly butchered... but it was still something incredible to my much-younger self. (And let's not even talk about what kind of effect it had on the psyche of someone I know...)



Looking back at this all these years later, this was a really retro dub for the time period (early-to-mid '90s). Also, calling Teknoman a "superhero" strikes me as somehow incredibly incongruous.

Teknoman (er, Tekkaman Blade) also made it into the Super Robot Wars games, which gives him extra super robot street cred. I mean, not that he needed very much, as he passes the requirements other than size with flying colors (he slaughtered stuff ten times his own size with less effort than swatting a fly, if nothing else, and if that's not super robot street cred, I don't know what is-in one episode, he shoots down a "nuclear missile" [not really a nuclear missile per se-it was something more exotic] that was as big around as a football field).

One more note: The original Tekkaman's full title was Tekkaman: The Space Knight. Why does that sound familiar?

-Planning on looking for Tekkaman Blade/Teknoman footage on YouTube in the near future, and signing off.