I love this anime, but here in MT isn't a gallery from it. I hope ther could be one, I would put artwork in it.
Tekkaman Blade tv Review
Uchu no Kishi Tekkaman Blade (Space Knight Tekkaman Blade) is a futuristic anime that spawned an American dub called Teknoman and a sequel OVA called Tekkaman Blade II. The series ran for two seasons and included 49 episodes and three missing episodes.
Tekkaman Blade takes place in the year 2300 AD or 192 of Federation Space Calendar. At this time, Earth is suddenly attacked by a mysterious alien race called Radam. After months of global devastation by these bug creatures, a lone hero appears in an organic mecha called Tekkaman Blade to fight them. After crash landing on the Earth from a nearly fatal encounter with another Tekkaman on the earth's huge orbital space ring, Tekkaman Blade (later named D-Boy) is found by the Space Knights. Throughout the anime, the struggle against Radham developed and Tekkaman Blade's secret past is revealed (and the consequences that unfold).
Credits: valiantzero
Story & Characters
Tekkaman Blade is a mecha anime that takes place in the future where Earth is attacked by an unknown alien race called Radham and its only savior is a mysterious man called D-Boy. It is his story of triumph and failure that guides the plot of this story. As the series progresses complex villains and supporting characters are introduced to guide the story. Many of these characters go through extensive character development that can be both good and bad. This is a dark anime that questions what it is to be human and depths of sacrifice.
Admittedly, the series begins slowly. The first few episodes are boring and very episodic with the main character undergoing a transformation that is very suggestive of Sailor Moon. The later half of the first season, the series picks up steam and it becomes a very engaging series with quality drama and action. As Tekkaman Blade is divided into two parts, the first half of the season covers the cliché story type of saving the world crap. However, the second part of the story begins with the death of a pivotal character and the destruction of the world’s military. After a five months time skip, the story changes into one of survival of both the Earth and the very soul of the characters. It was one of the first anime I have ever watched and probably one of the best anime I have seen. I highly recommend Tekkaman Blade to anyone who likes drama and mechs.
Rating:
Art
Unfortunately, Tekkaman Blade suffers from its overall quality of artwork and animation as opposed to published scans and character designs. As followers of Tatsunoko, the creators of Tekkaman Blade, know, the studio had a severe tendency of irregular artwork for its series that led to very good artwork in some episode and very bad artwork in the following episode. This is one of the annoying features of Tekkaman Blade as proportions and perspectives are very offer with both the background and the characters. At times, one wanted to just yank one’s eyes out with a few scenes in Tekkaman Blade. The only saving grace is that the animation for the space battles were still very good and by the second season, the quality of artwork and design had become very good. With that said, there is a little weirdness factor in the last few episodes with improved, but very different character designs. If Tatsunoko had stuck with a solid, then I believe Tekkaman Blade would have been more popular than it was.
However, I must say that the OVA artwork renditions of an alternate episode 13 and Missing Ling are very good and something I believe Tatsunoko should have used when drawing the entire Tekkaman Blade series.
Rating:
Sound
The sound in Tekkaman Balde is on the level of your average mecha title that includes the multiple clashes of metal and other backgrounds in space. There are a few times where the audio does not completely match up with the animation, but it is hardly noticeable. In fact, many times the background sound of the scenes really made some of the better scenes in Tekkaman Blade.
Furthermore, Tekkaman Blade has some of the better music available for anime titles. Not only are the openings and endings done very well, but the instrumental background music is effective in setting the mood of each scene in the series. The theme music for each character is especially fitting with my favorite being Chief Freemen/Winter Orbit title. It has a mixture peace and darkness that really sets the anime music of Tekkaman Blade very well. Furthermore, if there are Teknoman fans out there reading this review, the horrible techno music that Saban added to Teknoman has nothing to do with Tekkaman Blade’s music.
Rating:
Presentation
One of the more original factors of Tekkaman Blade is that the positions of each character are very believable. Examples abound with Freemen being 40 year old commander of the Space Knights and not a whiz kid extraordinaire and the main three characters’ ages are set between18-22 years of age. This is much more believable than the standard 12 year old saving the world that populates many of the hero title stereotypes. It gives the story more credibility (as far as science-fiction can go) and allows the more adult epic themes to flow throughout the series. Also, I found D-Boy’s transformation and after-transformation sequences to be very refreshing as now a naked man was shown instead of a naked woman. Furthermore, the reasons for the nudity slide a little bit more with me with the radiation issues burning away everything off the body. There are few female nudity scenes within this anime (and a lot with the Sailor Moon flavored Tekkaman Blade II crap) :<, but very little compared to the male nudity (something that attracted many of the D-Boy fangirls to the series).
Best yet, the little people have their chance to save the day and actually save the hero a lot. This is very different from the stereotypical save the world anime. Who would have thought that working together instead of working alone would produce better results?;)
Unfortunately, the one thing that did not rub off on me well was the high heels that were added to the female mechas (it gets worse in Tekkaman Blade II with a female Tekkaman having a ribbon on her armor). It gave the male warriors are much better edge and put into questions why Radham felt like sexy high heels were necessary. It just was not reasonable and just a perverted effect from the male dominated designers.
Overall, Tekkaman Blade is great anime series with refreshing aspects to its story.
Rating:
Final Verdict
8.5000 (very good)
Reviewed by valiantzero, May 04, 2005
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