toqtaqiya2 Review of Gunbuster

Gunbuster (1988–1989)

Traveling through distant space for humanity's greatest battle.

[7/10 · 19 October 2010]

Gainax's follow-up to Royal Space Force: The Wings Of Honneamise (1987) is another beautifully crafted, meticulously designed science-fiction story with a human heart. It also took on the inescapable paradox that most pulp sci-fi ignore: relative time dilation. As Noriko fights in space for a few months, her friends on Earth age fifteen years. Mixing moments of true pathos with some wonderfully silly visuals, Gunbuster can be enjoyed without any knowledge of the history, or anime, it parodies. Noriko, who spends most of the series in gym kit and is animated to bounce and jiggle like any normal, well-rounded teenage girl, was the forerunner of a line of heroines that persists in anime to this day. The two-minute "science-lessons" at the end of several episodes are hilarious, the action sequences are outstanding, and the ending is very moving. Never as successful as Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), but far more hopeful, this is another must-see. Gunbuster's so-called "fan service" is brazen, with utterly superfluous shots of skimpily clothed girls in training, on the beach, or naked in showers and baths. Indeed Noriko's precocious breasts often have a hard time remaining covered, one being bared - like France's national heroine Marianne - during the ultimate confrontation with the enemy.