Megazone 23, Part I

Shogo Yahagi’s got a near perfect life.  He’s a devil may care biker in love with a beautiful actress in the most amazing city in the world.  But when he’s given control of a stolen, experimental motorcycle, the reality he once thought fact begins to quickly unravel.  Spiraling down a conspiracy involving AI Idols, transforming machines and an unknown enemy quickly approaching, Shogo must decide how long he can deny this new reality, or if he has the courage to reveal the truth about his city and risk all out chaos.

“This world isnt real and everything you’ve ever believed is a lie.”  It’s an idea that when executed right can lead to some amazing and thrilling science fiction tales.  Need evidence of this, look no further than 90s classics like Dark City, The Matrix, or even Anime like The Big O.  Mageazone 23 is seen as a major influence on at least two of those examples (The Big O, not so sure but they do both have Mecha).  And while, yeah I can see why it is, at the same time, is this really the landmark classic fans of 80s mecha say it is?  I mean it’s pretty and has some great mecha designs and the story does have promise.  That said, I have problems and whether or not they’ll be ironed out in Part II or Part III remains to be seen.  But first, let’s go over this opening chapter of this classic trilogy.
 
Released in 1985, Megazone 23, Part I looks pretty damn good.  Not that that’s any surprise, this is one of the first major OVA projects to hit the market so it has to bring that level of TV meets Movie production quality.  It’s sharp, it’s well drawn and the transforming mechs look pretty sweet too.  The Garland in particular is pretty bad ass and sets a pretty high bar for any other potential mecha that appear later in this trilogy.  As some of you may know, Megazone 23 was originally meant to be full adapted into the Robotech Movie (until it was fused with Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, long story) and I can see why.  There’s a very Macross aesthetic to Megazone’s action, character designs and mecha (pretty some people who did work on Macross leant their talents to this one).  Add in some rather grizzly violence and a small sprinkle of sex and you’ve got a Mecha Anime taken to the next level of extreme, you know the kind any new Anime fan of the 80s and early 90s would eat right up.
 
The story of Megazone 23 is a bit of a mixed bag.  It’s not because of the reveals or the lack of concrete details that might be fleshed out later.  No the story is fine.  It’s that question I opened this review with, plain and simple but with Giant Robots (come to think of it Rahxephon fits into this camp too).  No my issue is with the characters and pacing.  Shogo and his trio of lovely co stars are kind of idiots.  Shogo may be the reluctant hero but he spends so much time advertising he has the Garland motorcycle everywhere he goes.  Shouldn’t he keep it locked away for safe keeping?  No, use it to film a movie or spy on your would be girlfriend cause subtley is not this guys game.  Shogo’s mental plight is understandable as he wrestles with the truth he learns and he improves a little by Part I’s last act.  But yeah, he’s just kind of dumb althorughout.  Same goes for Yui, Mai and Tomomi, who have plenty of faults of their own (but dammit they are all 80s glam Goddesses, especially Yui).  Too bad it takes them one pivotal (and incredibly brutal) loss for them to wisen up a little bit.  It’s hard to root for a cast that doesn’t make the best decisions for most of this first movie.  Hell, the best character is probably antagonist BD.  He’s calculating and just conveys an effortless air of cool that no one else can match…but he cant catch Shogo to save his life so even he has faults too.
 
And yikes the pacing and editing.  Megazone feels like it was chopped to pieces before the final product came to be.  Conversations feel incredibly rushed and are often cut off by jumping to two or even three different scenes in the span of a couple of minutes.  The OVA doesn’t let up in this approach and doesn’t want you to have a moment to breathe to take it all in.  There’s fast paced and then theres just sporadic.  It can work for a couple of the action sequence yeah but scenes heavy with dialogue suffer the most from this.  Honestly, how bad this particular part of the production was is only highlighted in the final moments of the film when we see a montage of everything that’s happened throughout the story so far.  How hard would it have been to extend this to 90 minutes instead of 80 for that necessary breathing room?
 
As an intro to a grander story, Megazone 23, Part I has a lot going for it from a cool mystery to gorgeous 80s anime visuals and some fun battles with transformable mecha.  If we are going to be following some of the introduced characters for another couple of chapters, they need to be massively improved on going forward so they’re not depicted as incompetent or just dumb.  Villain BD is probably the only one of the cast who’s evil intent is fun to watch in action.  All in all, I don’t think it’s as stellar as Macross: Do You Remember Love or as game changing as say Zeta Gundam.  Still Megazone 23 could surprise me in the end…so long as it’s made a lot better than the whole of Part I but we’ll see.
 
5/10
 
And see we shall.  To kick up the pace a bit before we get to our Macross heavy Extended Summer Series Review, we’re speed running all of the Megazone 23 Trilogy so check back this Friday for a special review of Megazone 23, Part II right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.