Red Baron · review
"you can't beat the intensity of the original", says a line from episode 25 of this anime remake of a pretty good tokusatsu show from the 70's that I watched before getting into this. That line perfectly sums this whole experience, meaning this is a pretty mediocre remake allaround less focused on the typical giant mecha stuff of the original and more concerned of throwing at the viewer a series of fights in battle shounen/spokon fashion (to the point of looking more an Ashita No Joe remake with some sprinkles taken from Dragon Ball and Rupan Sansei part II than a Red Baron one) thatare watchable but don't go beyond the watchable part. Honestly, I sincerely don't get why the makers of this made such choice seeing that the dramatic angle of the original Red Baron tokusatsu had nothing wrong in it, the original Red Baron Tokusatsu is not a 70's Cutie Honey case of a series taking an angle (the Toku/pornographic one) and screwing the pooch so hard with the ending product that remakes like the excellent Cutie Honey Flash and the Toshiki Inoue Tokusatsu Masterpiece were needed from the get go but it was a good series enjoyable on its own, except for the typical tokusatsu tendency of starting a bit slowly and getting progressively better. Also, I must say the ending with the clone thingy mixed with (once again) stuff that reminds more of Dragon Ball than of a typical mecha show is really contrived and ridicolous, it makes the boring and overdone ending of the otherwise excellent tokusatsu Urutoraman Cosmos series (the only Japanese Cosmos to my knowledge) look like a friggin' masterpiece. What I personally save from this? the voice acting, the clean animation and the character of Marylin, because she reminds me of a mixture of two of my favourite characters (Fujiko Mine and Aphrodite Pisces) with some added fanservice to spice things up and the mechas she drives are indeed reminescent of female mechas from the 70's, but other than that I'd say if you want a mecha anime show with elements taken from Urutoraman like it was the original Red Baron toku series (that I recommend you to watch if you're into tokus like me) go with the Urutoraman tribute going by the name of Evangelion (which also did the whole organic mecha thing better) and don't bother in the first place with this one, you're not going to miss anything special except the reiteration that the Tokus and animation medias on the longer run don't mesh well, some sparse and very rare exceptions permitted (see the beforementioned Cutie Honey live action tokus).