A charming but ultimately inconsequential OVA from the late 90s. You could say that for a lot of stuff, but DinaGiga is a special case, mainly because of its weirdly low score on this very site. You’ve got to be actively terrible to drop below a 5, so does that mean this is a true horror show of anime? Nah, it’s alright. But it’s not great either. At just two episodes at around 25-ish minutes each, Super Mobile Legend DinaGiga feels like it’s just starting the minute it ends. It’s a shame, because it’s quite a likeable show, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Sowhat’s going on here? DinaGiga is the story of Hikari Toudo (Mayuko Omimura), a ditzy young woman who dreams of becoming a mecha pilot. To do that, she needs a license? Where do you get a license? Robot academy of course. The problem is that Hikari is absoutely terrible at piloting, much to the chagrin of her roommate Nana Izumizaki (Haruna Ikezawa) and the facility’s staff. Despite this, her sensei Toshihiro Mutsu (Masaya Onosaka) can see the potential within Hikari, and he becomes determined to unlock it. Things got complicated however when mysterious transfer student Marie Vlaanderen (Yuko Miyamura) arrives at the academy, all while the rest of the staff begin preparations for awakening a being they call “God”.

You’ve seen it all before. Organisation builds a powerful robot to fight aliens/demons/whatever. They track down a relatable young person to be the pilot because they’re the only ones who can do it. Things blow up because they have to. It’s the stock mecha anime setup that has been done to death, but there’s a reason for that. It’s because it works. DinaGiga isn’t breaking any new ground here, but it doesn’t really have to. The simple, almost endearing scenario is enough to get the ball rolling and leads to some genuinely pretty funny moments in the first episode. It’s a slow first act, heavy on hijinks and character interactions, but it gets the job done well enough and lets you endear yourself to the (admittedly shallow) cast. Things start to fall apart in episode 2 though. Suddenly the plot gets serious, an alien monster attacks and the show starts dropping lore dumps and flashbacks like it’s going out of fashion. The titular mecha gets rolled out, there’s a big fight and then… it just sort of ends. There’s a promise of more adventures someday, but they never came, leaving the show’s various loose threads hanging.

Judging by the overall quality of the animation and the structure of each episode, I suspect DinaGiga was likely either a test pilot that was cut up into an OVA, or the remains of a TV show that was shitcanned when only the first two episodes were finished. Either way, there’s a lot left unexplored, even though the anime pretty definitively concludes, complete with an end-card and all. I have to give a mention to the fansubbers who translated this. Following Hikari’s promise to the audience that they’ll meet again with the text ‘THERE ARE NO FUTHER EPISODES OF DinaGiga’ had me howling with laughter. Fret not though, as DinaGiga’s creator Takeshi Doi has been writing an online novel adaption of the OVA, spanning 500 chapters so far(!!). If you’re dying for more Dina, you know where to look (make sure to speak Japanese though).

Character wise, you get what you’d expect from something like this. Hikari is dense but well meaning. She’s a little annoying at first but i was eventually endeared to her antics, even if her character never really progresses past being a generic nice girl who wants to help people. Nana similarly gets off on the wrong foot and comes off as pretty spiteful and mean, but she ended up as my fave of the cast by the end. Marie is really odd, speaking in stilted sentences and lacking any kind of communication skills. There’s a reason for this of course, as the show explains, but it sure doesn’t make any of the scenes with her less hilariously awkward. The rest of the cast don’t get enough screentime or attention to make much of an impact at all, though some of the background cast end up being pretty funny and memorable.

Mecha designs are pretty basic but not bad. Marie’s customised robo is eye catching and slick, and the DinaGiga itself isn’t half bad. Unfortunately neither gets a chance to shine much. The former mostly just stands around looking cool and the latter only gets wheeled out 50 minutes into the hour long runtime. Audio isn’t anything to write home about. Outside of the cute OP, I barely remember any pieces of music across the OVA. Voice acting is fine. Mayuko Omimura sounds kinda strange as Hikari but you’ll get used to her unique voice fairly quickly. There’s a few recognisable names in the cast (Yuko Miyamura, Masaya Onosaka, Nobuo Tobita) and everyone provides a decent performance (bar Sumi Mutuo who sounds rather flat as side character Airi).

From what I understand, this OVA spawned from a talk show about voice acting called Shibuya de Kiss. It featured both Hikari and Nana’s actresses, the former of whom hosted a segment called (drumroll please)… ‘DinaGiga’. What a talk show featuring seiyuu interviews has to do with giant ancient robots and particle aliens is anyone’s guess. That said, it does sort of explain the show’s quirks. It was riding on the success of something else, was probably made quickly and then dropped when the former’s popularity began to wane. It’s a common tale in show business, but most overnight stars don’t have an anime based around them. DinaGiga is shallow, slow, isn’t very good and doesn’t have an ending. Sounds like all the makings of a load of bullshit, right? But it’s also cute and there’s enough heart and soul here, despite the glaring flaws, that I can’t totally write it off as a disaster. Casual anime fans aren’t going to get anything from this, and mecha fans have plenty of much better shows to watch. But for those curious enough to waste an hour, DinaGiga can be quite charming all things considered.

Super Mobile Legend DinaGiga is owned by Studio Deen and Polygram. It is currently unlicensed.