Casshan: Robot Hunter (1993)
Animation Production: Tatsunoko Production Company, Ltd.
Released by: ADV Films
Episodes: 4
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

I’ve seen several episodes of the original Casshan TV series over the past couple of years and I always enjoyed watching them. The show not only had an interesting premise (especially for the time in which it was made), but also benefited greatly from the quality of its animation and character/mechanical designs.

The original program, which was the 2nd of 4 animated hero series produced by Tatsunoko in the 1970’s (the other three being Tekkaman, Hurricane Polymar and Gatchaman), had a run of 35 episodes in 1973 after which it was shelved. Fast forward to 1993, Tatsunoko had taken a new initiative to revive some of their older franchises for a new generation of fans, included in these remakes was a new 4-part OVA series based on the original Casshan TV series.

The Story

“Enslaved by an army of rebellious super-robots originally designed to help civilization avert a complete ecological cataclysm, mankind's only hope is CASSHAN, a legendary hero who wages a solitary war to defeat these NEOROIDS and restore the Earth to its rightful order. Ironically, Casshan's father is the same scientist who engineered the race of super androids now threatening to destroy all of mankind. On a crusade to clear the name of his father, Casshan must sacrifice his own humanity in order to attain the powers he needs to defeat mankind's powerful enemies. But Casshan’s power does not come without a price. Haunted by the memories of his murdered mother and forced to deal with a super robot that has absorbed, and now manipulates, the consciousness of his father, Casshan must put aside his own emotions and fight to preserve the survival of the human race.” -- ADV's Casshan Page

Review

Before seeing the Casshan OVA’s the only one of the other updated Tatsunoko hero releases I had seen was the 3-part Gatchaman OVA, which I happened to like immensely. I was happy to see that Casshan keep the same style of animation and character designs (courtesy of Yasuomi Umetsu) as that series. I also liked the fact that like its Gatchaman counterpart the series managed to tell the story used in the origal TV show in a condensed number of episodes.

Typically I would see this type of story-telling compression negatively, but the fact remains that the story of Casshan as told in this remake does not suffer from it, we are still presented with the same conflicts that our characters faced in the original series and their struggle to survive in a world that had been taken over by machines.

The story as told in this series was a cautionary tale of a world gone mad and taken over by the same machines on which humanity was counting on for its survival. The world’s only hope hinging on a being that was neither man-nor-machine, who was born out of the same technology and origins as the Neoroids and their leader Black King..

As with the original series I found this to be an intriguing premise and one worthy of being explored. In this case that’s accomplished through four separate episodes each helping us fill in the blanks on where Casshan came from and what motivated him to fight Black King all the way through the final confrontation in the series' finale. I thought it also did an excellent job exploring Casshan’s struggle with his own existence, which was torn between that of the human and machine worlds; Luna Kazuki (Tetsuya Azuma’s love before he became Casshan) and Black King being the forces that pull Casshan deep into each of these realms and their contradictory natures.

The storytelling in this series was also aided by the quality of its animation which is rather good and helps move the story along smoothly. The color palette is darker than the one used in the Gatchaman OVA’s but this to be expected as it’s a grimmer tale and as such it fits the mood of the story quite nicely.

The only real fault I found with this release is that the music did not live up to that of the original TV series, which was more heroic and energy packed. The bgm here was more cautious and subdued, which for the large part fit in with the story being told, but seemed out of place when our hero appeared and began to fight the mechanical forces of Black King, this of course is not that big of a deal and is more of a personal preference on my part as a fan of the original show.

The DVD itself was very good, featuring some nice colorful artwork of Casshan and Black King on the cover and on the inside insert. It also contained a nice selection of promos for other ADV Films products and releases. The only real thing missing from this package was the Japanese audio track, but I didn’t mind this at all since the English-dubbed track was well done and made it easier for me to follow the story.

Conclusion

If you are a fan of the original Casshan series, like old-school Tatsunoko hero series and/or like action-packed anime shows you owe it yourself to check out Casshan. With its great story, characters and action scenes this is the kind of anime series that everyone should have in their collection. Now, if we could only get ADV Films to release the original series we would be set.

Jeffrey Couto