Anime Reviews:

Dangaio

(1987-89)

Brought together by the mysterious Doctor Tarsan, four psychic warriors are able to unite to form Dangaio, the most powerful weapon in the Universe. Using their full cyonic force, they alone can stop the bloody tyranny of Captain Garimoth. But is their psychogenic wave strong enough to destroy his evil henchmen, the notorious cyborg Gil Burg? Or will the warriors fall foul of Garimoth's trickery which finds a weakness in their forgotten pasts?

Oh dear. This was originally a three-part series, but has suffered some sort of motorway pile-up, with parts 2+3 slammed into each other, and the first episode a twisted wreck, shunted from 45 minutes to barely five. It's a horrible sight: most of the character development went head-on into a flyover, and what's left of the plot litters the carriageway. Fleets of mecha carried shocked viewers to hospital, after a plot for galactic domination went horribly wrong. Ok, I may be stretching the metaphor a tad, but this one truly is about as much fun as a road accident.

The first part, little of which is left, was actually not too bad - a girl wakes up with amnesia to find herself the prisoner of a man claiming he created her as a psychic weapon. However, the plot and character development have all but evaporated, all that's left is a tedious series of battles between giant robots. The artwork is nice, but everything else sucks badly. you may well feel the need to drive off a bridge after this one.

Jim McLennan