無敵鋼人ダイターン３

MUTEKI KOUJIN DAITARN 3

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
40
RELEASE
March 31, 1979
LENGTH
25 min

DESCRIPTION

Souzou Haran was a brilliant scientist that was conducting research on Mars. He created a form of cyborg life with the ability to think for itself. These cyborgs, dubbed the Meganoids, soon ran out of control and killed Dr. Haran along with his whole family, save his youngest son, the 16-year-old Banjou Haran. Banjou escapes from Mars on a rocket with a solar-powered super robot called Daitarn 3, which was built with the special metals of Mars. Now eighteen years old and living on Earth in a luxurious mansion, Banjou fights against the Meganoids with the aid of his faithful butler Garrison and his two gorgeous companions Reika and Beauty. Together they must stop the evil Meganoids which aspire to turn all humans into cyborgs and thus "improve" the human race.

(Source: AniDB)

CAST

Banjou Haran
Hirotaka Suzuoki
Reika Sanjou
You Inoue
Totta Toda
Fuyumi Shiraishi
Beautiful Tachibana
Koros
Mieko Nobusawa
Don Zauther
Masato Yamanouchi
Neros Commander
Banjou Ginga
Garrison Tokita
Kouichi Kitamura
Gall Commander
Ichirou Nagai
Radik Commander
Shuuichi Ikeda
Hessler Commander
Kouhei Miyauchi
Commander Anton
Kei Tomiyama
Daston Commander
Masatou Ibu

EPISODES

Dubbed

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Not available on crunchyroll

REVIEWS

Kuropiko
90/100
Daitarn 3 Is The Reason Anime Exists

I initially watched Daitarn 3 merely as obligation, and put it on hold for well over a month because I simply did not get it. High expectations from both my knowledge of Tomino and having come off a watch of the similarly named Zambot 3 gave me lofty ideas of what Daitarn 3 should've been. I could not take it at face value at the time and wanted something more, for lack of a better terms, Zambot. Something more Ideon. Something more Gundam. Something more Tomino, and the thing about Daitarn 3 is that it isn't many of those things, as it doesn't want to be. But, the one thing it truly is, is like Tomino.

Humour drips from every pore of this anime, and it is quite honestly one of the funniest long running anime I have seen. It has a lot of wit and raw charm carrying it, but a lot of the content is also just genuinely funny. There's a lot of great gags I could list off, a lot of character quirks, entire episodes, I could be here all day talking about the humour of Daitarn 3, but I implore you to just watch it. I'll post a few screencaps in this review, but the experience is far better watched (though that is if you can handle a 70s super robot anime, I know many people that read these reviews have some weird zoomer brain worm that stops them from having patience).

To go into detail about the anime, the story is pretty simply. The main character, Banjo, is a Batman x Lupin the IIIrd type character, a rich guy with a cool butler and cool side chicks, that goes around beating bad guys up, but his character is very similar in a raw sense to Lupin. He has a lot of wit and charm, he always makes you feel like there'll be a happy end to everything that is happening, that nothing is truly impossible. It's a great feeling, especially coming off of Tomino's more dour works, and I love Banjo to death for this. He has to be one of my favourite main characters, constantly cool, constantly in control, constantly just funny. I love it whenever he is on screen.

The story beyond the main character though is pretty simple. Some evil alien robot things called the Meganoids want to advance humanity to their point, and Banjo fights them with his side kicks. Not all that deep, but hey, it gets the job done. For a surprisingly empty story, obviously suited to an episodic adventure, the ending really got to me in a weird depressing way. I won't spoil it, god forbid I spoil the ending of a 70s super robot anime, but I will say that if you sit through all 40 episodes and don't feel something at the ending... well, maybe you're a meganoid.

Beyond the story, there's the raw episodic nature, and it never fails to give you something to chew on. An average episode is structured with around 13-15 minutes of Banjo shenanigans, and the remainder of the episode will be spent on the giant robot fight, and rarely is the fight like most other typical giant robot fights. There's always some kind of gimmick or gag layered on top of it, something to break up the monotony of two big things punching each other. Rarely am I left thinking "God, when will this fight end", though occasionally I will think "Why are they breaking out the giant robot, I was enjoying this!"

All in all, I didn't really say much about Daitarn 3. I can't do any epic thematic reading (though I could do like a short paragraph on the ending, but I refuse to post spoilers), it'd feel weird to connect this to other anime when this is meant to be a re-view, a retrospective-viewing of Daitarn 3, not some other anime. A lot of the connections are obvious anyways, with a ton of its humour being found in major modern classics like Gainax's Gurren Lagann. All I can say is that I highly recommend this anime. It surprised me, and I was left wishing there were more episodes, probably the greatest comfort food anime I could ask for.

By the way, here's my favourite gag in the show, since I didn't post a lot of images this time (ignore the black bars, my encode had them burned in and I wanted to watch the remaster).

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