If you loved Brave Bang Bang Bravern, I’m going to recommend some robot anime

I haven’t had the chance to talk about the current anime season much, but suffice to say my favorite was easily Brave Bang Bang Bravern. Director Masami Obari and writer Keigo Koyanagi delivered a strange, self-parodic, unpredictable, yet moving narrative packed with all the explosive heroics and joyous catharsis of traditional super robot anime. Did I mention it’s also a beautiful robot pilot love story between two big burly soldier dudes who love to take their shirts off?

If you haven’t seen Bravern yet, go take care of that right away. I can’t explain it better than you can experience it.

But it got me thinking. One of the jokes you hear about Bravern is that it got boys-love fans to watch a giant robot anime and giant robot fans to watch a boys-love anime. I know Bravern was a crossover hit, and it warmed my heart to see new audiences— arguably a new generation— get to enjoy a real super robot masterpiece. Even Gurren Lagann is old these days, you know.

But I thought that if you just saw Bravern— and just Bravern— you might not know where to go for that specific kind of vibe again. ‘Cause it’s probably not happening in a new anime again for a while, and the titles that Bravern is bouncing off are pretty ancient. Masami Obari tends to get hired more to do parodies of his own style than to do anime projects!

So I thought I would recommend some great robot anime that’s in the same specific vein as Bravern: cool robots that don’t care about real-world logic, passionate heroes, wild villains, and courage and love saving the day. If that sounds good to you, keep reading.

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King of Braves Gaogaigar

If you can take a long series, I would proceed directly here. The “Brave” in the title of Bravern might be a nod to Takara’s 1990s “Brave” robot series, a string of straight-up, unapologetic toy-selling kids’ shows on which Bravern director Obari himself was a frequent animation collaborator. Might Gaine is awesome, my friends swear by J-Decker.

But Gaogaigar is probably the best-known Brave series, and the easiest to recommend. As a final animated hurrah for a toy franchise that knew it wasn’t long for this world, Yoshitomo Yonetani and crew threw absolutely everything they had into it. One of the coolest combining/transforming robots of all time. Utterly wacky heroes and villains. A story that goes beyond, and beyond, and beyond again. And courage, the force that makes anything possible.

If there’s a specific giant robot subgenre that Bravern is riffing on, this is it. Indeed, Gaogaigar follows a form so old that it was a nostalgic throwback in its own time. All the awe and wonder that 70s kids felt over those mighty robot warriors goes up on the screen here. So reverent down to the smallest details— like purposely lying to viewers in the next episode preview that two hero robots are going to fight each other— that it’s a borderline religious experience. A cult favorite 25 years later.

Gaogaigar is (at the time of this writing) streaming in its entirety on Crunchyroll and is on Blu-ray from Discotek. Do not skip the OVA sequel Gaogaigar Final, in which the temperature of the hot-blooded heroism rises exponentially.

Mazinger Z Vs. The Great General of Darkness

A classical masterpiece, a Platonic ideal of the super robot anime. When people say they want to “get into robot anime”, I tell them not to watch Mobile Suit Gundam or even my beloved Gunbuster, but Mazinger Z Vs. The Great General of Darkness. This half-movie packs all the soul of super robot anime into forty lovingly animated minutes.

Monstrous invaders appear around the world, laying waste to our cities. A passionate young hero rises to defeat them in his mighty robot… and he gets his ass kicked. Brutally, painfully, cruelly. By the end of the film the titular Mazinger Z is absolutely ragged, its body torn apart.

But that’s what’s so wonderful about this movie: its portrayal not just of a cool robot facing off against powerful enemies, but a hero reaching absolute rock bottom and standing back up in the face of certain death. Superheroes don’t often get beat as badly as Koji Kabuto does in this film.

I’m always moved by the scene the night before the final battle, where Koji confides through tears to old photos of his dad and grandpa that he knows he isn't going to make it, that really is afraid. True courage is fighting when you have to, even if you’re scared. Lewis Smith knows about that.

My only caveat on this one is that you can’t find a perfect copy of it in English: either you’ve got a pristine Blu-Ray rip with unreadable 2000s Hong Kong bootleg subtitles or you’ve got a VHS-era fansub in readable English. If your Japanese is equivalent to the kids at which this film was aimed, on the other hand, you should be alright.

What’s that? You can’t watch it because it’s 50 years old this year? You think I care?!

The Super Robot Wars series

I know this is a video game, but hear me out, because I’m completely right about this.

There aren’t a lot of anime where a relatively grounded sci-fi military setting is forced to coexist with the bonkers toy-commercial world of super robot anime. Generally the “real” and “super”— these are genre ideas defined by Super Robot Wars, and I'm pretty sure they are uttered in Bravern— don’t exist in the same world. It stretches the suspension of disbelief past its breaking point.

Except in Super Robot Wars! In this strategy RPG series in the mold of Fire Emblem, you command an independent military force consisting of famous anime robots and battleships. Everyone knows everyone and they’re all friends, because they have robots. The Super Robot spirit, like the Christmas spirit, is understood to unite everyone for common purpose.

The Nadesico has the Gundam Wing boys aboard. Amuro Ray, Koji Kabuto, and the maniac pilots of Getter Robo are all old war buddies. Even guys like Spike Spiegel and Captain Harlock get counted in. No robot? Just a spaceship? Close enough. SRW has even used Gridman!

Because of the sheer amount of world-shaping cataclysms brought about by writing 20 different anime stories into the same universe, characters in the typical SRW game have seen it all. If killing God is the finale of a JRPG, it’s stage 25/50 in Super Robot Wars. (Like, which God, you know?) There’s an easy-going attitude even in dire situations: Bravern’s “campfire” episode is 100% something that would happen in a Super Robot Wars game. And again, Bravern director Obari is a frequent SRW contributor.

Super Robot Wars 30 is the easiest title in the series to get (right there on Steam) and a bit of an extravaganza, but at 100+ hours— during which players become unstoppable one-hit gods at about hour 50— it wears out its welcome badly. I’m a honestly little sad 30 is so many people’s first SRW, as it implies the series is all animation and no gameplay, which is far from the case!

If you have a Switch or can play Asian-region PS4 games, I recommend Super Robot Wars T for a SRW experience with actual game balance, if that matters to you. Unofficially speaking, I hear you can play Super Robot Wars Original Generations on the PS2 in English these days…

In closing, Lulu will never die

There's a lot of great robot anime out there, but I thought these matched the mood of Bravern the best. Though I've already recommended a 50-year-old anime movie, I have to again stress that if you're curious about robot anime, don't be afraid of the old stuff. There are a lot of unique, singular experiences in there, stuff like Votoms and Xabungle, for which there simply is no modern-day equivalent. There's never been access to the classics in English like there is today, so go dig!

Oh, and you know what else? Nothing to do with anything, but watch Aim for the Ace. Shut up, just do it.