Reviews for Juusou Kikou Dancougar Nova

The storyline also has quite a wierd plot. But it ends up being an anime a little bit sloppy side. The anime really shows how outdated the anime feels when you first look at it. I'm sure that was partly to keep the feel of the original series but have a new generation look to it. The characters were kind of off the wall choices for saving the world. But little by little they tell you why each one was chosen. Now the sound not horrible but its not great either, its bearable. But what saves this show some points in the sound department is themusical score.

For what its worth as a 12-episode series and a retelling of an old 80's animation, the show isnt that bad.

If you cant keep an open mind, i highly reccomend something else. But for those looking for a cheesy action anime with a lil fanservice that you can finish in one sitting pick this up.

This show sort of reminds me of the Power Rangers. Only the Power Rangers were lame, didn't really do anything at all and worst of all: it was live action. The robots in Dancouga Nova are animated in a typical 80's style (like Macron One), but don't look old due to the wonders of CGI. Furthermore, this series looks fresh and has a lot of potential for the main characters to develop. If you like mecha series and loved the 80's, this is definitely a show to pick up!

(Check out my profile for a link to my site containing more up-to-date reviews and bonus media!) This was actually pretty all right. I'm a big fan of the original Dancouga series and at some point swore to never watch Dancouga Nova out of principle. I made a snap judgment assuming it'd be some moe fanservice sell-out, but the reality is that it's a standard mecha series that doesn't go so far as to insult the original series. That being said, it IS still very standard, and while not an embarrassment it struggles to find a reason to be watched by both mecha and Dancouga fans.I decided to shovel down this one cour series since Dancouga Nova seems to have replaced the original in the Super Robot Wars games, and how many mecha series are there that aren't a billion episodes long?

Given its episode count, Dancouga Nova is able to pace itself at a decent clip without dragging scenes or rushing the storyline too much. It's a simple series that isn't difficult to watch but isn't inspiringly creative or well-executed either. The team can't compare to the original but are all likable enough. Much of the dynamic that made the original cast so endearing was their abrasive qualities and inter-conflicts. They were a team with little to no connections culled and forced to work together and they naturally clashed and bonded over time. The increasing friendship of the Dancouga Nova pilots is still an observable thing, but it happens quicker and understandably so considering how soft the pilots are in comparison. It was hard for me not to be disappointed in lead character Aoi Hidaka's comparison to Shinobu Fujiwara. Fujiwara is a vainglorious asshole in some ways that would normally be associated with a generic shonen protagonist, but the writers were aware of his personality flaws and wrote them into his character development and interaction with others. Fujiwara is routinely criticized and denied his superiority complex by his teammates, and watching both his successes and failures at proving himself is a huge draw of the show and the biggest example of how the characters drove the original series. By comparison, Aoi is introduced as a tough daredevil similar to Shinobu, but entirely lacks his extremes and the flaws that come with them, meaning she loses both of those appeals mentioned earlier. It's actually her that comes across as generic, which is a shame considering the rarity of female mecha leads. She's universally soft and reasonably aggressive at any time, and she becomes bland, indistinct, and predictable in her reactions and her team's reactions to her.

The other team members fare better and worse. Kurara makes a positive impression in the beginning of the series as she's more of an extreme of Aoi's archetype, being a serious and highly professional policewoman. But the flaws of her personality, mainly her suspicious nature and coldness, aren't woven into her to make her more interesting past the beginning. She quickly becomes an Aoi clone rather than standing out, hotblooded in battle and neutral in demeanor. Johnny is the worst teammate of anyone, having absolutely zero conflicts with his character at any time and being the constant deliverer of a run-on gag where he mentions reading the latest men's magazines. His milquetoast personality is the least forgivable because it's never paired with anything endearing at any point in the show. He feels like team filler, and the run-on gags are a cheap way to force lines by him when his personality itself wouldn't make anything he delivers worth hearing. He also has an interest in a minor idol character, which I only mention because it's possibly a reference to the voice actress/pop star Rie Fujiwara from the original series. Last on the team is Sakuya, a deliberately homeless teenager who's chosen (for a reason we never learn) to be another of Dancouga's pilots. Despite his flimsy motivations, the overly zealous jokester of the group remains the most consistently entertaining since he never loses his distinguishable personality traits. Still, he lacks his own conflict.

Together the Dancouga pilots have little difficulty agreeing to a secret organization's plan. Their job is to travel the globe, interfering with conflicts to assist whatever the losing side is at the time regardless of motives or morals. I like this premise. It bears a similarity to Mobile Suit Gundam 00's premise, which Dancouga Nova actually predates by a few months. While I don't think the Dancouga Nova team's mission of leveling conflicts to draw them out and prevent them from escalating is very justifiable, it at least raises a moral and philosophical question for the show and characters to work with. In the beginning, the team is meant with some resistance of this ideology and questions it themselves, but alas, in the most disappointing part of the show this concept is nothing short of abandoned in the face of a more generic "fight against evil" plot that drives the remainder of the series. The questions this premise raises never amount to any substantial debate, let alone resolution. It ends up being intriguing and a proof of concept that doesn't deliver on any potential.

In a rare twist, my biggest problem with a show ends up being its animation quality. Dancouga Nova makes the original 80s series look like Studio Ghibli. I've seen people theorize that this was intentional to nod to the original series's animation problems, but that's a nonsense theory because the two's issues often manifest in different ways and it's evident Dancouga Nova's struggling with a budget as its animation gets consistently worse every single episode. Even still, a hand-painted Blu-ray release will almost always look better than a sloppy, low resolution, digitally-colored DVD release. Even putting aside the release format bias the original series would look better just from the techniques used, while Nova struggles with similar framerate issues that its averagely directed action scenes wouldn't make much use of anyway. The final three episodes introduce this absolutely obnoxious technique where, instead of "camera" angles shifting to show new characters talking or a different focus, a section of the frame (such as a standing character) will have their outline filled in with another character's talking face or some other scene. It makes the frame composition look like fragmented chaos, and if it's a "style" then it's definitely not one that benefits the series. Also introduced at this point are tacky screen wipes used with character faces like it's straight out of some 70s superhero cartoon. It's so cheap. As for the new Dancouga design, it doesn't beat the original, but I like it overall. The biggest issue are the weird vertical stereo-looking boxes on the side of its head. In conclusion, both series' visuals are littered with warts, but at least the original series had the decency to wear makeup.

As for the music, there's no comparison. I struggle to remember any song from the soundtrack other than the repeatedly used battle theme, which sounds like pop rap recorded on a cassette tape. It's barely audible and the same verse from the song is used constantly until the final battle. The original series could've used music variety as well, but tracks like Burning Rage are lovably distinct both in their archaic 80s synth composition and stronger melody.

Much of the series revolves around those two earlier mentioned halves of the political conflicts and fight against evil, with the Dancouga pilots learning to work together while facing military resistance and investigating the secrets behind the organization that's picked them up. The series maintains enough intrigue and momentum from these basic ingredients to be an entertaining enough watch that isn't boring but lacks any impressive moments. It all ends up being lightly likable in all aspects, but in the saturation of anime that just isn't enough of an endorsement - even for mecha fans. And if mecha fans are so desperate as to be looking for niche series like Dancouga Nova, then any recommendations probably don't matter. They'll take whatever has the genre attached. Still, if Dancouga Nova is a sequel that needed to be made, then at least it didn't do the original team any shame. According to MyAnimeList, over twice the amount of people have watched Dancouga Nova over the original series. Those who enjoyed this show enough or are considering watching it, do yourself a favor, buckle down, and watch something "old" - and better.

I don't usually review things, but i felt that Dancouga Nova was so bad that it's an insult to the original series, and overall near garbage, i swear i found more enjoyment out of Devadasy than in this... STORY Let's start with the story...it's a mess: plot points that get brought up only to be forgotten after the episode ends, the pacing is all over the place, HUGE infodumps that never end and things that literally don't make any fucking sense placed all over the show (For Example, Spoiler Alert, in episode 9 the main characters find themselves trapped on an deserted island after Dancouga was badlydamaged, and need to contact the crew to pick them up...guess what happens? yeah right, they find some kind of cult/civilization that lives in there, that happens to have a Telegraph, and one of the fucking characters knows morse code, even to the thing takes place in the 22nd century, and one of the characters even remarks that the thing has been supposedly out of use for at least an entire century)

There's also a huge misuse of its themes, and i felt that much the show was written by at least 9 or different writers, cause it's barely cohesive at times, 70's Super Robot shows had better story arcs in their MOTW Style

ART AND SOUND

The art is fine, the characters are well designed, the mechanical design is solid, especially for the enemy Mechs and bootleg Gundor, or "Dragon's Hive", the animation is a bit choppy at times, but its never very bad, the action scenes are pretty nice too...

The sound and the music, on the other end, is forgettable as hell, the only saving grace is the OP, Tori No Uta, which is admittedly pretty nice (the SRW versions are still better tho), also, most of the sounds are either stock sounds, or come from other Mecha Anime, i swear i heard Muv Luv's BETA alert sound somewhere

THE CHARACTERS

The characters are...ugh...i think Laura from the original series had more personality than all of them combined, they are some of the worst characters in any Mecha Anime that i have seen (and i've seen a lot).

Let's start with the Dancouga pilots, 3 of them are a walking pair of tits, with barely, and i want to emphasize BARELY anything else to them

Aoi has nearly no personality except for "muh guys i am a hot-blooded pilot, look at me guys, i am shouting "Yatte Yaru Ze" like Shinobu from the 80's series, oh, also, sometimes i am also sarcastic and buddy buddy with the other girl", she's also gotta have a sad past with lots of mental problems, cause, well, it makes the story better, somehow? ya know, post-Eva influence and shit

Kurara is supposed to be the "cool girl" of the bunch, she works as a policewoman in the Narcotics department, and is somewhat proficient with a gun, she also has a troubled past, after that...i...don't know, that's all i remember about her, and i am sure that's all there is to her

Ada, she's an idol with an incredibly annoying voice (Small spoiler: she's also the pilot of the R-Daigun), she is so bad that i think elementary schoolers could think up a character with more personality than her, she's in love with Johnny

The last 2 male pilots include:

Sakuya is the only character that i could get ANY enjoyment out of, at least he cracks a couple of jokes that gave me a chuckle or two, sometimes breaking the 4th wall or referencing other Mecha shows, he's also a hobo and has a last second romance with the the report in-show: Isabelle

Johnny...is he even a character? he has a romance (that is seriously some of the worst i have ever seen in any piece of media) with Ada, and is a salaryman, his gag is that everything he knows comes from monthly magazines, he is what i would call "a shell with nothing inside"

The rest of the characters are either so bad that my brain refuses to remember them, failed copies of characters from either Gravion or the old Dancouga, or completely insignificant

there's the reporter Isabella, which tries to discover Dancougar's mystery, and has a last episode romance with Sakuya

The chief of the Dancouga base, Tanaka, who is completely forgettable and tries to copy (failing miserably) the one from the original Dancouga

The other character which is a candidate for "the most annoying voice ever", Roo Riruri, she's the maid type character

The Mechanic, Seimii, who is the 4th pair of walking tits

Fog Sweeper, who has a retarded name

and Will, who has the same VA as Shapiro from the original series

And with this, i literally explained everything there is to them, there's nothing else, you can watch the series, but you won't find anything more to these characters

ENJOYMENT

Is there anything that i found enjoyable in Dancouga Nova?

Yes, 2, maybe 3 Jokes, the OP, and the action, that's all

OVERALL

Dancouga Nova is a mess, there's nearly no enjoyment to be found in it, the characters are complete shit, the plot is nonsensical at times, and bland the other times, the sound is bland, with literally the only thing good being the art, it's so fucking bad it trascends being "so bad it's so good" and is just insultingly bad, only watch it if:

A: you are a completionist and want to see everything Dancouga related

B: you want to shut off your brain and look ONLY at the Mecha fights

C: you want to know the show that redhead which you saw on that very nice Doujin you found last week comes from

D: you saw Nova on SRW and want to see it for yourself, cause you thought it looked as cool as it does in those games

Otherwise, stay clear of this, if you want to waste some time you could watch Mars of destruction or Garzey's wing, at least in that case you can laugh at them

As a fan of the original Choujuu Kishin Dancougar series, Nova is a complete dumpster fire. It pretty much ignores the original story of Dancouga. They just used the premise of the Dancouga mecha and some of its abilities. For some of the mecha, they chose to use Mazinger and its brethren as a basis for ability ideas. as in a flying fist attack or a tornado type attack. The final episode was the worst, defiling the original show by claiming they were fighting the original Dancouga which looked nothing like the original, nor had the same abilities. It was just bad. If they were toremove the Dancouga name from this series and sever ties to the original so that it was a stand-alone show it would be mediocre at best and maybe warrant a five overall rating. As part of the Dancouga line of series, I would give it a two or three at best.

Childish. Simplistic. Boring. Those are the words I'd use to describe Dancouga Nova. The show is a callback to older mecha anime that botchers the execution in several levels while failing to understand what made them work in the first place. It struggles to take advantage of the strengths of the formula every step of the way while failing to deliever anything unique. Like its predecessors, Dancouga Nova makes use of the Monster of Week format to tell its story. Each episode provides a more or less isolated scenario for the heroes to solve while also drip feeding information about the larger conflict, the worldand characters to the audience. Albeit not the most popular way to tell a story, it's still a completely acceptable way to take a show.

If executed properly.

By the way, this show has nothing to do with the original Dancouga. It features none of the original cast, plotlines or tone. While Dancouga: Super Beast Machine God was down to earth, a fairly grounded take on the combiner super robot defends earth from aliens, Dancouga Nova is an over the top cool robot with flashy attacks. The two have so little in common that an enemy robot literally called "Original Dancouga" has nothing to do with the actual Dancouga from the original series. As such, I will not bother drawing comparisons between the two for the remaining of this review.

The root issue with this show is its very premise. It goes as follows:

Far into the future, military conflicts all over the world are being meddled with by a mysterious robot. Whenever one sides takes the upperhand, Dancouga appears to tip the scale in favor of the weaker one only to leave as soon as the fight is over. No one knows where the robot comes from, his motivation nor his allegiance, making him sort of a legend.

Our story begins when a team of unrelated young people are recruited by the Dragon Nest, the organization behind Dancouga Nova, to become pilots of the four machine that come together to form the robot. From then on, we follow their adventures as they go on to continue Dancouga's operations.

All around, a very interesting concept. It helps that Dancouga Nova came out before Gundam 00, a far more popular show that also features robots interfering in conflicts all over the world for unknown reasons. So, what is the problem?

The premise is ill suited for the story that ends up being told. It suggests a plot far more serious and intelligent than the one that ends up being told. Despite hinting at exploring very real and dark issues of the reality of war, the morality and consequences of an unrelated third party intervening in conflicts for unknown reasons, it does nothing of substance with that setup. In fact, it brings front and center one pattern that is by far the most egregious of the entire show: unjustified mystery bait.

Despite the cool giant robot, the show is actually about the searching for answers to the various questions raised by the premise. Why does a giant robot intervenes in seemly random conflicts all over the world? Who built it? For what purpose? The search for the truth takes a considerable amount of screentime as both the pilots and an unrelated reported are deadset on making sense of the existence and actions of Dancouga. They go through computer files, sneak around, go around asking questions to anyone who appear to have any knowledge on the matter, discuss theories and even question the morality of the military interventions. Meanwhile, the people on the Dragon's Nest not only avoid giving out answers but go so far as to employ memory alteration and worldwide censorship to prevent people from growing suspicious.

Later on, the reveals come around in a very unsatisfying way. Without any major change of the situation, the leader of the Dragon's Nest simply decides to fill in the pilots on what is going on. The characters do not outsmart anyone, they do not piece together clues, leverage their positions nor use of any clever method to accomplish their objectives. The story simply craws to a point in which the writer decides to finish the mystery by expositing the truth.

And it sucks. Both the decision to info dump the secrets and the secrets themselves.

None of the reveals had to be mysteries in the first place. The truths the show goes out of its way to keep hidden has no reason to be kept a secret. No reason at all. You could easily have everything be revealed to the world and nothing would change and nothing does change when it does. To the point no one has any interesting reaction to finally being told the truth. No one reevaluates what they were doing, nobody thinks about leaving the organization or suggests changing the way they are doing things. Because the secrets were never worth the trouble of being kept secret in the first place. There is nothing sinister going on, no hidden agenda. The secrecy was nothing but a gimmick to keep the audience invested in a show that has nothing to offer. Even so, watching through a dozen of episodes of a weak cast interacting with a boring world and taking part into terrible fights was granting all the same.

If you're still not convinced and do not mind spoilers, below I wrote the truths the Dragon's Nest kept from the pilots.

And here is the truth:

- Dancouga was built with help from an alien in order to stop its alien brother hidden in the moon from killing humanity. (No reason to not tell the pilots this from day 1.)

- A cabal of aristocrats fund Dancouga Nova in order to have him performing military interventions to stop any given conflict into escalating into WW3. (No reason to not tell the pilots this from day 1.)

- The interventions also allow the pilots to grind exp to unlock transformations before facing off the real bad guy. (No reason to not tell the pilots this from day 1.)

- There were three previous team of pilots. The different sets are an attempt to figure out which combination would be the best at getting Dancouga to his final form. (No reason to not tell the pilots this from day 1.)

And that's it.

The characters themselves also do not have much to offer. Despite coming from various backgrounds, like being a racing champion, an investigator, a CEO and a homeless person, the main characters are not interesting. They do not learn any lessons nor have any memorable moments.

They struggle to articulate as to why they decide to leave their lives behind to continue to pilot Dancouga. Moreover, aside from having a drive to get at the bottom of the mysteries, they don't have a lot of motivation to do anything nor they have any real opinions about anything happening. They more or less go with the flow.

The supporting characters have either a gimmick or running gag that is the only think setting them apart from background extra and that is it. None of them has much going nor are particularly fun to watch, aside from maybe the chick hellbent on screwing a giant robot.

But what about the cool robot? At the end of the day, Dancouga Nova is a monster of the week show in which the main robot goes around the world beating up other robots. Surely at least this is fun to watch, right?

The battles are also a disappointment. Being a 2d mecha anime, it's difficult to have good animation on a tight budget, which appears to be Dancouga Nova's case. As a result, the fights are brief, somewhat lacking in movement and not particularly beautiful to look at.

Moreover, writing wise, the action scenes also leave a lot to be desired. There are no real stakes. The opponents are mostly jokes that pose no threat whatever to the heroes, the nature of Dancouga Nova's interventions mean none of the characters are actually invested in winning any of the battles nor defeat has any real consequence. Those involved barely behave like they are trying to kill each other.

Conclusion

Dancouga Nova is a ridiculously simple story bogged down by biting more than it could reasonable chew. The concepts presented raise interesting questions and the show makes damn sure to build up the importance of the answers only to deliver absolutely nothing.

Only watch if you're on a self-imposed challenge to watch every mecha anime ever made or if you thought all the pointless secrecy in Gravion Nova was really awesome and you'd like to see it done again in a even worse show.