I’ve been diligently watching Getter Robo Arc whenever an episode drops every Sunday as this is the first time I’ll be watching proper a Getter Robo story from Ken Ishikawa himself. Not that the previous OVAs weren’t proper, in fact they are amazing pieces of mecha fiction. But it still feels different when it comes directly from Ishikawa himself. Not to mention the notoriety of being an unfinished story makes me even more curious how the anime would handle it.
This is no way a review of the first episodes, but just me rambling and giving my unsolicited thoughts.
To those unfamiliar, Getter Robo Arc is the final story Ken Ishikawa did before his untimely passing, hence its unfinished status. Now there has been a lot of lore established prior to this installment that makes me want to read all prior Getter Robo stories. Fortunately, they’ve been consolidated as the Getter Robo Saga. And of course, I’ll definitely watch the various OVAs that also add to the mythos while not being canon to the story.
Six episodes were already released as of this post and the story has so far done a great job in not only establishing our new Getter Team, but connect this installment to the previous ones as well, explaining what happened to those characters. Chief of this has been Getter Dragon, the primary combination in Getter Robo G. Prior to this series, I always thought of it as a mid-season replacement for the original Getter 1 but that’s not apparently the case. This robot has been undergoing some weird stuff that would probably be revealed as the series progresses.
What interests me more is the looming ‘threat’ of Getter Emperor which, from what I’ve read, is the most powerful Getter evolution and everyone’s basically afraid of it. It’s a manifestation of the dangers in harnessing the power of Getter Rays and the reason why the Andromeda Country has set an invasion to eliminate humanity. The prospect of this thing being an uncontrolled Getter evolution is so awesome, I am thinking of getting the Soul of Chogokin version.
I’m also currently looking for a Revoltech Getter Arc to finally complete my collection, all of which would look great with the larger Getter Emperor if I ever decide to get one. As for the anime itself, it’s not perfect and has flaws. But I’ll reserve my review once the series concludes. Speaking of which, there’s still the question of its episode count, and whether it would attempt to create an anime-original conclusion. I know the latter is blasphemous to most, especially for fans of Ken Ishikawa’s work. Given that the original manga was able to conclude the first part of its story, maybe the anime will do the same?
In any case, I am still looking forward to watching the rest of the episodes and am really interested in reading the source material for more context. Until then, believe in Getter!
