Julien Neaves, Editor
Plot: Four powerful psychic warriors use their abilities and combine special spacecraft into the powerful robot Dangaioh to battle the tyranny of conquering space pirates led by the vile Captain Galimos.
As someone who grew up on Voltron and watched Power Rangers as a teen I know a thing or two about a team combining vehicles to form a powerful robot. And it never ceases to be cool. So I was happy to stumble upon 1987 combining robot mecha OVA Hyper Combat Unit Dangaioh during my retro anime odyssey. And I am happy to report this hidden gem is worth discovering. With a moderate SPOILER ALERT let’s dive in.
The best aspect of Dangaioh (yeah, I’m not typing out the full name every time) is the main team. Each of the four characters has a distinct personality and psychic ability, and they are all likeable. You have the caring and pacifistic leader Mia Alice with telekinesis (a power she cannot control); Roll Kran, who grows from hesitant fighter to brave warrior and has the ability to generate kinetic energy while running (he reminded me of Cannonball from X-Men); immature Lamba Nom who fires laser blasts from her fingers; and my favourite, Pai Thunder, the super strong and cocky loner. It is a joy watching them bounce off each other and use their different powers in battle.
The team is aided by the brilliant Dr Tarsan who goes from trying to sell the psychics to the space pirates to a semi-trusted ally to sacrificing himself to save them. In terms of villains, they are a decent bunch, with big bad Captain Galimos having an imposing aesthetic and relentless cyborg Gil Berg making a worthy adversary.
There is a healthy helping of action over the course of three episodes and it is a welcome mix of ground battles with super powers, space battles and robot-on-robot battles. And speaking of robots, Dangaioh is a BEAST. He uses a mix of mechanical attacks like a sword, rocket fists and a laser beam, and psionic attacks thanks to the psychic team piloting it. I loved watching him in action.
In terms of story, we get to explore each character’s backstory and each episode has its own setting and mission focus. Unfortunately, Episode 3 ends on the massive cliffhanger of Dangaioh being destroyed and the team transported away in escape pods. There was a 2001 reboot/sequel series Great Dangaioh which did not perform well and was cancelled before that story could be completed either. Unfinished story aside, the original Dangaioh is a fun OVA with great characters and sweet mecha action.
Editor Jules’ Score: 7.5 out of 10
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Julien “Editor Jules” Neaves is a TARDIS-flying, Force-using Trekkie whose bedroom stories were by the Cryptkeeper, learned to be a superhero from Marvel, but dreams of being Batman. I love promoting Caribbean film (Cariwood), creating board games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like “13 flavours of awesome sauce”. Read more.