Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
ShmansAnime
For the final episode, I just cried for pretty much the whole episode. I could not believe how much Anno explored ideas of morality in his debut. This anime, altough only 6 episodes, managed to build so much emotion that I just broke down on it's ultimate episode. It disarms you (in the same way Eva did) through mundane life that when it's hammer swings you suddenly realize how much you treasure what you have in the moment
Anno understands how to portray day-to-day life, most of the time it sucks. A mere moment of happiness and joy just passes through you, it doesn't mean anything yo you. But suddenly, a wave (time, experience, memories. etc.) passes through you, you may not even notice it but it happened. Everything now means everything, friends, family, even moments with people you've k…
Read at the sourceJoshhhp
OVA so good it made me go back to reviewing anime after two years.
Despite having been a huge fan of Evangelion for quite some time, I just recently discovered Gunbuster after seeing a GIF on Twitter featuring the show's opening sequence. I admit I wasn't very well-informed about the past works of Hideaki Anno or Gainax in general; all I knew was Evangelion and Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou, and the rest had never really been on my radar. I'm glad I delved deeper into Anno's lesser-known works, as his career in animation has turned out to be more interesting than I expected.
Gunbuster (or TWN to make it short) tells the story of a 15 years old pilot named Noriko whose father Takaya Yuzo tragically died during a battle against alien forces when she was a little kid. She then begins to attend the…
Read at the sourcegharnest
Just watch Ace wo Nerae!.
This anime was quite a disappointment. I heard it was really good, so I decided to give it a try. Heck, I even watched Ace wo Nerae! for this, of which Top wo Nerae! Gunbuster borrows a LOT from. In that sense, Gunbuster has been a net positive in my life, as it introduced me to Ace wo Nerae!, which has since become one of my favorite anime of all time. The part where I had to watch Gunbuster, however, was a bit of a nuisance.
Most of the plot points are straight from Ace wo Nerae!. The entire first episode is completely out of place since quite literally none of that is original material, and is essentially a very rushed summary of the beginning of AwN. As a result, we are bombarded with plot points and events with no time to digest any of them, and aside from…
Read at the sourceyunoheather
I watched this anime a few years ago, and I didn't really like it. I remember laughing out loud at the robots doing sit-ups, cringing at the artificial pathos, and skipping several episodes. I think it was only the ending that really got me.
I've rewatched it now, and I'm okay with it. It's a pretty standard anime, I don't know what to criticize it for. The girls in robots do sit-ups to learn how to coordinate and control their mecha. Anno's signature style is in full effect; you could say these are the prototypes for the characters in his subsequent works. Despite working in the shounen and seinen genres, Anno drew inspiration from shoujo, which he never hid. The character similarities to Ace wo Nerae! are obvious, but Top wo Nerae! is an independent work that doesn't overtly copy anythin…
Read at the sourcechinese_cartoons
This show has a lot of problems.
- The plot is difficult to take seriously
- the characters are mostly silly and one note
- Noriko is endearing, but absolutely useless, and her being the Gunbuster pilot doesn't really feel earned.
- the "villains" are faceless space bugs who exist only to destroy everything
- the Gunbuster itself doesn't even show up until near the end and it's stupidly overpowered.
So why do I ultimately recommend it? because throughout the show there is a very interesting exploration of the effects of time dilation. This all culminates in the masterpiece that is the final episode. done in striking black and white (look how majestic the Black Bomb looks in this style), it's where the most impactful scenes relating to this effect are found, the most notable being Kimiko…
Read at the sourcejjjawesome
I watched Gunbuster primarily for historical interest, as one of Hideaki Anno's earliest director roles.
I don't think it was good, but I don't regret watching it by any means. By the end of the 6 episodes I decided to give it a 6/10 overall. It suffered in part from its short length, because it did have underlying themes that, if further explored, could have been quite interesting.
I believe I understand at least some of what they were trying to accomplish: it's supposed to be a story of revenge, coming of age, loss, and sacrifice in humanity's war against space monsters trying to kill all humans. However, it ends up mostly being about loss in my opinion. (This focus is not necessarily a bad thing, as I'll explain.)
The reason it's mostly about loss is also the part of Gunbuster that I…
Read at the sourceOlorin666
The anime is essentially a rehearsal for Evangelion. It explores almost identical themes, there are similar characters and the very essence of the story. Yes, something is really different and anime is not without its own charm. This is a great representative of the anime of the 80s, it has a much simpler plot than Evangelion, much less psychologism, riddles, metaphors and allusions. So if you're looking for an anime that's similar to Evangelion, but not as over-the-top, this is obviously your go-to. You can see the master’s touch, but it’s hard to fully immerse yourself in this story; it feels like a prequel to a larger narrative. It would be interesting to explore its individual elements, but unfortunately, it cuts off just when things get really interesting.
Read at the sourceThatOneBoyo
Primo OVA experience that has the usual fixings of gorgeous animation, cute characters, and, of course, random scenes with nudity. Gunbuster has interested me for a long time, as key visuals from it served as the backdrop for random future funk videos I watched in high school. Despite only being six episodes, the show was able to cram in a bunch of fun sci-fi concepts, as well as build up the scale of its story at a rapid pace. More than anything, this is a pretty show to look at, with inspired, intricate depictions of robots, space battle cruisers, and aliens. A new thing to me was learning that this show is basically a retelling of the anime "Aim for the Ace" albeit substituting a high school tennis championship for intergalactic warfare. While most of Gunbuster is a love letter to that…
Read at the sourceCool_Hand
Gunbuster is existential horror piloting a mecha suit. There is less action in the show and more focus on the frailties of human life, whether those lives end quickly in war and sickness or from the non-negotiable reality of time's constant progression.
The show alternates its action sequences with slower contemplative moments, making each more poignant by contrast. Anno would go on to perfect this oscillating method of storytelling in Neon Genesis Evangelion. But here, distilled in a 6 episode series the whiplash can at times be more impactful.
The show's strength perhaps lies in its simplicity and straightforward storytelling. There is little winding around and needs to be little because the show knows how to make episodes emotionally impactful.
I believe anyone can enjoy the show. Ju…
Read at the sourceMichaelBellonis
“Pay close attention - in space, it’s easy to lose perspective.”
I’m back with another contender for my Definitive Top 100 Anime of All Time List.
Gunbuster is a 6-episode OVA series that came out in 1988 and was Hideaki Anno’s directorial debut. What started as references to Top Gun and Aim for the Ace turned quickly into a time-warping tragedy with references to sci-fi materials such as Blade Runner and The Forever War.
It was also a last ditch effort from the newly founded Gainax studio, as their first commercial work, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, was a financial failure. They didn’t have enough funding to go through with a sequel, and so instead began working on what would become this massively influential OVA.
Gunbuster follows a young pilot named Noriko, who’s t…
Read at the sourcestillhollow
Gunbuster (1988) – Anime Review
At just six episodes long, Gunbuster (1988–1989) stands as one of anime’s greatest examples of how to do a lot with a little. It was Gainax’s first real stab at sci-fi/mecha drama, directed by a young Hideaki Anno in his debut—and it’s nothing short of a time capsule of passion, grit, and groundbreaking ambition.
For an OVA made in the late '80s, Gunbuster looks fantastic. The animation is fluid, the designs are distinctive, and the space battles carry real weight. Gainax clearly pushed the limits of their budget, even innovating new methods to keep the quality consistent.
For its age, it holds up shockingly well. No, it doesn’t have the ultra-polished CG of modern anime, but its hand-drawn charm and ambition easily rival most series today.
The soundtrac…
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Gunbuster is a sort of revision of the mecha genre based on the Yukio Mishima quote "The perfectly ordinary girl and the great philosopher are alike: for both, the smallest triviality can become the vision that wipes out the world." At its heart is a visceral coming-of-age story about looking up to the great people in your life and then seeing them beaten and broken by the world just like everyone else, and having to find the strength within you to become your own person. Though it has a lot of the trappings of 80s "hard sci-fi," it is obviously disinterested in following the rules compared to its interest in materializing the emotional landscapes of its characters. In that sense, it's a very clear precursor to the "sekai-kei" genre. In its treatment of cosmology and even the physical univ…
Read at the sourceSp1cyCrab
I don't understand who is the target audience of Gunbuster.
It pretends to be a Real Robot show with down to Earth characters and lots of pseudo science. Then you see that pilots in space don't wear any kind of a space suit. Then a secondary character dies within the same episode he is introduced in, and MC decides that she is now a hot blooded Super Robot protagonist. The titular Gunbuster appears that towers over normal mech and it has a completely different control scheme ala G Gundam. A lot of yelling happens, some monsters die, credits roll.
Gunbuster's key issue is its protagonist Noriko. She is as an epitome of an ordinary japanese girl but she wants to go to space because of her dead father. She is somewhat of a girl failure but she is encouraged by the mentor character to work h…
Read at the sourcemadsonweb
The build up in the first episodes is really fun and entertaining but kinda predicable and rushed, which is fine because everything fits so well. The latter ones are just a masterpiece! Go watch or rewatch it!
Putting everything in the context of the eighties and it becomes even special.
The art style and animation are really good. It isn't always perfect but excels when needed. There's a change at some point in the anime. I bet most people liked it.
A side note:
I don't know why there are so many bitter people out there. People. Let's just have fun!
Read at the sourceRyan_the_Bread
The Prebuild of Evangelion.
On a serious note, however, Gunbuster’s merit lies in much more than just being the foundation from which Gainax would build most of their later (and more successful) properties off of. It’s a testament to just how talented Anno and crew were that what could have easily turned out to be just a jumbled mess of ideas instead became, what I would consider, something truly greater than the sum of its parts (and those parts aren’t even really bad on their own).
We follow Noriko Takaya who, unlike a later protagonist, DOES want to get in the robot. Her goal at the beginning of the series is to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a space pilot. As easy a storytelling method as it is, the series does effectively get us (well, me at any rate) to sympathize with…
Read at the sourcexBLxNeven
Honestly pretty mid. The art was good and so was the dubbed voice acting in my opinion. Really fast watch finished it all in one day which I like because I don’t like shows to have a billion episodes. Pretty rushed story and the first four episodes are extremely mid except the last two which actually are pretty good and will probably actually invoke some emotion for the watcher. Really mid story doesn’t try to do much except be average. The mid story combined with the unnecessary nudity ruin this anime for me. I’m pretty sure this was a big inspiration for NGE. Anyways it’s mid 4-5/10.
Read at the sourceHalalex
Joining the surprisingly short list of shows that would’ve benefitted a lot from being longer, ‘Top wo Nerae GunBuster’ still manages to do so much in its mere 6 episodes that in my experience most shows fail to accomplish at all.
Granted, this might be one of my most biased takes, because most of my enjoyment of this show comes from how overwhelmingly 80s it is. And that’s not to say that it’d be a bad show otherwise, just that a lot of the charm found here is a direct effect of the period in which it was made. It’s almost like a time capsule in a sort of way, concentrating what characterizes 80’s anime into one cliché-ridden story.
Every element of GunBuster is just good, not great, but good. And that’s absolutely enough when it’s presented in the way that it is. The world-building h…
Read at the sourceDISKOWN
Top wo Nerae! Gunbuster is an outstanding OVA series that captivates viewers from beginning to end. Its plot is both engrossing and well-animated, but it's Noriko's character development that truly sets it apart. Her arc is thoughtfully crafted, with realistic motivations that resonate with viewers. The animation has aged gracefully, with a timeless art style that remains visually stunning. The sci-fi backdrop and expert storytelling only add to the show's appeal. The final episode is slightly different artistically, featuring a memorable and emotionally charged ending that is a true tour-de-force. If you're an anime fan, Top wo Nerae! Gunbuster is a must-watch classic.
Read at the sourceSufferingMeguca
A joyful work of fandom. Anno and his Gainax colleagues grew their craft as much through parodic works of high effort amateur animation and tokusatu fan films as through paid animator work, and Gunbuster represents a full realisation of that craft. A loving reflection on formative works, it is to me the apotheosis of 80s anime fandom.
Watching it again this year it exists both as a product, and subject, of nostalgia. The setting provides a balance between scenes of grounded familiarity and the more fantastical mecha/science fiction elements. It feels like an Anno calling card, the alignment of adolescent angst, scenes of comforting domesticity, and incomprehensible existential peril. Students do gym class in mecha, tell ghost stories in outer space, sunbathe in artificial light, war with…
Read at the sourceCiaran_Zagami
I cannot think of a single nice thing to say about Gunbuster.
The action scenes are flat, boring and predictable. Gunbuster does some flashy thing, several billion enemies die. There's no weight or risk. The characters are dull. All the protagonist does is cry, promise to stop crying, then cry some more because having actual character development is hard. I could maybe say something nice about the animation, but what's the point in blowing your budget on giant killer mechas if their just going to do the same stuff as a generic shonen? Just scream, fling some laser beams from its fingers and yell attack names.
It really doesn't feel like a story made from passion, more like it's just collecting cliches and plot points.
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