Shelf Life

Aura Battler Dunbine

Based purely on its concept alone, Aura Battler Dunbine is one of the most interesting series I think I've ever gotten to review for Shelf Life. Coming to us from the long ago time of the early 80s, this is a decidedly retro product, and the way it mixes high fantasy and traditional mecha action makes it feel even more of its time than other, slightly more recent mecha shows I've covered before, like Turn A Gundam and After War Gundam X. Aura Battler Dunbine does share common DNA with Gundam, though, in that the lead director is none other than Gundam mastermind Yoshiyuki Tomino, so the core structure and basic storytelling beats should feel familiar to anyone that's spent some time in the Universal Century. We have a cool and heroic protagonist who uses his innate skills at piloting giant robots to help turn the tide of a complex and increasingly destructive war, and an ever-growing cast of allies and antagonists who flesh out the world and propel the conflict forward for dozens of episodes.

What separates Aura Battler Dunbine from other shows that I've experienced is the way that it injects that familiar anime formula with the equally recognizable trappings of 80s era fantasy storytelling. The main hero of Aura Battler Dunbine is a modern-day delinquent bike racer from Japan named Shou Zama, who is all of a sudden whisked to the fantastical world of Byston Well, a land of faeries, monsters, magic, and political intrigue that is a decidedly 80s mix of Tolkien and George R. R. Martin. Everyone has candy colored hair, most of the men have mullets, and pretty much every corner of Byston Well would feel at home in the illustrations of an old AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide.

Then there are the Aura Battlers, the titular machines that man the frontlines of the war between Lord Drake Luft and the underdog soldiers being led by Neal Given. Shou was among a number of humans summoned by Luft from what Byston Well knows as “Upper Earth”, using the power of an imprisoned faerie named Silky Mau. Shou and the other humans of Upper Earth contain latent Aura Power that makes them prime candidates to pilot the Aura Battlers, which themselves have been designed by an American with the wonderfully campy name of Shott Weapon (nearly everyone in this series has a ridiculous name, especially the Americans). Shou's main rival is a cocky (and very racist) American named Todd Guinness, and while the both of them initially begin the story as soldiers for Luft, Shou meets another American, a woman named Marvel Frozen, who shows him that he may be fighting for the wrong side.

By now, the setting of Byston Well and the fact that Tomino is the series' lead creative will likely remind some of the infamous Tomino OVA, Garzey's Wing. While I've never seen the OVA myself, I understand its less than glowing reputation, but the good news is that Aura Battler Dunbine is essentially completely unrelated to Garzey's Wing, both in terms of plot and quality. While Aura Battler Dunbine definitely feels like a distinct Tomino production, the series strikes and ideal balance of sci-fi camp and wartime melodrama, making it a surprisingly entertaining testament to everything fun about 80s anime kitsch. First and foremost, I'd say that if you are the kind of viewer with a lot of patience for Gundam-esque cliché and the general goofiness of 80s-era fantasy, Aura Battler Dunbine has a lot to offer.

Personally, I was a little skeptical of Aura Battler at the start. I couldn't decide whether it was going to end up being the endearing kind of 80s cheese, or the irritating kind. Eventually, though, I found myself really warming up to the cast and their struggles, especially once Shou joins up with Marvel Frozen and Neal Given, and they go about building up their resistance forces and fighting the good fight against Drake Luft. Shou is by all accounts a complete doofus, the kind of hero who is good-hearted but more than a little thick-headed, but he plays well enough off of his companions that I ended up coming around to him. Marvel Frozen is a capable warrior and a decently written female lead, especially for a product from this time period, and Neal's love affair with Elmelie Drake, Luft's daughter, adds some fun, if predictable layers to the usual backstabbing, scheming, and military maneuvers that fill out most of the series' 49 episodes. Nobody in this cast is necessarily going to offer much by way of surprise or subversion for anybody that is familiar with this genre and this era of anime, but they're good fun, and they work well enough provided you know what you're getting into when you dive into Aura Battler's lengthy run.

In general, the foibles of age and poor production values are this show's primary barriers to entry, and the only major criticism I have to lob at the series. It's very long, and the novelty of the setting and the janky 80s aesthetics wears off pretty quickly, so if you're not in the mood for a Yoshiyuki Tomino epic, Aura Battler Dunbine probably won't be for you. The show's visuals and music have aged very poorly, and I'm not sure if they would have been considered more than middling even back in the day. The animation is rough around the edges in even its best moments, and the music, while definitely era and genre appropriate, is repetitive and generally forgettable. The Aura Battler designs are nowhere near as iconic or interesting as their Gundam brethren, so Aura Battler's success really lives and dies with its plot and characters. I was on board, for the most part, but I could absolutely understand if anyone grew tired of it before the conflict really heats up in the story's later stages. Without spoiling too much, the relationship between Byston Well and Earth becomes more and more complicated as the series goes on, and the adventure becomes much more interesting as a result.

Sentai Fillmworks' Blu-Ray collection contains no extras, and the hi-def format doesn't so much enhance the show's aged visuals as it does preserve them. We also get the old ADV dub from 2003, which is the kind of badly aged production that is either going to be insufferable or ironically charming, depending on your perspective. Nearly all of the performances are stilted to some degree or another, and the use of accents to delineate political allegiance is inconsistent and generally not well done. The most dubious highlight would have to be the faux-Irish (or maybe it's supposed to be Scottish?) trill that Vic Mignogna puts on for Neal; he's come a long way in the past fifteen years, which is good, because this is one of the worst manglings of an accent that I've heard in a very long time. The Japanese dub is easily a higher-quality version of the series all around, but I enjoyed the English track too, since it only added another layer of cheese to the series' kitschy quiche. The only quibbles I would mention is that the dub's mix occasionally sounded off coming out of both my TV speakers and my sound bar, and I didn't experience the same issues with the Japanese track.

I don't want to give the impression that I only enjoyed Aura Battler Dunbine ironically; the story is genuinely a lot of fun once it gets past the sluggish opening episodes, and when the series did hit its prime, I was earnestly powering through it because I wanted to see how everything resolved. I'm not always up for old-school Gundam-style series, but every once in a while shows like Aura Battler Dunbine scratch that itch for a good old-fashioned giant robot epic. Aura Battler Dunbine won't be for everyone, but I'm glad that Sentai has worked to preserve this piece of anime history with this Blu-Ray release, and anyone that is curious would do well to check it out.
-James[TOP]