In the year 2005 (lol), the alien Zonders emerge from underground and attack Tokyo by warping the properties of metallic objects. The only defense against the Zonders is the Gutsy Geoid Group, led by cyborg pilot Guy Shishio and his giant robot GaoGaiGar. He is joined by a young boy named Mamoru, who possesses the mysterious power to purify and neutralize Zonders after they infiltrate objects. Together they fight the Zonder menace and save the universe.
GaoGaiGar is made for two specific groups of people: Little kids and hardcore mecha fans. If you have no interest in giant robots, then GaoGaiGar will not interest you whatsoever. If you have even a passing interest in giant robots, then GaoGaiGar will not appeal to you. Only the utterly inexperienced and the most devoted of fans will get something from this series. Hell, I'm probably one of the most devoted mecha fans most of you know, and even I struggled to watch GaoGaiGar at times.
I've read comparisons a few times between GaoGaiGar and Gurren Lagann, especially about how they're both throwbacks to the olden days of super robots. Well, I'm here to tell you that's complete crap. GaoGaiGar is the throwback. Gurren Lagann is a different beast altogether -- more a modernization than anything. (For the record, I think Gurren Lagann is a much better series than GaoGaiGar.) Watch an old robot show some time: It will smack you in the face immediately just how different Gurren Lagann is, particularly in plot construction.
GaoGaiGar, on the other hand, basically is an old robot show, with 1997 advances in animation, of course. The robots are made to sell toys. (And boy did they sell a fuckload of toys.) The plots are heavy on monster-of-the-week episodes. (In fact, the whole first half is made up of this. The larger plot barely moves until the second half.) The transformation sequences are recycled as much as humanly possible. (And those suckers take a long time to play out in full.) And on and on and on. This is the oldest school robot series anyone is likely to see for a long ass time.
So it's a kids show, and that honestly makes it tough to watch for more than a few episodes at a time. The series is unbelievably repetitive, and (most of) the twists and character development easy to spot and call. It's the kind of show you're meant to see as your first anime or to recall when you watched your first anime -- it's the possibility of new things for one group, and simpler times for another.
Now, that's not to say there are not good things in GaoGaiGar. Simple as they may be, I actually like most of the characters, particularly Guy, who deserves to be worshiped as a hot-blooded cyborg god. The robots are all badass: They're more like the Transformers robots than anything -- they speak, have their own personalities and, uh, transform into shit. My favorite is VolFogg, a stealth robot who also acts as the Morgan Freeman of the group. How could that not be awesome?
And once GaoGaiGar gets rolling, it's actually pretty cool. Much like Gurren Lagann, the stakes rise ever higher until the universe itself is on the line. If you have any trace of little kid inside you, it's tough to not get sucked in to this kind of stuff. The villains are cardboard cutouts, but they're just evil enough so that it's enjoyable to see them get their asses handed to them.
If you want to experience GaoGaiGar without having to sit through 49 episodes, I suggest watching GaoGaiGar Final, an OVA that takes place after the conclusion of the TV series. It would probably be confusing for first-time viewers (it of course assumes the viewer as seen the TV show), but it has all the awesome stuff of GaoGaiGar without 25 episodes of stalling due to the short length of the OVA (8 episodes).
But if you want to test your mettle as a robot fan, then give GaoGaiGar a shot. It asks a lot from fans, but any robot fan who sticks with it will get something in return.
If you like this, then watch ... : Aside from the obvious (Gurren Lagann), any of Yasuhiro Imagawa's robot series would work well, although he makes his more with a Gurren Lagann sort of spirit (i.e. modernizing the older shows). Giant Robo, G Gundam and Shin Mazinger Z are all worthwhile watches for mecha fans.
