Overman King Gainer 4/10

How the hell can a show that looks so good have such crappy dialogue and disjointed plot? Tomino may be the godfather of Gundam (which is hit and miss anyway) but after seeing Brain Powered and now OKG I'm starting to wonder if he's a one trick pony. At least lately.

Airing back in 2002-2003 the 26 episodes here look amazingly good considering the story problems. I really love the character designs and the art and animation are really top notch throughout the series. The music and ED were standard and the OP is catchy but annoying. I really had problems with some of the VAs. According to the DVD extras there were some professional live actors in the cast and I bet I could point out who they were from the somewhat dodgy delivery by some of the characters.

The story is pretty straightforward but so poorly executed I had to watch the first 5 episodes twice just to figure out what the hell was going on. The story takes place in Siberia in the future(?). The human population has been relocated into domes located in remote, inhospitable locations on Earth since the good land is needed to grow food. The story starts with part of the population of one of the domes taking off with a bunch of dome parts they live in and dashing off to a place called Yapan where the land is arable. They never quite explain how the domes come apart like that and how they move but these questions are quickly lost under the massive onslaught of plot holes and unexplained events.

As the merry band travel east they're attacked again and again by the Siberian Railway who have alot to lose since they make their money delivering goods to the domes. If the domes have no people there's no one to sell to. The story drags on for the whole series with attack after attack with lots of boring mechs. The good guys have an Overman (a mech with fancy powers) piloted by the main character Gainer who fights the enemy Overmen. Once he beats one it's replaced in the next episode with a different one with increasingly ridiculous powers as the series goes on. An Overman that can shoot lightning or disappear I can understand, one that steals things or gives everyone telepathy is just retarded.

Other than the retarded Overmen what's the problem? The problem is that the show makes sense in the big picture but suffers from about a million little thing's that don't. So many things are never explained: The powers of the Overmen, where Gainer's one originally came from, why his parents were murdered, the significance of Meeya, the significance of her city, who the London guys are, why Cynthia's grandmother was frozen in ice, where the Overmen came from. These aren't nitpicky questions. For example, Meeya is in about every other episode travelling to Yapan but not with the main group. She's somehow related to an ancient girl named Meeya that has something to do with the Overmen but we get to the end of the series and she amounts to nothing as a character. Why have her in the show at all?

Another problem with the show is the dialogue. Characters are constantly shouting out the obvious. Two characters are walking in mechs. Blue lightning strikes a nearby tree. One of the characters inevitably shouts "Blue lightning just struck that tree!". This gets REALLY annoying. We're constantly being bombarded with lines that simply describe what we've just seen.

Another thing is that there are too many characters. So many in fact that some of them disappear from the story by the time we get to the end. An example is the blond girl Adette. She starts out as a main villain, defects to the good guys, ends up living in Gainer's room, ends up as a teacher at the school, starts her own team of mech pilots and falls in love with the ninja guy. These events all come out of the blue and are never fleshed out at all. It's like filler we don't need. Repeat this for about 10 other characters and you get why this is a problem.

I can't believe a show that looks so amazing is so difficult to sit through. This of course makes it twice as good as Brain Powered. Not recommended unless maybe you're blind and like having events shouted at you.