Tek Setter!AngelicTotoro (post: 1484725) wrote:Tekkaman Blade
I'm stalled seven episodes into Tekkaman Blade, but I do intend to go back and finish watching it. One day. I'm also familiar with some details of the rest of the story from playing Super Robot Wars J and reading /m/ too much.
I quite like what I've seen of it. The set-up for the story is good, with humanity teetering on the brink of defeat and a violent, taciturn young man with superpowers showing up to help them. From what I know, the story's about the heroes gradually learning to trust each other, and dealing with some heavy events. While fighting aliens to save Earth.
The show takes its time revealing what's actually going on, and when it is revealed it's pretty grim stuff if you've bought into the story. Which is a point -- this is, I think, an anime which has roots in a more cheerful mid-seventies story, but is trying to be all dark and serious. Sometimes it gets caught midway, and you have to be prepared to believe, for example, that 'Tekkaman Evil' is a credible name for a villain.
Downsides? The budget was tight. Some of the animation is cheap, and they use stock footage pretty often. And the story drags at times, I think.
As for objectionable content, I don't remember anything particularly egregious, though of course I only watched a little more than a tenth of the show! The alien-fighting involves bloodshed and (not especially gory) alien dismemberment. One of the minor characters is a very bluntly caricatured gay who has (IIRC) a crush on the main character, which is played for laughs; I thought this was an annoying and lazy excuse for writing proper jokes, but not nearly a significant enough part of the show to be a dealbreaker (for me).
Hope this helps. And I wish I'd seen more of it so I could give a more reliable report!