Japanimation Station Season 6 - TOMINO-THON!

The second half of Aura Battler Dunbine is one of the most fascinating and divisive stretches of Tomino Yoshiyuki’s career. After a killer set of episodes following the deepening conflict in Byston Well, the series’ action shifts to Upper Earth – our world – for the final cours, an increasingly brutal and bleak set of episodes that frustrates some viewers even as it invigorates others. That divide is seen between our two hosts on today’s show, as Jonathan found the series overly repetitive and static down the home stretch, while Sean defends it as a potent story of wartime intransigence. Wherever one comes down, though, it’s clear Dunbine is a series worth grappling with and talking about. It’s utterly unique, stirringly directed, and if nothing else, it introduced us to a certain Bostonian named Todd Guinness – and you might want to stay through the end of the episode to hear more about him.  

Enjoy, and come back next week as we begin our adventures with Heavy Metal L-Gaim, covering episodes 1 through 26! 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:37

Dunbine Part 2 Review: 0:01:37 – 1:31:44

Eyecatch Break: 1:31:44 – 1:32:28

Dunbine Part 2 Review Continued: 1:32:28 – 3:05:37

BEYOND THE TODD: 3:05:37 – 3:11:08

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Follow Japanimation Station on Instagram and Threads @JapanimationStationPodhttps://www.instagram.com/japanimationstationpod/

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Tominoson-G Mk. V” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku & KAITO. “BEYOND THE TODD” – Produced by Thomas Lack, featuring KAITO & Hatsune Miku, based on “BEYOND THE TIME” by TM Network. https://www.thomaslack.com

Grab your motorcycle, hop on the aura road, and cross between the sea and the shore to join us in Byston Well, where we’ll be spending the next 2 weeks with Aura Battler Dunbine! One of Tomino’s most audacious, ahead-of-its-time creations, Dunbine anticipates the popularity of the isekai genre decades later with the story of Show Zama, a young man from our earth who falls into the high fantasy setting of Byston Well, and becomes embroiled in warlord Drake Luft’s bloody conquest. Reminiscent of many later fantasy-driven anime, but extremely different than all of them, Dunbine is absolutely one-of-a-kind, as proven by these first 19 episodes, which climax with one of the most virtuosic stretches of Tomino’s career. 

Enjoy, and come back next week as we finish Aura Battler Dunbine with episodes 20 through 49! 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:37

Intro and History: 0:01:37 – 1:10:55

Eyecatch Break: 1:10:55 – 1:11:36

Dunbine Part 1 Review: 1:11:36 – 3:16:54

End Theme: 3:16:54 – 3:19:04

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Follow Japanimation Station on Instagram and Threads @JapanimationStationPodhttps://www.instagram.com/japanimationstationpod/

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Tominoson-G Mk. V” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku & KAITO. “The World You See” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

The second half of Combat Mecha Xabungle – episodes 27 through 50 – plays like a second season, with the action moving to Planet Zola’s snowy tundra, a new group of characters arriving on the scene in the form of the freedom-fighting Salt crew, and the kidnapping of the Iron Gear’s captain, Elchi Cargo, leading to a new set of stakes for the series’ second half. It doesn’t all work, as Xabungle falls into some unfortunately repetitive patterns down the home stretch, blunting some of the great character work and world-building done in the first. But these episodes are not without their considerable high points, and if nothing else, the compilation movie – Xabungle Grafitti – is one of the weirder such films we’ve ever looked at. If the journey matters more than the destination, then Xabungle is definitely a journey we’re happy to have taken. 

Enjoy, and come back next week as we cross through the aura road and enter the world of Byston Well with the first 19 episodes of Aura Battler Dunbine! 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:37

Xabungle Part 2 Review: 0:01:37 – 1:02:42

Eyecatch Break: 1:02:42 – 1:02:23

Xabungle Part 2 Review Continued: 1:02:23 – 2:10:37

End Theme: 2:10:37 – 2:12:46

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Follow Japanimation Station on Instagram and Threads @JapanimationStationPodhttps://www.instagram.com/japanimationstationpod/

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Tominoson-G Mk. V” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku & KAITO. “The World You See” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

Beginning an historic, uninterrupted run of 5 back-to-back 50-episode anime series airing from 1982 to 1987, Combat Mecha Xabungle marks an exciting turning point in Tomino Yoshiyuki’s career. After really giving his ‘Kill ‘em All’ ethos a workout on Space Runaway Ideon, Tomino set himself a very different challenge with Xabungle: What if this could be a ‘Nobody Dies’ show? The result is a vibrant mecha action comedy set in what is basically the wild west (albeit on the planet Zola), with a ragtag cast of vibrant characters battling their way through some of Tomino’s richest and most intriguing world-building. In this week’s conversation, we look at the history of the show and discuss the first 26 episodes, which we found to be absolutely delightful from top to bottom. 

Enjoy, and come back next week as we finish Xabungle with episodes 27-50 and the compilation movie, Xabungle Grafitti! 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:37

Intro and History: 0:01:37 – 1:29:51

Eyecatch Break: 1:29:51 – 1:30:33

Xabungle Part 1 Review: 1:30:33 – 3:11:35 

End Theme: 3:11:35 – 3:13:50

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Follow Japanimation Station on Instagram and Threads @JapanimationStationPodhttps://www.instagram.com/japanimationstationpod/

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Tominoson-G Mk. V” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku & KAITO. “The World You See” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com

Many years before Anno Hideaki remade the ending to his audacious but unfinished sci-fi TV series with an avant-garde theatrical tour-de-force in The End of Evangelion, Tomino Yoshiyuki blazed the trail with The Ideon: Be Invoked, providing the full ending Space Runaway Ideon never got on television in spectacular (and spectacularly violent) fashion. Alongside its companion film, A Contact – which recaps the story of the TV series – Be Invoked completes the Ideon experience in the most purely Tomino ways imaginable, with incredibly intense action, an absolutely astonishing amount of bloodletting, and, in the end, a transcendental vision of collective human consciousness breaking free from these shackles we call bodies. It is one of the darkest, strangest, and most spectacularly produced anime films of all time, a crucial step not just in the career of Tomino Yoshiyuki, but in the history of Japanese animation itself. 

Enjoy, and come back next week for something completely different: Tomino’s delightful Western mecha comedy Combat Mecha Xabungle! 

Time Chart:

Theme Song: 0:00:00 – 0:01:37

History and A Contact Review: 0:01:37 – 1:03:44

Eyecatch Break: 1:03:44 – 1:04:28 

Be Invoked Review: 1:04:28 – 3:17:29

End Theme: 3:17:29 – 3:19:43 

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcßast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to PURELY ACADEMIC, our monthly variety podcast about movies, video games, TV, and more: https://purelyacademic.simplecast.com

Follow Japanimation Station on Instagram and Threads @JapanimationStationPodhttps://www.instagram.com/japanimationstationpod/

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

“Tominoson-G Mk. V” – Music by Thomas Lack, Lyrics by Sean Chapman, featuring Hatsune Miku & KAITO. “The World You See” – Music & Lyrics by Thomas Lack, featuring Hatsune Miku. https://www.thomaslack.com