1990’s TV Anime – The Brave Fighter of Legend Da Garn Episode 1 (1992)

Well, this was a really well made first episode of a kids TV action anime. Lots of unsupervised adventure, comedy, mystery and a police car that turns into a robot. Earth is visited by a hostile UFO, and the main character Seiji Takasugi runs the gamut of emotion from being exicted about a UFO, happy that school gets cancelled because of the UFO, terrified when the UFO turns into a hostile robot that attacks his town, to being totally stoked that he has a
transforming police car robot that he can order to beat up the evil robot.

The episode builds nicely as what seems at first to be a typical day for Seiji, slowly turns weird and dangerous. Then it gives you some robot action, and finally it leaves you with enough mystery to make you want to come back for the next episode. What’s the deal with spooky girl in Seiji’s class who listens to nature, and who are the aliens orbiting Earth that sent the UFO?

While the opening animation is pretty great, it turns out that it’s not writing cheques the show can’t cash. The animation in the episode has some nice flourishes here and there, telling the story well. And you can definitely tell the human characters are based on some Toyoo Ashida designs. 

This is the first of these 1990’s shows I’ve been watching that I really wanted to watch the next episode of. Which is a pretty good endorsement I think, if not that, then the HUGE nineties anime shoulder pads that the villain has surely are. And if that’s still not enough for you, the ending theme features dancing giraffes in sailor suits.