Recommendation | Tekkaman Blade – a story of personal revenge, with the world as collateral

“Even the ones you’re supposed to love are forgotten as you don your mask of sin. Hey, this must be what it’s like when the stars grieve, right?” – “Masquerade” (translated), Tekkaman Blade (1992)

Title: Space Knight Tekkaman Blade

Episodes: 49

Year: 1992

Genre: Sci-fi, drama

Perhaps most popularly known for his cameo appearance in Tatsunoko vs Capcom at this point in the contemporary media scene, Tekkaman Blade is the titular character in Tatsunoko’s devastatingly underappreciated 1992 animated series “Space Knight Tekkaman Blade”. I do mean it when I say ‘devastatingly’, at current Redditanimelist (a service which keeps track of MAL users on r/anime) lists only a meagre 70 or so having completed it. And while that doesn’t account for those without MAL or who use something like Anilist instead, the small number is especially poignant in the midst of its current million subscriber festivities.

Tekkaman Blade is a very loosely inspired successor to the 1975 Space Knight Tekkaman in the sense that it borrows some terminology, but the two have zero in common beyond the names “Space Knights” and “Tekkaman”. Design-wise it also takes some very obvious nods from Dangaioh (1987) and Detonator Orgun (1991), but that’s a topic for another day.

The year is 2300, and Earth is being faced with its greatest crisis yet – the Radam. In the blink of an eye the Orbital Ring defense compound encompassing the planet is breached, and the world is bombarded with insect-like monsters from outer space; rampaging in population centres, and spreading their spores to catalyse the growth of the “Radam plant”. As their plants slowly terraform the surface, the remaining amount of liveable space for humans is swallowed by the Radam Forest, leading to the distinct and well-realised environments that populate the backdrops of its creative setting.

The military can’t keep up. The people are weary and fearful. The social support structures are deteriorating. The cities are falling to ruin. An all-pervading melancholy hangs over mankind. The situation is bleak.

Yet this is not a tale about the fate of the planet. This is the tale of a man seeking his own personal revenge, with the world as mere collateral.

The story begins when Aki and Noal, two employees of the Outer Space Development Organisation which researches the alien ecology, spot a comet falling to the Earth. Upon inspecting the crater they find a man lying in the centre – naked, significantly less damaged than one would expect of a fall from space, and very grumpy. His memory is lost from the impact, but if nothing else he retains his burning hatred for the Radam. When they’re suddenly required to enter orbit in order to try and combat an oncoming wave of aliens, the group are shocked to find him sprinting out of the shuttle and transforming into the illustrious Tekkaman Blade, all before they could even process what was happening.

He roars out with microphone-breaking battle cries as he rages throughout the heavens, and lights the sky with his Voltekka beam – and it’s at this moment that they realise they’ve stumbled upon the thing they needed most, as uncontrollable as he may seem. Having displayed his merit as a military asset he is coerced into their organisation, and upon being given the (admittedly ridiculous, blame Noal for that) name “D-Boy”, he becomes a central figure in their battle to repel the invading forces of the Radam.

It’s a series of compelling character drama and questionable morality, displaying a maturity arguably unlike anything else I’ve seen in the medium. And in the case of the protagonist D-Boy, one of the most unique, most tragic character arcs I have ever witnessed. The beautifully paced 49 episode story is full of major twists at every turn, each with far-reaching effects on the overall narrative. The first time I watched it, I vividly recall so many times that the show’s daring progression caught me off guard by moving in bold directions I never expected it to.

Of course I do have to acknowledge the elephant in the room. The biggest drawback of Tekkaman Blade is, well, the animation. There’s no getting around it – the animation is lazy at the best of times, sloppy at the worst. It continually gets better as the series progresses, but for the most part you’d be forgiven for thinking this was an early 80s series rather than something from the 90s. Yet even still, I recommend this series with every fibre of my being. In an audiovisual medium such as anime I would usually argue that subpar art should be irreconcilable, but Tekkaman Blade is the one where I will point to it and say that its story is so phenomenal, its plot progressions so daring, its characters so compelling, its setting so intriguing, its themes and messages so unlike anything else – that it still manages to be a masterpiece in spite of its visual shortcomings.

If you’re a fan of retro anime and sci-fi who hasn’t seen Tekkaman Blade, then you’re doing it wrong.

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well heya, I see there’s a sequel OVA listed on MAL?

Title: Tekkaman Blade II

Episodes: 6

Year: 1994

Genre: Sci-fi, action

Don’t watch Tekkaman Blade II.

Tekkaman Blade II is what we colloquially refer to as blasphemy. It tramples on every single thing that make the mains series so stellar while ultimately adding nothing of its own value (except its amazing opening song). It bastardizes the ending of the original series, ruins some of the characters, and ultimately alters the entire atmosphere – all in order to turn the Tekkaman Blade universe into a sex-positive teenage love triangle. Yes you heard that right: it turns my beloved sci-fi drama epic into a coming-of-age youth romcom. I’ll fully acknowledge that it is somewhat of a treat to see Tekkaman fights with higher production values, but the tradeoff isn’t worth the damage it does to the identity of Tekkaman Blade – if you want higher production values just watch Tekkaman Blade Twin Blood 300 times like I have.

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And while I’m here I may as well throw in a pitch for Detonator Orgun. Orgun is for all intents and purposes the prototype for Tekkaman Blade, in the same way that Re: Cutie Honey is a proto-Kill la Kill, and Diebuster is a proto-Gurren Lagann.

Title: Detonator Orgun

Episodes: 3

Year: 1991

Genre: Sci-fi, action

The story goes that Tatsunoko looked at Orgun and found the aesthetic design of its armour-clad alien designs so impressive, that they directly appealed to director Obari for permission to more or less make their own version. He gave his blessings, and so was brought on to animate Tekkaman Blade’s opening animation as a way of paying proper respects.

In fact Blade himself is merely a few design changes away from this suit design which appeared in the final episode of Detonator Orgun.

In the absence of a blu-ray release, or indeed even a readily accessible english subbed version -legally or not-, it can make recommending the OVA series a relatively troublesome endeavour. But if you are someone that loves Tekkaman Blade as fiercely as I do, then it is absolutely worth watching Detonator Orgun in order to see the place it developed from.