Chapter 4-Lets' Go!

It has taken me a while to get around to having the two spare minutes to rub together to produce Cinema Robotica.  My life has been crazy, and apologies for all of my fans for not getting around to a new review of anime for GM and player consumption.  Hopefully, we'll be on a new schedule of once per month, which will give us a lot of stuff to look at.

This time, we're going to be a tad bit more recent, with the OVA series Parallel Universe Dual! and it's take on the giant robot genre.  And, seriously, on how it's a good story to work with for GMs and players that need some kind of background.

The story starts out with the world "splitting" based upon the actions of one man, either tossing a mysterious relic into a dump truck or pocketing it for himself.  Fast forward about 20 years, to the present day, as Kazuki walks to school, essentially in the middle of a battle between two giant robots-a white one and a grey one....

...that only he can see.

For some reason, the only person that can see the robots fighting is Kazuki, whom is trying to not be thought of as any weirder than he already is at school.  While this happens, Kazuki is writing a story on his personal web page Paralel Story about the giant robot battles he sees.  The day of this current battle, he gets a mysterious message on how someone likes his story?  The sender-none other than the most popular girl in school, Mitsuki Sanada-whom takes our poor Kazuki on a run around the city to escape from the sports team that views anybody going after Mitsuki other than them to be an insult.  Why is Mitsuki after Kazuki?

Because he sees the giant robots, and Mitsuki's father (in the great tradition of every Giant Robot show's mad scientist), needs Kazuki to prove his theory in a parallel universe.  However, in a massive goof by Mitsuki, poor Kazuki is tossed into the parallel world, where he has to save a lovely woman in the white robot from being destroyed by the grey robot (with shades of the World's Fastest Home Learning Course a'la Amuro Rey in Mobile Suit Gundam).  Here lies the next problem-the one of "analogs".

It seems like everyone in the parallel world is duplicated-there's an equivalent for every person, at least in general shape and personality.  Except, it seems, for Kazuki.  His parents, it seems, have never had him, his best friend doesn't know whom he is, and he has no records or anything.  What makes him more mysterious is the fact that he's the only male that can pilot the giant Core robots-until he came around, only females could pilot the machines.  

It seems like the two Earths were caught in a "War of Heaven", as a civil war tore apart an advanced civilization.  One of it's members escaped and brought the technology to Earth, as the remains of the other is found by the "Rara Army" that fights to take over the world in a very campy-manner (right down to the synthesizer-abusing fight music that precedes each Battle Trailer).  The war, however, gets serious as Kazuki arrives and the discovery of not only the Rara Army's super-mecha, but a mysterious white robot known only as "Zimn" and it's abilities to control gravity and it's massive firepower.  

However, there's a problem-because of Kazuki's crossing of the barrier between worlds, the two parallel worlds are starting to be squeezed together, resulting in both worlds being destroyed.  To stop this, Kazuki must discover why he's the only one that exists in only one world, why the robots only work for women, and end the war between the two factions.

Okay, you might be asking, so what's this bit of entertaining fluff have to do with such classics like Gundam and Evangelion?  A lot, in fact-and, we get a better feel for why because it is such a "piece of fluff".  A lot of great themes are in this story, such as-

• Don't Let The Turkeys Get You Down-Optimism and good cheer is prevalent in the world-either you get and try, or you don't succeed.  If someone claims that it's impossible, try twice as hard.  The success is the ultimate reward.
• People Are The Key, Not The Gear-It's up to people to win wars, not just the weapons.  Great weapons are always excellent, but it's also people that refuse to surrender and keep fighting that wins the day.  It's that which creates victory, nothing less and nothing more.
• Friends Matter, When It Gets Down To It All-When the government turns you out, when everything seems to be darkest before the dawn, your friends are the ones that are your true wealth.  The choombas that'll go down with you when it goes bad.  The buddies that you can trust your back to, the allies that you know you'll have guns on your sides-all of these are the ones that you have when it all goes bad. 

So, take a good heart, a good laugh, and enjoy the hell out of yourself.  The game is the thing, and the goal is to have fun while saving the world.  Or else.

Another Cinema Robotica in thirty days, or no money back.  Next time, we're going to deal with one very subversive bit of recent robotic animation produced in Canada-Beast Wars Transformers.  See you all back then.

Cowboy Bebop | Mobile Suit Gundam | Neon Genesis Evangelion
Paralel Universe Dual

BIO

Jonathan Souza works, at this time, humping passports across the Hills of San Francisco.  This job, by some quirk of physics, results in some of the strongest legs outside of the USMC.  Hopefully, the economy will upswing quickly enough to give him a new job in his beloved tech industry.

mailto:zakueins@hotmail.com

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Created on July 14, 2001.