I’ve been a big fan of Genndy Tartakovsky since I first saw Samurai Jack.
What we seem to have forgotten, in our post-Pixar world, is just how expressive and creative hand-drawn animation can be. I know, it seems like it got priced out of the market, once the computers got into the game, but there still is a fair amount of hand-drawn out there, the best of it “enhanced,” if you will, with a bit of computer assistance, particularly for the backgrounds and machines.
And that is something Genndy does so well.
While these days much of the mainstream audience probably just remembers him for his computer generated Hotel Transylvania movies (which are…okay, I guess. Mostly), the rest of us have seen his true brilliance shining in not only the original run of Samurai Jack, but in his two Clone Wars animated series that preceded the later computer animated version, his stunningly brutal yet beautiful dinosaur and caveman series, Primal, and his triumphant return to Samurai Jack in his much delayed fifth season. Yeah, that final season would probably have been even better as he originally planned it, as a 2-D animated film, with 3-D elements overlaid.
But you can’t have everything.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, he tried to launch a new series on the Cartoon Network.
More than anything else, the basic plot of Sym-bionic Titan sounds remarkably like this is an American attempt to make an anime ripoff. So many of the elements can be found in Japanese animation are here: we have a boy and a girl and their robot, and together they form the Sym-bionic Titan. Ilana is a Princess, the heir to the Royal throne on her home planet. Only a vast army descended upon her planet and seized control. Her father, knowing how much everyone loves her, and how important it is for his people’s morale that she stays free to lead them against the enemy, sent her off to safety in exile on a distant planet.
Which is, of course, Earth.
He also sent along a young soldier named Lance to protect her, and a robot named Octus, who is capable of assuming any form he needs. Together, the three can form the giant robot Sym-bionic Titan.
However, they also have to blend in on Earth to avoid detection.
Which means that the three of them have to go to High School…
All, right, all right, I’ll admit it: I watched an episode of the series a few years back but never returned and watched the rest. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it.
It just wasn’t Samurai Jack.
It’s always hard when you have to follow an act like that.
And, if I’m going to be perfectly honest about it, that first episode is all setup. The premise is so big that it takes forever to put all the pieces in place.
But it only gets better from there.
Now the basic storyline is somewhat familiar. It could just as easily be that of any one of dozens of anime series out there. But Gendy gives it all a style of its own, eschewing anything that looks like classic anime in favor of an aesthetic which is simple, bold and a bit stylized. It is far more realistic in its settings than Samurai Jack, which often chose very abstract and exotic settings, but the character designs are looser, with a very free line and distinctive designs for his major characters. You can recognize any of them at a glance from a distance. While the Samurai Jack character designs often had the same sort of blocky, abstract quality as his backgrounds, here the lines flow. It isn’t what Samurai Jack’s fans expected, but then, that’s the point.
Ilana and Lance’s mecha suits look very Japanese, although Octus is a strange creation, a transparent man-shaped thing with mechanical bits floating inside it. While most of the robots and spacecraft are CGI, Octus appears to be hand-drawn most of the time. The Titan itself, however, is an impressive creation, a transparent giant mecha with what looks like an ancient Greek helmet. You can see the components inside it, and at time you can see them working mechanically. Titan can pull out a wide variety of weapons, and transform itself for a number of different modes. There’s almost a Giger-esque quality to the way the two smaller Mecha suits are fused together inside the works of the Titan, and remain partly visible even when it is in action.
If you look past all the anime tropes and the Japanese look of the mecha suits, however, what you find is a very distinctively American show. It is a giant monster-fighting anime robot series, yes, but at the same time a classic High School comedy of a very American variety. Lance, Ilana and Octus (in his guise as a nerdy fellow student) have to not only defend themselves from the alien monstrosities sent to kill them, but must also weather the difficulties of classes, bullies, arrogant cheerleaders, and the homecoming dance.
Yes, I know Neon Genesis Evangelion in its later seasons went back and explored its characters as children in school together, but they weren’t fighting monsters at the same time.
And, as this is Genndy Tartakovsky, he puts a bit of work into each of his major characters, taking the time to flash back and let us see how they ended up where they are now.
He’s definitely aware of the weak point of so many shows of the Ultraman variety (and Ultraman, and all the other suited giant superheroes like him are definitely one of the inspirations here), where the episodes tend to repeat themselves week after week, with a new creature showing up and the heroes doing the same things to try to defeat him — until Ultraman finally arrives.
Here, the alien monsters are remarkably varied and often quite imaginative — and the threat that they pose can vary enormously. Not all of them are just there to stomp cities. However, they also have to deal with the need to preserve their anonymity and with a few earthly threats, including a rather mad army General and the head of a mysterious security agency which supposedly protects us from alien threats.
Unfortunately, the series never caught on the way Jack did, and Gendy only made twenty episodes in what was then a single season (remember those days?).
But, as usual for Gendy’s work, he takes a few risks, most notably with one of the more obnoxious characters who undergoes a strange and remarkable redemption thanks to Octus’ insistence that she is more than she thinks she is; and in the final three episodes, where a much-loved character is apparently dead.
However, none of the other major plot threads ever get resolved. Ilana’s father is still a prisoner, the three are still exiled to Earth, and the threat from their enemies is just as real as ever. It seems a shame that he never got to do the big wrap up for this series he eventually gave to Samurai Jack, or perhaps something like the much shorter arc in the two (short) seasons of Primal.
Instead, it ends with his three stars ready to fight new battles, and a curious mystery which might have been addressed in future seasons.
Or maybe not.
Oh, well. It’s easy to wish for more. After all, what we got was incredible, and we know Gendy would have found more and more odd little corners of the little town of Sherman — and the beautiful world of Galaluna — to explore.
But you never know. Gendy came back to help get Jack back home. Maybe one of these days he’ll do the same for Ilana, Lance and Octus.
You never know….
rivets on the poster 