Zoids: New Century Zero
As I’ve said before, one of the main ways I got into anime in my youth was Cartoon Network’s Toonami. It had everything, from action to romance, from magical girls to guys who would yell for half an hour each day. And one thing it majorly had was mechas. Various Gundam Series, Macross, even Big O; Mecha was a big part of what made Toonami what it was. Mecha anime has been around for ever, but in all honesty it has never been a genre of anime I had been completely into. Giant robots are awesome, I am the first to admit it, but most mecha shows just don’t strike a cord with me. But some do, and when they do, it becomes a show for the ages, for me at least. And today’s anime just so happens to be one of those mecha shows that hit me close to my heart as a young one. Zoids.
To be more specific, Zoids: New Century Zero. I need to be more specific because it is actually the second series in the Zoids franchise as a whole, but it was the first one to be brought over to the states. When that happened, they just called it Zoids and forgot about the subtitle. Later on they did bring the first series of Zoids to the states, but that is such a completely different show from today’s topic, I think I will save it for another day. For this review, I will simplify things and call the show Zoids, and if I ever do a review of the first series or any others, I will use its full name, or come up with something clever, who knows.
Lets start with the premise and all that good stuff. Zoids are animal themed weaponized mechas used for a global competition. Teams of these mechas fight each other in strictly ruled Zoid battles for prize money, points, ranking, and most importantly, glory. These fights are presided over by an official judge, launched from orbit, who designates the battle ground and the rules for the battle. And once the judge says go, the zoids fight until all the zoids on one side are shut down and are unable to continue to fight.
The show itself follows the adventures of the Blitz team, a scrappy group of zoid pilots. Their manager is Steve Toros, a scientist with a shopping addiction and a penitent for screwing his team out of the money they one to buy cooler stuff. On the team is Toros’ daughter Leena, a gun crazy egotist, Brad Hunter, the lancer character who is always quick to remind the world of his undying love of money, Jaime Hemeros, the team strategist and aerial fighter, and Bit Cloud, the shows main protagonist and resident cocky idiot. Outside of these five there are a plethora of interesting recurring characters, and the main characters are not as blandly as I am letting on. Each character brings a specific dynamic and are legitimately interesting to watch. Though Leena ca be as shallow as she sounds.
While the human characters have to be there so the audience have someone to relate to, the real characters are the mechanical animals, the Zoids. They are the interesting component to the show, and the reason everyone watched it. All the different types of zoids, the different weapons they can use, how they fight, all were the real draw of this show. The main zoid of the series was the Liger Zero, a white zoid apparently incredibly rare and versatile, and surprisingly sentient. At the beginning of the series the Liger Zero would not allow anyone to pilot it, until the main character Bit Cloud appeared of course. Unlike nearly every other zoid in the series, the Liger Zero started out with no weapons except for its laser claws, and its incredible speed. And unlike every zoid in the series the Liger Zero comes with three different armor systems, each allowing the Liger Zero different ways of fighting.
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| Liger Zero, in all his aweosmeness. |
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| Liger Zero Jager |
Then there is the orange armor verson, the Liger Zero Schneider. This armor added seven swords that added to the combat abilites of the Liger.
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| Liger Zero Schneider |
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| Liger Zero Panzer. AKA badass on a stick. |
The dubbing of the show does have some problems. It just feels clunky and dated. It feels like it was dubbed in the 90’s, instead of the early 2000’s. And with the animation, you can tell the studio making it didn’t exactly have a lot of money. Every so often you could tell they were using cheats, repeating animation form other episodes and not showing people moving or talking to save on the budget. But what they skimped in the regular animation they more then made up for in the computer graphics. The computer graphics for this show are excellent for the time. The zoids look fantastic and fluid, and while they are noticeably dated compared to today’s technology, it still looks very good.
In terms of story, well, there is almost none. It’s very episodic, with very little plot to thread the episodes. This isn’t exactly a bad thing though, it just means that if you are looking for something more story heavy then this is not the show for you. The main conflict for the heroes is with the illegal zoid fighting organization The Backdraft Group, which is pretty much just a fancy name for Team Rocket. While their main goal isn’t just to steal the Liger Zero, it is plot of many of the episodes, and every time they are foiled by the good guys. Then there is Doctor Layon, an old friend of Toros, who was in love with Leena’s mother and vowed to destroy Toros for stealing her away. He likes instant ramen a lot. And then there is Harry Champ, the man destined to be king! He is stalkerishly in love with Leena. Fun fact: the voice actor for Harry Champ went on to be Light Yagami from Death Note. He really was a man destined to be king, huh?
This is a good show. It is cheesy, nostalgic fun at its best. If you are a fan of shows like G Gundam, or other Toonami age shows, I highly recommend you check this one out. If you kind of remember it from you past, I say go looking for it right away and rewatch it. It is just a fun show.
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