Ronin Warriors/Legendary Samurai Troopers
Bandai DVD
Review
by
: Matt
McConnel
Long,
long ago… In a living room far, far away… Ok, it was the early
90's and I was still in middle school in Oregon. The up shot
is, that at this juncture in time, my path would first cross
the phenomenon known as 'anime'. Like any kid I had seen Robotech
and Transformers, but these were imports like anything else
in those days, and the mix of European, domestic, and Asian
was not delineated in any way really. But, back in '94, '95,
anime began to show up. Sailor Moon, Ronin Warriors, and Teknoman
(Tekkaman Blade) made little to no pretensions of their setting
as being Japanese and not the previous generic locale unknown
that most cartoon shows had proliferated until then. To my
knowledge, the only other cartoon that gave a location specifically
was Transformer's hidden base in the Pacific Northwest (you
can imagine the kids in OR ate that up). Despite this, attempts
and edits were made to adapt the shows to an American audience.
In some cases, Sailor Moon for example, rather drastic changes
were made to scripts, while in the case of Ronin Warriors,
little bits were taken out and replaced with tidbits of Americana.
With the exception of Sailor Moon, and later Dragon Ball Z,
most of these initial forays folded within a season; much
to the annoyance of fans I might add.
The story
of Ronin Warriors is in fact very good for what it is. It
is a show made for boys in 1988. There is little to be said
for character development save for the protagonists finding
their own inner strengths through friendship, honor, and other
virtues which each of the warriors carry the embodiment of
one. Ronin is in fact quite formulaic, but it is one of the
first of the formula to hit the States, so it is groundbreaking
in that regard. It is also novel in the fact that it is a
closed series, something a lot of studios desperately try
to avoid so they can continue to make sequels. Ronin Warriors
however, very much ends, and it apparently took some hefty
bargaining to bring the studio back for three OVAs, one being
just a recap of the series. The series itself (and the American
names are used here) comprises, generally, of two story arcs;
the first is the initial meeting, scattering, and rejoining
of the Warriors to fight the Evil Dynasty, its overlord Tulpa
and his four Warlords: Anubis, Sekhmet, Dais, and Kale. The
series proceeds more or less in a straightforward manner,
gathering all five, and doing battle with the Warlords along
the way. Once the Warriors are rejoined and banish Tulpa back
to his dark realm, things start to get a little more complicated.
(SPOILERS) Tulpa reveals that he wants the Warriors' armor
so he can become stronger, and he eventually captures all
but two of the team. However, he looses his chief Warlord,
Anubis, and Anubis takes up the mantle of the Ancient One,
a mentor figure to the Warriors. The final battle to destroy
Tulpa begins. Not exactly unexpected or complex, but it is
very well done and even contains some nice plot twists that
keep things interesting. It makes no pretensions at being
what it is not, and it ends satisfactorily, if a bit too sugary.
As usual, the bad guys are the only ones who get even remotely
intelligent dialogue, but since their relationship between
the Warlords is akin to bickering teenagers, it hardly matters
and Tulpa gets all the good lines.
The story
and nostalgia is why one would pick the disc up however, so
the design of the disc is really meaningless to the true otaku,
right? Well, no, but Bandai is counting on the masses to choose
nostalgia over intuitive and intelligent product. The DVD
is double sided, with the American Ronin Warriors on one side,
and the original Japanese Legendary Samurai Troopers on the
other. This is the second most annoying aspect of these discs.
This is a DVD lest it be forgotten, and the need turn over
the disc to get the subtitled version is far too much work
when on most DVDs it is merely a measure of selecting a menu
option, then jumping back to where you left off. This feeds
into the most annoying aspect of the discs. The double sided
feature is in fact the ONLY special thing about these. There
are no extras, no trailers, nothing save the thrill and excitement
of flipping your DVDs and jacket covers over and over again.
Oh, and the thrill of watching the commercial intros and outros.
Pretty piss poor design.
If you
do pick this series up, and there is no reason that you should
if you are not already a fan, I recommend the original Japanese
version, Legendary Samurai Troopers because then you do not
have to deal with the commercial breaks, and the opening/closing
sequences are better. It is a real shame that Bandai did not
go all out on these discs, there was a lot of potential for
some serious fan service in the form of extras, but apparently
it was not to be. Nevertheless, Ronin Warriors is a good series
no matter what the circumstances.
Email
Matt, our resident anime guru, here.
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