Nono has a dream of one day becoming a space pilot (and also becoming “Nononigi”, whatever the heck that is), and runs away from home, hoping to fulfill her dream. She tries working at a diner, but her bizarre ability to split things in half ensures that she’ll be working for at least 6 months without pay. Just when it looks like she’ll be spending her life as a wage slave at the mercy of perverted customers, she meets Princess Lark. Nono becomes completely enamored with Lark from the moment Lark whips off her head sticker thing and busts out a ghostly mech arm to deal with the lecherous customers harassing Nono. It seems that Lark is one of an elite squad of pilots known as Topless that deals with space monsters. Nono declares that Lark is her Onee-sama and proclaims her dream to become Nononigi, but Lark tells her that the squad only takes pilots that are Topless. That’s when a giant alien space bug lands and begins to wreck havok (looks like Chiko the talking cat was right).
Lark summons her giant Buster Machine (named Dix-Neuf), and begins to wale on the monster. However, it appears to be a new type, and Lark has a bit of trouble with it. Meanwhile, Nono gets mixed up in the fray as she tries to rescue the owner of the diner. Just when things look hopeless, Nono’s power awakens, and she is able to save the owner. The insect decides to take the fight to space, and drags Nono along with Dix-Neuf in close pursuit. Seeing Nono’s charred body causes Lark to go berserk, but before she can throw a punch at the monster, her Buster Machine hesitates (it sees Nono twitching). Finally, Nono regains conciousness and decides to bring out her inner power. Unfortunately, Nono misunderstands Lark’s previous comment about being one of the Topless and actually rips off her top, before landing a super-duper powerful kick that cracks the bug’s exoskeleton. Lark wastes no time in blasting the weak point on the monster, and it’s a headshot for the win!
Yet another excellent 6 episode Gainax OVA, Top wo Nerae! 2 feels like some kind of perfect amalgamation of Evangelion and FLCL. Sadamoto’s fingerprints are all over the art design, and I loved it. The best part is that I don’t have to worry about Gainax running out of money and totally screwing up something great; their recent foray into 6 episode OVA’s really seems to be working well for them. In addition to the great art, and high production values, the ED is excellent. This one looks pretty good so far, and even the fact that Nono refers to herself in the third person can’t dampen my enthusiasm. As an offhand note, I never did see the original Gunbusters that was released in the late 80′s, and I think it’s looking a little too old skool for me to want to go back and check it out.
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
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Fool, go watch Gunbuster. It may be old school but its completely awesome.
Ender actually told me that it was pretty good for old school. Maybe like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was totally awesome even with that old school art. Hmmm….
Btw, I guess the name for the series is”Die Buster”, since that’s what they show in the eyecatch. Btw, the funny way they sing the name of the show during the eyecatch is what they did in the original Gun Buster too. Gives it that nice old-skool flavor.
Whoa, I just finished watching this episode, and it is awesome — retrospectively, it feels like a mashup between Bakuretsu Tenshi and Stellvia! I’m betting that this is going to be my favorite title for this season
The original Top (which, as has been said, is awesome, though people take it was too seriously for a show which was largely written as parody but directed as dead-pan) started off a lot like Stellvia too – anyone who has seen the first few episodes of Stellvia should smile at the end of the first episode of Top1 anyway. I’ve seen Top1, like, THIS many times, but honestly I think this show was really fantastic – wonderful character designs, and Maaya Sakamotos blunt voicework as Lark was fantastic.
Just cause it’s old, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check out the original.
I liked the seriousness of the original… even tho it was to be parodius.
I’m not sure I’ll like the overall light heartedness of this new series tho. But I’ll see soon enough.
Gunbuster is my #2 fave anime series of all time, after Berserk. You can see I like my anime more serious.
Yeah you might want to check it out, despite it being “old school”. Some of the older stuff are actually a heckuva lot better than newer ones, since a lot of stuff these days are not only “derivative”, but total rehash galore.
Take Gundam for instance. Everybody under 13 refers to it as “the greatest Gundam they ever saw” when what they really mean is “the FIRST Gundam they ever saw”. And that is sad considering that the whole Gundam franchise is so done to death, there is no meat left in the new ones. They should’ve commission The End (nemesis of Comic Master J) to finish it off long ago.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/soubiless/73068.html#cutid1
Instead what did they do? They rebooted into a fantasy alternate dimention. This isn’t the first time either. And kids love it!
Go watch Gunbuster. Along with FLCL, Gunbuster is proof that the whole Japanese civilization was created by the gods solely as a life support system for Gainax.
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