The curiosity of seeing how different Choujinki Metalder is from VR Troopers is what brought me to check it out and just like how Power Rangers pushed me to watch Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. It is incredibly fascinating to see how different the original Japanese show is when compared to the American adaptation. I was 100% sure that there would be absolutely no mention of Virtual Reality (Seriously what was the deal with the VR craze in the 90s...?) but what I never expected was for the series to actually be about a full-fledged war machine, kind of a dark premise when you think about it. I was also surprised at how many dark details pop up in this series, ranging from mentions of war prisoner experiments to prison executions.
I ended up really liking Metalder, he has an incredible design, the detail on the suit is astonishing with all the lights and circuit boards and I really liked those little moments where we see the inner machinations of it whenever he required repairs. One could argue that he ends up being pretty flat personality wise, but you gotta keep in mind that he is a machine that must learn what it is like to be human and I actually really enjoyed seeing him have to learn about humanity and emotions. It helped a lot in building him up to be the compassionate character he is in the end. Seiko Seno did an absolutely magnificent job as Metalder, his shift from completely robotic to compassionate and caring was incredible. One small detail I was impressed by was how good of a job he did at trying to blink as little as possible.
The allies were just ok in my opinion. Mai didn't really impress me that much, she was just there to be kidnapped in the beginning and later was just there and Hakkou was an idiot at first but at least he became a little humorous over time but they both had some great heartfelt moments here and there. If you would have told me in the past that Choujinki Metalder had a talking dog I would've called you a liar and I would have bet all my limbs that Saban's VR Troopers came up with it, thankfully Springer is actually more useful and less annoying than his counterpart in the Saban adaptation.
I was honestly amazed seeing the villains get so much attention, I would argue that I got to learn just as much about them as I did about Metalder. The way we would see training montages from them, holding up to their sense of honor, mourning each other sometimes or seeing them challenge each other for the right to fight Metalder next was just fascinating to me. All of this helped an army of war machines actually feel human. There were several times where I found myself sympathizing for some villains, and almost wanting to root for them. It also took me by surprise that almost every enemy of the week ended up being revealed in the first episode, which must have been a nightmare for the crew to have them all ready so soon. I hate to be so predictable but my favorite member of the Neros Empire in terms of both design and personality was definitely Top Gunder, I just tend to love anti-heroes in these sorts of shows so I was excited every time he showed up.
Emperor Neros was pretty damn terrifying in my opinion, I think it's because of how damn realistic his face looked and his nightmare-fueled transformation, I wouldn't be surprised to hear if parents complained about it. I liked the fact that he tried to think outside the box, like trying to exploit things in Metalder's programming in attempts to make him put his guard down. I also enjoyed how we got to see Neros actually respect his lackeys, he would often ask for his generals' approval in some decisions or motivate them with a promotion instead of always threatening them with death.
The action in the show was not as fast paced or as advanced as what I'm used to seeing these days but that doesn't hold it back one bit, every single battle was very entertaining and held my attention. A magnificent job was done at making the fights feel heavy and powerful, the good use of slow motion only amplified it further. Hell sometimes Metalder would catch me by surprise by pulling off a fatality out of nowhere. The soundtrack also did a perfect job in amping up the action especially with the great basslines in some pieces, some music pieces felt like they were pulled straight out of an 80s action movie.
I don't really have anything I hated in this series but I guess I do have some nitpicks: I honestly think his bike could have been better without the sidecar, it just saw so little use throughout the show. His civilian vehicle was pretty lame, instead of the Mazda car I thought his civilian vehicle should have just been his motorcycle in a more casual form. I was surprised that Metalder never received some sort of weapon over time, the intro made me expect a sword to be obtained at some point but then again I suppose a war machine most likely wouldn't need weapons. The only thing that constantly irritated me was seeing Metalder's shoulder pads flail around like crazy in action scenes but like I said, I'm just nitpicking.
Overall I'm very satisfied with Choujinki Metalder, strong entertaining action, heartfelt moments (last 3 episodes had very strong moments), fascinating characters and designs all around, dark tones with humor to balance it out, I truly think this was a great one.
