If you’ve been an anime fan for long enough, you’ve probably heard the name Masami Obari. He’s what I’d call a polarizing individual. On one hand, super robots. He handled the design for super robots such as Dancouga, Fighbird, and the G Compatible Kaiser from SRW OG. On the other hand, boobs. Obari shows tend to go the extra mile in uncomfortable, weirdly proportioned, jiggly jello tits fanservice. It even leaks into his robot shows like Gravion and Dangaizer 3, a show I maintain is a not a robot show but a porn where the actual sex scenes have been replaced with a magic robot. He tends to do better in the mecha designer and animator chairs than the director chair.
For instance, Dangaioh. You may remember Dangaioh as a feature in Super Robot Awesome when we still did that. Part of the old, rare Manga UK dub was uploaded to YouTube by OldAnimeDubs. It’s worth checking out if you’d like some robots straddling the line between serious 80s future drama and super 70s punch bad guys in the face.
But you may also remember that there was a tweet by Obari that he’d like to direct a JoJo’s episode that would have some absurdly high number of animation frames. It never came to fruition because it would cost way too much money, but if you were curious about how Obari would handle directing a modern show, he’s also started directing this robot show Ziguruhazeru for Aniplex. It’s a toy driven show for these robots based on Journey to the West characters, but robot shows have almost always been at least somewhat merchandise driven. It premiered on Aniplex back on the 6th, though I can’t find an episode currently and it was weirdly not mentioned with other spring anime. If you happen to find a recording of the show and like the action you see, let out a small wish that maybe we can see that kind of spirit put into Stardust Crusaders when it happens.
Until then, you can stare infinitely into the one uncovered eye of imprisoned Jotaro Kujo. Someone clipped off and uploaded the brief Part 3 teaser from the end of Episode 26, so if you’d like to watch it in an infinite loop, I understand.
