Gunbuster: Aim for the Top!  (1988)
건버스터: 톱을 노려라!

Also Known As: Top o Nerae!
Starring: Yuriko Fuchizaki, Noriko Hidaka, Masako Katsuki
Director:Hideaki Anno
Genre:Animation, Sci-fi, OVA
Production:Gainax
Language:Japanese
Country:Japan

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About Gunbuster: Aim for the Top!
This anime is a must-see for fans of Evangelion. It's an earlier work of Anno Hideaki, but his unrestrained, dramatic style is quite in place. Also, those who didn't like Evangelion might find this release to bit slightly more palatable. Gunbuster is rather unique to sci-fi anime in that it's actually based on real science. In fact, the show has several little "Science Lesson" interludes explaining the physics behind some of the events in the movie. One of the big dramatic points in the film is the relative passage of time at speeds near that of light. The series does a wonderful job of dealing with the imaginably traumatic experience of leaving earth on a six month mission traveling near the speed of light and returning to an Earth where ten years have passed. The main character remains age 17 or 18 throughout the entire series while almost all of the other characters age considerably. Be warned, this show is heavy on the sap at times. It also has a couple of the most wholly unmerited breast shots that I have ever seen. I found it fairly easy to ignore the skimpy uniforms and boo-hoo scenes, because the series is otherwise very good, but viewers with a low sap tolerance might want to stay away from this one. On an interesting note, Gainax, as always, managed to run out of money in the last couple of episodes. However, they managed to use black and white film and still action sketches to produce a good resolution anyway. The ending is a bit silly, but it left me with such a good feeling in my gut I couldn't help but love it. Gunbuster is, in my opinion, one of the finest pieces of Anime around.

- Nathan Monteleone
6 episodes (30 mins each)

A young pilot, daughter of a deceased space captain, is selected to pilot a colossal robot as the key point of Earth's defence in a space war.