Brave series
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The Brave series (also known as Brave, or Yūsha (勇者?)) is a toy and animation franchise that began after toy company Takara had ended the animated "Generation One" storyline of Transformers in Japan. Following a decline in the series' popularity that led to the cancellation of the OVA series Transformers: Zone, Takara struck a cooperative deal with the animation studio Sunrise (known for its mecha series, most notably Gundam) to develop a new franchise and set of toy lines. The franchise, in fact, would play a key role in the reintroduction of the Super Robot genre to the Japanese mainstream in the 1990s.
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[edit] Overall mechanics
All of the main hero robots' mechanical (or mecha) designs in the Brave series were those of prolific Sunrise mechanical designer Kunio Okawara. In most of the Brave series, there is a main hero robot (usually the most or next-most expensive toy in the line), backed up by one or two support combiner teams and later receiving one or two combiner partners, upgrading the hero to more powerful forms. (The most or second-most powerful form of the hero robot is usually known as its "Great" form.)
A number of supporting characters and enemies across the Brave Series had designs or remolds derived from earlier and present (for the day) Generation One Takara Transformers designs, most notably those of Transformers: Zone and Transformers Battlestars: Return of Convoy (the latter never having its own animated series). The enemy "Geister" characters in Brave Exkaiser (save for their leader, Dino Geist) were actually remolds of first-generation Dinobot toys, for instance.
[edit] Brave series overview
There are currently a total of eight original entries in the Brave Series: one new series released every year, from 1990 to 1997, each with an episode count exceeding 40 in length. Each series is set in separate, unrelated timelines from each other. No further series appear to be planned for development in the near future.
They are the following, sorted by year of first airing:
1990 - Brave Exkaiser (Yūsha Exkaiser)
1991 - The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird (Taiyou no Yūsha Fighbird)
1992 - The Brave Fighter of Legend Da-Garn (Densetsu no Yūsha Da-Garn)
1993 - The Brave Express Might Gaine (Yūsha Toukyū Might Gaine)
1994 - Brave Police J-Decker (Yūsha Keisatsu J-Decker)
1995 - The Brave of Gold Goldran (Ougon Yūsha Goldran)
1996 - Brave Command Dagwon (Yūsha Shirei Dagwon)
1997 - The King of Braves GaoGaiGar (Yūsha-Oh GaoGaiGar)
To date, only the GaoGaiGar television series has been licensed for distribution in the United States. None of the remaining series have been licensed for distribution outside of Asia.
[edit] Show summaries and context
The first television series to come from the combined Takara/Sunrise Brave concept was Brave Exkaiser, whose fundamental premise and concept was very similar to that of the original Transformers series: an intergalactic "policeman" chases after space pirates called the Geisters as they descend on Earth to steal all of its "treasures," having no idea of what those "treasures" are to mankind. When he arrives on Earth, Exkaiser and his "Space Police Force" possess a variety of vehicles in spirit form, converting them to transform into humanoid robots. The relationship between Exkaiser and the son of the family whose car he had taken possession of served to establish a human-robot friendship not seen in quite the same way as Transformers had ever portrayed it, and would lead to establishing a recurring theme that many believe established initial appeal for the Brave Series in Japan. Exkaiser was far more popular than anticipated, and in some ways kindled a new desire for the production of Super Robot-style mecha among the Japanese audience.
The next show in the series—The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird—used a similar concept, focusing more on self-parodying humor by having the robot leader take possession of a humanoid-simulating android instead (which interfaces with the Fire Jet to form the robot Fighbird). This forces him to coexist with humanity on their terms, causing a great deal of trouble. The concept of the "Space Police Force" otherwise remains intact (though not connected to the earlier series), a key difference being that the mecha that Fighbird and one of the combiner teams use was developed previously by a human scientist, whose nephew accompanies the Space Police in their battles.
The Brave Fighter of Legend Da-Garn marked the first serious thematic turning point in the Brave Series. In the previous two shows, the "boy" was a supporting character, not allowed to place himself in any danger; Da-Garn is instead centered around an older youth, Seiji Takasuji: a "latch-key kid" from whom the robots receive orders—forcing the boy to command them in the field. The robot-possessing spirits themselves are no longer "aliens," but forces created by the planet Earth to protect itself from invaders—notably the invading aliens who are the antagonists of the piece.
The villains, although all nominally part of one faction, are usually at odds with each other and have separate armies and modus operandi, including one who becomes a turncoat; this theme would be developed in later Brave series. Da Garn is noteworthy for being the only Brave series to tell a single running story with its episodes, rather than focusing on 'done in one' episodic adventures, until GaoGaiGar was produced. Unsurprisingly, these two series shared a single writer. Likewise, Da Garn foreshadows the more violent themes that would crop into later Brave series and GaoGaiGar itself, by featuring a Tomino-style ending where many main characters die.
The Brave Express Might Gaine takes these newly-crafted themes to their logical conclusion. Here the robots are no longer "spirits," but have personalities granted by advanced Artificial Intelligence. These robots were designed and built from the ground up by the late father of the main character: billionaire crime-fighting teenager and railroad magnate Senpuuji Maito. He acts as a Bruce Wayne character of sorts, taking command of the Brave Express robots in the field and fighting crime himself on the front lines. The antagonists are separated into multiple criminal factions, some at odds with each other, extending the basic villain structure used in Da Garn. Some Japanese fans consider Might Gaine the best of the Brave series, and it is often cited as the one that best expresses the idea of the Brave "formula".
The main exception is in the series' controversial ending, which is often interpreted by critics as signs of relations souring between Sunrise and Takara. In the ending of Might Gaine, the characters find out that they are merely fictional characters whose conflicts are artificially generated so that their evil otherdimensional mastermind can sell toys and merchandise. Maito reacts to this with a speech that Japanese critics interpreted as a defense of Da Garn's character-driven storytelling style, which Takara is generally believed to have disliked. After making his speech, Maito destroys the enemy, thereby asserting his own "reality" as a true character and not a merchandising tool. This analysis of the series often considers many plot elements throughout the series as Sunrise effectively "striking back" at Takara for forcing them to create shows with less plot in order to cram in more toy designs and action sequences. For instance, many robots in Might Gaine appear with no explanation, or arbitrarily transform into alternate modes that make no particular sense.
Brave Police J-Decker returns to a much lighter tone, focusing more on Might Gaine 's concept of "robot as human-built AI construct." Grade schooler Yuuta Tominaga stumbles upon Deckerd, a humanoid robot under construction by the Japanese police, built to fight advanced forms of crime. Yuuta's constant contact with Deckerd gives the robot a "heart," or personality; when Yuuta is recruited as the "boss" of the "Brave Police" as a result, a true human/robot partnership occurs. It has been claimed that one of the major Da Garn villains, Redlone, makes an appearance in J-Decker; this is not true. Due to Redlone's immense popularity (compared to other Da Garn villains), it became somewhat traditional to have the first villain of a given Brave series be modeled on him somewhat (there is a similar character in Might Gaine). The character that appears in J-Decker is not named Redlone, nor is he supposed to be Redlone. Some confuse the two characters and then claim that Da Garn and J-Decker are connected somehow, but this is absolutely not true.
The Brave of Gold Goldran was intended as a throwback to the light-hearted, whimsical tone that pervaded the original three Brave series, which had become somewhat subdued under the direction of the creative team that oversaw Might Gaine and J-Decker. Goldran follows the adventures of three young boys who are tasked with finding alien robot fighters, or Braves, that are sleeping in the form of crystals. Their major antagonist is the flamboyant and thoroughly incompetent Walter, and the villains that follow him are often similarly humorous. The entire show is extremely focused on comedy and silliness almost to the exclusion of much in the way of storytelling, although the series does develop some running plotlines towards its end. In terms of television ratings, Goldran was the peak of the Brave series' popularity.
Of the Brave Series, Brave Command Dagwon is the most divergent from the themes established throughout the other shows. It is claimed that Takara had seen the success of Sunrise's New Mobile Report Gundam Wing, and desired to replicate its popularity among a range of audiences with this show, its premise involving five teenage boys recruited by an alien policeman to prevent the destruction of Earth by inmates let loose from an intergalactic prison. Using transformation items, these teenagers can transform into "Dagwon," a team of sentai-like action heroes who can "combine" with their vehicles to attain humanoid robot form, similar to the "Headmaster Juniors" in Transformers: Masterforce. Though the "card" robots helping Shadow Rei are presumed to have some sort of basic AI, however, no human-robot relationship seems to exist in this show at all. Instead, it plays with the idea of the boys "becoming" the robots through a sort of mystic fusion, a theme later explored in the following Sunrise series (Chouja Reideen, a reimagining of Sunrise's Brave Raideen), and even used to some degree in the next year's Brave series.
The King of Braves GaoGaiGar was the final television series to be produced, and has become arguably the most popular of them all. Created by Sunrise's internal "Studio 7" under the guidance of Yoshitomo Yonetani, the show combines previous elements of the Brave Series with an ambitious throwback to the Super Robot mentality of the 1970s, presenting a sharp contrast and commentary to the harder-edged, more complex television anime emerging in the wake of Evangelion. Focusing on the concepts of "courage" and "bravery" in a light-hearted setting, this show would obtain a large fanbase after its airing in Japan, and eventually go on to spawn multiple non-animated projects and an OVA sequel, The King of Braves GaoGaiGar FINAL. As of this writing, a new major project called The King of Braves GaoGaiGar Project Z has been announced, which links the show closely with another Studio 7 series, Betterman. Like most of the other Studio 7 anime and GaoGaiGar sequels, it seems designed to appeal to a much older audience than the traditional Brave demographic. GaoGaiGar also suffered poor television ratings in contrast with enormous DVD sales, which supports the idea that children tuned out of GaoGaiGar while older fans grew interested in the show's unusually complex, epic cosmology.
Following GaoGaiGar, another television series was planned: The Saint of Braves Baan Gaan, possibly without the cooperation of Takara (who had already signed on with Toei again for another round of Transformers shows by this time, starting with Beast Wars II). This series would be scrapped in favor of producing GaoGaiGar FINAL, though the series outline for Baan Gaan would be re-used as an "original series" in Takara's Brave Saga series of video games.
[edit] Post-Brave series events and influence
Thanks to the unusual popularity Baan Gaan achieved through the Brave Saga games, the slated creative team (including character designer Hirokazu Hisayuki and probable director Mitsuo Fukuda) were allowed to make an independent Super Robot series for Sunrise a few years later, called GEAR Fighter Dendoh. The plot and concept similarities between Dendoh and Baan Gaan are extremely numerous, including the mechanics for how the machines combine with their animal-robot helpers, an emphasis on a running conflict between two particular Super Robots, the dual-protagonist structure, and the idea of child pilots fighting with the support of a group of older pilots and technicians (VARS in Baan Gaan, and GEAR in Dendoh). While Dendoh was only a modest commercial success, the show was received warmly by critics, and the team has since gone on to become responsible for profitable series such as My-HiME and Gundam SEED.
Following Dendoh, Sunrise took a final stab at resurrecting the Brave style of television series by having some Dendoh staffers return to work on Machine Robo Rescue, based on a modern-day reworking of Bandai and PLEX's own Machine Robo toy line. Rescue combined all of the basic storytelling tropes of the original six, kid-friendly Brave series with a truly vast toy line and an early Sunrise attempt at blending 2D animation (the characters) with 3D animation (the robots). While the toys were popular and the anime did well with older audiences, the 3D animation was widely criticized, and overall the effort failed to recapture the original popularity of the Brave Series. Sunrise would not attempt another 2D/3D series until 2006, with the series Zegapain.
There are currently no plans to continue the Brave Series, nor produce another children's anime series in its vein—although Studio 7 has been allowed to continue GaoGaiGar projects for older fans. A "15th Anniversary" event is currently ongoing, with DVD box set re-releases of each show and re-releases of many of Takara's original Brave toys. Some fans see the resurrection of the Brave Series as unlikely, as current corporate structures see Sunrise (merged into Bandai Namco) and Takara (merged with Tomy) as at odds with each other as competitors; others see a return of the Brave Series as more likely, a lull approaching for TakaraTomy in the Transformers franchise with the ending of Transformers: Galaxy Force and the Dreamworks-produced live-action movie in production for 2007.
[edit] Additional Brave works
There have been Yuusha "series" that are exclusive to Takara's Brave video games. They are:
[edit] Brave Saga and Brave Saga 2
The Saint of Braves Baan Gaan (Yuusha Seisen Baan Gaan) (title has also been translated by fans as Brave Crusade Baan Gaan. It is worth noting that Sunrise's official Yuusha web site considers Baan Gaan the ninth Brave series, even though it was not fully produced).
[edit] New Century Brave Wars (Shinseiki Yuusha Taisen)
Quantum Leap Layzelber (Ryoushi Choyaku Layzelber, title can also be interpreted as Quantum Leap Rayzelver and Quantum Leap Rayserver. It is worth noting that Layzelber is not counted among the Brave series by Sunrise)
