Baldios

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Baldios

宇宙戦士バルディオス (Uchū Senshi Baldios)
Genre	Adventure, Mecha, Sci Fi, Shōnen
TV anime: Space Warrior Baldios
Director	Kazuyuki Hirokawa
Studio	Ashi Productions
Network	TV Tokyo Italia Teen Television Kanal 1(bought from Spacetoon) Middle East Spacetoon
Original run	June 30, 1980 – January 25, 1981
Episodes	32
Animated film: Space Warrior Baldios movie
Studio	Toei Animation
Released	December 29, 1981
Runtime	117 minutes

Baldios (宇宙戦士バルディオス, Uchū Senshi Baldios^?) is a super robot anime series produced by Ashi Productions, with its full length feature film produced by Toei in 1981, which has a strong environmental theme. Many of the pivotal episodes were joined and released as a "movie" in the United States as "Space Warriors: Battle for Earth Station S/1." The name of the Baldios mecha was unchanged, although it played a surprisingly small part in the movie that was created. In Italy, the TV series and feature film were exhibited under the name Baldios, Il Guerriero dello Spazio. In Cuba, another feature film version of Baldios was released in theaters, including much of the bloodshed and disturbing scenes that had been excised from the American version, under the name of Yaltus. However this version had some sexual content excised as well. As of today, the most complete version of the film is the Japanese DVD release.

[edit] Story

In the distant future, another world, S-1, has been badly polluted. Just as scientists find a way to clean up the planet, the followers of military fanatic, Zeo Gattler, invade his laboratory and destroy his work. The scientist's son, Marin, escapes and is angered over what his people have done but before he can do anything, he gets caught in a time warp and ends up near Earth in the year 2100.

When Gattler's Aldebaron Army appears after destroying a Martian colony, Marin finds himself joining the military organization, Blue Fixer, which uses his ship as part of their recently completed robot, Baldios. Together, Marin and the Blue Fixer team face off against Gattler and the S-1 forces which are poised to take over the Earth and make it their new home.

[edit] Trivia

One of the characters in Baldios, the emperor of S-1, became the subject of an internet meme on the Futaba Channel image boards; anonymous users in the two-dimensional image board would photomanipulare the emperor's head in a variety of ways via Photoshop.

The Baldios TV series is best known among fans for one of the most tragic and unexpected conclusions of all time, rivaling that of the Ideon TV series ending which also came out of left field. During the final conflict with the S-1/Aldebaron Army, Gattler manages to trigger a massive tsunami which effectively destroys the surface of the Earth, leaving the Blue Fixer team helpless and unable to stop it. Marin can only watch in horror as wave after wave destroy the surface until a shot of the wave freezes and we are left with a caption saying "End". Thankfully, the Baldios movie which came out afterwards gave a slightly more fulfilling conclusion with Marin and Gattler getting a proper final confrontation and the fate of the Earth turning out to be not as abrupt. Still, the end of the feature film stands as probably one of the most depressing and haunting finales for a mecha-anime.