rewritten 255 added, 67 removed
Release: six OVA episodes of 6 episodes (26 min. each) by Gainax, aired Oct 7, roughly 30 minutes, issued in pairs on 7 October 1988, 30 December 1988 to Jul 7, 1989; original story Humanity meets insectoid aliens called Space Monsters and 7 July 1989, produced by Gainax with Bandai Visual and Victor Entertainment. Staff: Hideaki Anno directed (his first directing job) with Shoichi Masuo, and builds giant fighting robots piloted by hand-picked youth Kazuya Tsurumaki directed the New Science Lessons segment. Toshio Okada, Anno and Tsurumaki are credited on the screenplay, with Hiroyuki Yamaga uncredited, and Okada wrote only the first two episodes. Kohei Tanaka composed; Haruhiko Mikimoto designed the original characters; Kazutaka Miyatake, Koichi Ohata and Mahiro Maeda did mecha. Story: Noriko Takaya, daughter of a famous deceased space captain, Admiral Yuzo Takaya who died in an alien attack, enters a training school despite doubtful talent and is paired with Okinawa Girls Space Pilot High School, where coach Koichiro Ohta sees potential in her. Noriko Hidaka voices her in Japanese. Why it was made: Wikipedia says Gainax produced it partly to recoup losses from Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise. The title pastiches the talented Kazumi Amano Genres include tennis series Aim for the Ace! and the film Top Gun. Recognition: it won the Seiun Award Winning, Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi; sequel for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1990, and Polygon is Top wo Nerae 2! Diebuster; score 7.85 (59,672 users), ranked #1055cited as crediting it as a foundation for Neon Genesis Evangelion. Home video: Japan saw VHS and LaserDisc releases in 1988 and 1989, a DVD in 2001 and a Blu-ray on 24 February 2012. In North America U.S. Renditions released a subtitled VHS on 1 February 1990, and Discotek issued the Complete OVA Series Blu-ray on 30 May 2023 with a new English dub. Critical view: Anime News Network's Blu-ray review graded it A overall, praising the remaster and direction while noting relationship dynamics it called abusive by today's standards.
