Space Runaway Ideon | Retcon_404

Besides Mobile Suit Gundam, there is a series that, not only, has been recommended numerous times to me both online and in my own personal life. Looking back on how the channel has progressed so far, maybe I should have taken those suggestions sooner, but such is life. Space Runaway Ideon was produced in 1980 by Sunrise, directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino fresh off his run of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Unlike Gundam, which was Tomino's foray into the newly emerging Real Robot subset of mecha fiction, Ideon is a true Super Robot show, and I believe this marks the first foray into Super Robot territory for this YouTube channel. While Ideon is by no means the first Super Robot show, that honor usually goes to a combination of Tetsujin 28 and Mazinger Z, it is nevertheless incredibly influential. For this video, I watched the original anime that ran from May 1980 to January 1981. And yes, in the future, I would absolutely be interested in taking a look at the movies that this series spawned. I am aware that there are changes between the movie versions and TV versions of the Ideon story, but in this video I'm only going to be talking about the anime version. In the future, when I feel like doing some more Ideon, we'll do a special video where we check out, be invoked, and a contact. Luckily we now live in CURRENT YEAR, and Ideon has been pretty easily available to watch for a bit. Although it's no longer streaming on HiDive, if you want to check it out as of 2019, a Blu-ray set has been released. Which is nice, because before that, you would have to hunt down a DVD box set that could run you up to a thousand dollars due to the very limited print runs. And in my opinion, if you have any interest in the mecha genre at all, you really should give Ideon a watch. I'm not even a huge fan of super robot stuff, my knowledge in that sub-genre is still pretty lacking, but even I thought that this was an amazing show and a great time. Well, I mean it was also really depressing, but you know what I mean. The series follows a cast of at-odds characters as they travel across the universe in an excavated alien ship, all the while being chased by a powerful alien enemy while trying to unravel the mystery of a great galactic power. As for my personal experience with Ideon, well, I was almost 100% unfamiliar with the series aside from seeing some memes about how Ideon looks like a GM from Gundam. Along with being told the series is pretty dark and existential by friends and knowing that it's very well regarded by a great many people. That's right, it's another retcon video where I go into a series everyone has seen with absolutely no clue what to expect, and yet here you are. Anyway, let's get ready to power up that gauge and dock together, because this is Space Runaway Ideon. The series begins with a group of soldiers traveling through the jungle in a column of tanks. The foliage is thick and wild, to the point where the local wildlife, huge pink leeches in this case, fall all around the traveling soldiers. Planet Solo is a frontier world and soon a ship full of newly arriving colonists draws near. The soldiers, led by an officer named Jordan Bess, inspect an excavation site that is being run by members of a science team, most importantly a woman named Cheryl Formosa and her father, simply known to the audience as Professor Formosa. Working alongside the scientists is an archaeologist named Rory Yuki and his afro-having, knife-wielding son, Cosmo. Bess and his soldiers are mostly concerned with the fact that there are these big vehicles sitting around the dig site and he has no idea how they were snuck onto the planet under the military's nose. The scientists insist that these machines were dug up from the ground, but Bess isn't having any of that and he threatens to arrest them and give them two years of hard labor? Damn. Meanwhile, a group of aliens known as the Buff Clan are observing Planet Solo, known to them as Logo Dao, and they're growing increasingly concerned that the humans on the planet may discover advanced technology. They discuss the fact that they cannot be distracted from studying something known as the E-Day, which the Buff Clan believes to be connected to the planet. One member group, Karala Ajiba, is so concerned that she slips off the ship and goes down to the planet in order to do some close recon. Other alien soldiers follow her, as Karala is the daughter of Supreme Commander Doba of their military, and they end up attacking the column of tanks near the excavation site while retrieving her. This gives us our first taste of Bess being a total badass as he attacks the Buff Clan soldiers on foot with a pistol and lightsaber. In fact, he takes on their walker mechs and does a pretty good job at it. And yeah, those mechs remind me of the ones from Macross. Their silly design is really starting to grow on me. During the attack on the excavation site, both Roriyuki and Professor Formosa are killed, with one being crushed by a bulldozer and the other being smooshed by a boulder. Cosmo, along with his friends Kasha and Deck, climb aboard the machines to make it to a nearby city. The convoy is pelted by Buff Clan fire, but luckily for the civilians, this convoy is incredibly durable. Edeon really lets you know right off the bat that this is not a lighthearted show for kids, and much like Mobile Suit Gundam, which Tomino had just finished work on, it does not shy away from showing the horrors of war and violence directly on the screen. Despite the convoy being durable, it lacks any sort of weaponry. That is, until it transforms from three separate heavy-duty vehicles to a humanoid robot. While in its giant form, the fleeing civilians are easily able to fight off the squad of Buff Clan soldiers that were chasing them. However, now they're stuck in the form of this huge robot, and the Edeon is really quite large. In fact, it towers over the surrounding forest, and Deck almost takes a fall right out of its head. That's another thing that Edeon does that I find quite enjoyable. Unlike the mecha in a series like Gundam, where they are by and large operated by a single pilot, certain specialty suits aside, the Edeon is crewed by a bunch of people. The internal structure of the mech is expansive, and requires an elevator-like lift to navigate. As the Edeon is made up of three individual vehicles, there are three cockpits, with Cosmo's head unit being the one in control when they're in giant mode. But besides the pilots of the respective vehicles, the Edeon is also staffed by multiple crew members that take care of its weapons and maintenance. More than one time in the series, we see faceless crew members inside the Edeon resupplying or doing work. And while in battle it's mostly just the pilots we get to see do anything, it is pretty cool to see how much work went into making the Edeon seem like something that could actually exist logistically. Bess is running around the jungle in the aftermath of the Buff Clan attack when he runs into Karala. Not knowing that she's an alien, he tells her to get to safety and then runs off. This really goes to illustrate how similar the Buff Clan and humans are, and this is a theme that will return time and time again. The Buff Clan Samurai Gijay realizes that the planet is only a small colony, and decides to attack in full force, burning the nearby New Lopia City to the ground. This introduces a ton of refugees into the Edeon, including a screaming baby named Piper Lou. And now I'm having Victory Gundam flashbacks. Speaking of Tomino, I know that he had not been saddled with the moniker of Kill'em All Tomino yet, but Edeon does not stray away from his signature brand of brutality. As a creator, he tends not to glorify violence to his audience, he almost always shows it in a very matter-of-fact way. It's always a cold reality to both the characters on screen and his viewers. And I feel like this goes a really long way in making Tomino's works feel modern even 40 years after they came out. We even have a guy defending New Lopia say, I did it mom! Right before being blown up in grisly 80s anime fashion, Space Runaway Edeon lets you know that you're in for a bloody time right from the beginning. Cosmo is able to get the giant mech to move, and they arrive at a second excavation site, where the science division has been digging up a huge spaceship left behind by the Sixth Civilization. Cheryl suggests that the ship is meant to house and carry the Edeon, which seems to make sense. I mean, they were buried near each other and appear to be both ancient relics left behind by the same civilization. Karala sneaks aboard the buried ship with her companion, Maiya, and they're both detained by Bess. Buff Clan soldiers attack the ship in an attempt to rescue the missing alien woman, but after a short fight, they retreat due to being scared of the ship's strange technology. The leader of these buff clan soldiers, a samurai named Gijei Zaral, reports back to his superiors over the failure to retrieve Karala. Much like Macross, Edeon gives us a lot of time with the antagonists, so we get to know Gijei and his comrades incredibly well. Another samurai named Damido is constantly at odds with Gijei, as we see he prefers more aggressive tactics in battle. These two report directly to a samurai named Sir Abadede, who tells Gijei to focus his efforts on rescuing Karala. The buff clan are more human than the humans of planet Solo would like to believe, and it's pretty easy to figure out how their military structure and hierarchy works just from observing a couple of scenes with them. Back with the humans, we get our first taste of the power of Edeon, and by extension, the power of the Ede. There is a gauge on both the ship and the Edeon itself that correspond to their shared power source, the mysterious Ede. The gauge lights up and the ship takes flight, easily blasting through the roof of the cavern that housed it for thousands of years. Despite an attempt from both Damido and Gijei to stop the ship from leaving the planet, they are able to break orbit. Best and the improvised crew on the bridge, which includes a man whose name is Jolliver, which is ******* awesome, are shocked when the ship uses its DS drive to enter subspace. So just so I don't need to techno babble at you, space travel in Edeon is pretty complicated. It's kind of similar to how slipspace travel in Halo works. Basically, in very, very layman's terms, subspace is like a different dimension that lets you travel very, very fast distances in short amounts of time by accessing it. Either way, the ship does that ---- by itself, and the crew is pretty baffled by that, because they were afraid that the buff clan may have a way to follow them through subspace. More importantly, nobody on the bridge entered coordinates, so they have no idea where they're even headed. Luckily, when they leave subspace, they find they're mysteriously back on planet Solo. Gijei takes his opportunity to sneak aboard the Solo ship and save Karala, even punching Cheryl in the stomach in the process. Unfortunately for him, Cosmo and Bess are able to capture and detain him, bringing Gijei aboard the ship. With the three aliens detained, Karala divulges the legend of the Ede to the humans. On the ancient homeworld of the buff clan, a great hero was gifted a magic fruit by the power of the Ede. The fruit gave him mystical powers, enabling him to destroy a great dragon and save the buff clan queen. However, when this hero no longer lived up to the ideals of the Ede and could not protect it, he was destroyed. While it's certainly a pretty threatening story to say the least, Damido takes the opportunity to grow his own fame and attacks the Solo ship in order to recover the prisoners. Gijei actually takes matters into his own hands and is able to trick the guard watching him, and escape with a plan straight out of a cartoon. For real, I can't believe that actually worked. It's during this fight that Kasha starts to display her lust for battle. Yeah, that's sort of a weird trait for a younger female character. She's out for buff clan blood. She even thinks she can take out experienced buff clan soldiers on her own without even docking the Edeon together. Yeah, that does not work, and this defeat is the first step in her long line of character development. To this show's credit, a lot of the characters do get a significant amount of development. It's actually quite impressive how much time they're really able to dedicate to it. This battle is also the first time that the buff clan uses one of its favorite strategies, which is to get really close to the Edeon and electrocute it, or trap it in another similar fashion. It does mostly work, but due to the tremendous power of the giant, the crew is able to break free. Karala is pretty much convinced that the mech, ship, and mystical Ede are all connected, so she really isn't bothered with going home. In fact, Karala wants to stay on the Solo ship despite everyone kind of hating her and thinking she's a spy, except Bass who keeps making googly eyes at her, and I guess that helps. Mayaya, on the other hand, is like, uh, screw that, and tries shooting her way off the ship, only to get lit up almost immediately. Cheryl takes Karala and hooks her up to a machine called the Confessograph, which is the silliest name for a horrifying torture truth machine I've ever seen, to determine whether or not she is a threat to the crew. Despite having the silliest name ever, the test comes back negative, and it's found that Karala has no special scientific knowledge. However, the crew still doesn't trust her, and rightly so, because the ship is doing weird stuff on its own again and jumps into subspace. The ship eventually arrives at a planet covered in strange crystals. At this point, Gije, Damido, and Sir Abadede are getting pretty pissed that they can't recover Karala, or steal or destroy the Edeon, though they've pretty much given up on getting her back at this point. All three of them want to finish this mission before the arrival of Lady Harulu, the daughter of Supreme Commander Doba of the Buff Clan military, and a prestigious military commander. Gije is able to plant a small tracking device on the solo ship, which is going to be a problem for almost the rest of the entire series, because the crew keeps thinking it's a sick civilization artifact, and they don't want to move it. The amount of times they find it and put it back down is almost comical. The planet is home to these bug bird things called Bajin, which go absolutely berserk when a member of their flock is killed. Abadede throws Bajin bodies all over the solo ship, causing them to constantly attack. Abadede is able to sneak aboard the ship in the chaos and confront Karala, who asks him who gave the order to sacrifice her and the humans to study the Ede. Karala still believes that the samurai structure of the Buff Clan isn't the way forward for humanity, and then she even saves Cheryl's life before Abadede runs away. This doesn't stop Cheryl and Karala from having a slap fight, which goes on a bit too long to be dramatic. It's moments like this that make me continue to love old anime. Abadede severely underestimated the armor of the solo ship, and when Cosmo figures out that the Bajin attack whatever is covered with their own blood, it's all over for the lead samurai. Cosmo hucks a bunch of Bajin corpses on Abadede's mech, and he dies in a giant explosion as the monsters furiously attack. Not a very honorable way to go out, I must say. But I'm not really surprised because earlier in the episode he was seen lovingly recording a message for his wife and child. That's a death flag if I've ever seen one. Gijei and Damido have a meeting with the newly arrived Harulu. She's a strict taskmaster, and decides to send Gijei back to Planet Solo to study the Ede in more detail. On the solo ship, Karala further cements the connection between the Ede and Buff Clan, as there is a giant crater on their homeworld that can be traced back to Planet Solo. So of course, they're supremely interested in the planet, believing it to hold the legendary power of the Ede. Karala also tells them that at the end of the Buff Clan's legend, the hero was unable to protect Ede and everything was burned away, until only darkness remained. Along with Harulu is a big fat dude named Guhaba, and despite Edeon's cult popularity, it's never gotten a dub. Which is a shame because this guy could absolutely be voiced by Danny Davido. When Harulu finally arrives at the front, she's pretty damn disappointed with the performance of her subordinates. She sends Gijei back to Planet Solo to research more about the Ede, keeping Damido by her side on her pursuit force. Much like every episode of the show, the Buff Clan launches an attack on the solo ship, but this time they display the power of a brand new heavy mech, the Zig Mac. Though the Edeon is caught by Damido's electrical attack and cornered by the new machine, it turns out that hey, the Edeon is super overpowered and he just punches the big mech away. If there is a big criticism that I think I would personally level at Space Runaway Edeon, it would be that in the first half specifically, things are very formulaic. Much like Edeon's predecessor, Mobile Suit Gundam, a battle between the two factions is almost guaranteed with every episode. That formula eventually subsides in the latter half of the show's runtime, but I think I could see how some people might drop this show by episode 10 just thinking it is a run-of-the-mill mecha show from the 80s. Partly this is probably due just to the time frame in which Edeon released. I mean, I'm sure it would be really hard to pitch a mech show that doesn't introduce new designs and have a bunch of action every single week, especially back in the early 80s where you could throw a rock and hit a mecha anime. However, even if you want to level the mecha formula at Edeon as a criticism, it really does go out of its way to do something different near constantly. For every battle between the two factions in the void of space is one that takes place on a planet full of murderous bug birds, or a battle while both sides are dropping in and out of subspace, or even a battle in an asteroid belt full of sentient mineral deposits that crush people to death. The point is, Space Runaway Edeon never feels uninspired. I was very impressed with the display of creativity from episode to episode, and even when the story requires a more vanilla engagement, they do a lot with the set dressing. For instance, when Edeon first fights Damido and Guhaba, they do battle on a planet full of strange ruins and caves. You can tell these are not natural structures, and they haven't been inhabited for a long time. We never learn anything about this culture, and no one questions how they died out. The universe in Space Runaway Edeon is vast, old, and a mysterious place, and the attention to detail is laser focused. The crew of the solo ship are still really suspicious of Karala, and they think that she could be a spy. But who they should be suspicious of is a weird dude named Sanba, one because he snuck on board the ship and is a saboteur from the buff clan trying to sow discontent, and two, his hat has an S on it, and as we all know, S is for sus. Karala tells Bess that she wants to go and speak to her sister Harulu in an attempt to get her to see reason. Of course, Cosmo and some of the others think that she just wants to take this opportunity to flee. Cosmo even goes so far as to get into a fist fight with Bess over it in the elevator, but it's like the most polite fist fight I've ever seen. When the door opens, they just stop and go back to their business. No Zeta Gundam face kicks aboard the solo ship, we aren't barbarians. Bess ends up taking Karala to talk with Harulu, but it doesn't work out as the two hoped. Harulu refuses to listen to anything that Karala says, and ends up ripping her shirt open and ordering her soldiers to laugh at her. This moment is where Karala knows that she just can't go back to the buff clan. For better or for worse, her fate is now tied to the solo ship. When this happens, Bess gets super pissed off and attacks Harulu's soldiers by himself. This moment cemented Bess as one of my favorite characters in the show as he just takes them all alone with a laser sword and pistol. He actually does really well too, ending up in a duel with Danny Dekuhaba. Cosmo doesn't fully trust that Bess wouldn't betray them for his new girlfriend, so he follows them in the Idio Delta and ends up opening up on the soldiers during the duel. The soldiers retreat and Karala calls Bess a true samurai. I have to say the relationships in this show are a large focus and theme, and I really enjoy Bess and Karala. While Bess is head over heels for Karala and no longer sees her as an alien or an other, the rest of the crew is not so quick to trust. While the crew discuss the situation, we see a supporting character named Lada nearby, ominously pulling weeds. Her planning turns into outright assassination in no time flat as she tries to kill Karala on the bridge in front of everyone. Luckily, she's not a great shot. Lada is cornered in the forest. Yeah, I forgot to mention the solo ship has a forest on it. It's a big ship. She tries to kill Karala again, but is not a good shot. Karala even criticizes her aim. Lada breaks down and we can see the effect that the series' events are starting to have on all of the civilians. Much like Macross, Space Runaway Idion features the main ship of the show carting a full contingent of civilians. It's a significantly smaller number in Idion, there's only about 300 people aboard the solo ship compared to the tens of thousands aboard the Macross. That being said, Idion doesn't really show these background characters very much, but they do play into the plot later on. Oh yeah, before we move on, Guhaba explodes. Get used to that. One criticism that I see leveled at Idion quite often is that the buff clan enemies sometimes feel like cannon fodder to the incredible power of the show's title robot. And yeah, this is pretty true. If a new buff clan guy shows up as an underling of Harulu, it's pretty much guaranteed that they'll get whacked after a few episodes. The Idion is attacked by a heavy mecha specialist named Doku, and before his attack is fought off, he totally psychologically scars Cosmo by latching onto the Idio Delta and trying to cook it to death with a heat ray. Yeah, this scene is really well done and honestly pretty stressful to watch. Cosmo takes this incredibly hard, being so stressed that he can't even respond over the radio. The solo ship arrives at a base called Brasilia that is located inside an asteroid that looks like Pac-Man. The base commander is a woman named Camula who takes pity on Cosmo. While she's supervising him, he begins to return to normal. Camula reminds Cosmo of his mother, and this might be the first time since the beginning of the series that Cosmo has the chance to relax. It's hard to remember that Cosmo isn't a soldier or anything, he's just a kid who is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Speaking of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the buff clan attacks Brasilia and Commander Camula is trapped under a vehicle and crushed. Cosmo frantically tries to free her from the wreckage, resorting to just pulling on her, which kills her. This scene doesn't really show you anything, but it doesn't need to. Yeah, Idion has some other brutal stuff in it, especially if you count the movies, but I think this moment that you don't even get to see is the most intense thing that happens. Cosmo returns to the Idion, and in a rage he uses an attack that sort of becomes the Idion's ult for a while. He basically shoots all his missiles at once, destroying the attackers. Then the Idion, responding to Cosmo's rage and sadness, roars into the depths of space. This ---- was sick, what a great scene. The Idion roaring is such a haunting and weird moment, and it might be the first time that you think something about Clifford the Big Red Mech might be a little... off. The solo ship departs Brasilia with another ship attached called the Carioca. The crew discusses what they should do, and we learn that back on Earth, work on a supercomputer named Gloria has been completed. Now Cheryl thinks that they should go back there and use the supercomputer to research data that she has on the E-Day, and maybe figure out how to use it to fight the Buff Clan. However, no one is super thrilled with the idea of leading these violent aliens back to their home planet. Well, Cheryl has had about enough of this ----, and she takes Kerala hostage at gunpoint, leaving in the Carioca. I actually put in my notes here, why is Cheryl such a ******* bitch? I haven't talked too much about characterization yet, so perfect segue, thanks me. I mean, spoiling things is what I do on this channel, but whatever, give me this okay? Cheryl starts out as someone who is constantly combative and abrasive, she's the last to give Kerala any trust, and is almost always the dissenting voice whenever anyone has a plan. But while it lasts, it's really fun to watch Cheryl be an absolute turd. So Cheryl's ship gets attacked by the Buff Clan, and she's surprised for some reason that they don't care that she has Kerala hostage. Good plan, Cheryl. Cosmo is able to bring them back, Kerala being an absolute saint, takes the blame for the desertion in order to give the crew of the solo ship something to rally around. The logic being that if the crew knew it was Cheryl who deserted, they might start feeling uneasy, and the solo ship unit would start falling apart. Kerala is put in the brig, which in this case is just a cage in the middle of a room. Kerala doesn't have to stay in there for very long, however, because in the next engagement with the Buff Clan, Cosmo and Kasha get a little full of themselves and just ignore Bess's orders. Now, the solo ship is fine even though they do this, Damido attacks and ends up dying when the Idion hucks two Zigmak mechs into each other and they explode. However, for the insubordination, Bess does throw Kerala and Cosmo into the brig. The Idion responds most positively when being piloted by Cosmo and Kasha, so they don't stay locked up for long as they have a battle on a planet full of big monkeys. Finally, the solo ship makes it to what they believe to be a friendly port, arriving at the planet Aegean. They begin to think that their luck is turning as the military command allows the civilians off the ship, and even administers a vaccine to Liu who had fallen sick. That is until the Buff Clan attacks the planet with faster than light missiles that blow up a huge portion of the planet. The solo ship runs after the Aegean military decides to attack them in order to take over the ship, and ultimately the people of Aegean blame the destruction of their planet on the solo ship and Idion. And with that, the solo ship runs from Aegean, and we begin to see the reason that this series is known as Space Runaway Idion. We learn from Kerala that the Buff Clan home planet has been being pelted by meteors for two years, and they've found that they were originating from planet Solo. Cosmo realizes that the same thing has been happening on Earth, and curiously, it's the same amount of meteors. The ship comes under attack on a planet covered in vast oceans, and it's here that we get some confirmation that the Idion Gage has somehow been reacting to Liu. When he was sick, the Gage had a harder time powering on, and during the battles here, whenever Liu starts to freak out, the Gage reacts by powering up, and acting on its own to defend the members of the crew. In this particular instance, the shields of the solo ship become so powerful they destroy Buff Clan mechs on direct contact. The ship escapes the planet and runs in a random direction, in an attempt to flee from Harulu's full contingent of soldiers. Harulu follows them, however, and during their confrontation, the Idion starts shaking and freaking out. Soldiers aboard the solo ship are forced to give up their advance, as their battleship is destroyed. Harulu is saved by a mysterious man in green armor, known as Dharam Zuba, who works for an organization known as the Orme Foundation. They are a private company with a military arm that has arrived to help Harulu capture the Idion and destroy the solo ship. The arrival of the Orma Foundation also reintroduces Gije as an adversary once again, as he was sent back to Planet Buff by Harulu after his multiple failures. Now he's back, and working under Dharam, even more determined to solve the puzzles of the Ide and destroy the giant Idion. Things begin to feel a little bit more hopeless for our main characters, as Cosmo wonders if they're all just being manipulated by the Ide. The solo ship intercepts an emergency transmission from the planet Keral. They are under attack by the Buff Clan, and are reporting that half their planet has been destroyed. The solo ship crew decide to go and help. On the planet, which has been mostly reduced to rubble, Cosmo runs into the very creatively named Kitty Kitten, a gorilla fighter surviving in the ruins with a bunch of kids. Over the course of a few episodes, Kitty and Cosmo become fairly close, with Cosmo falling for her, which is pretty impressive since they start out shooting at each other. Of course, he doesn't get to actually spend much time with her, what with the Buff Clan doing unromantic stuff like planting a nuclear bomb on the Ideon. Which it survives, by the way. Ideon can tank pretty much everything, and while the pilots inside were pretty shaken up, Cosmo's hair is even poking out of his helmet, they were all alive. Well, since half their planet is blown up, the Keral Defense Force doesn't really want to resupply the solo ship, or even help them fight the Buff Clan. Gijay ends up sneaking aboard the Ideon, and killing a crew member while all the pilots are away. Cosmo ends up Indiana Jones-ing his up to it, and then getting in a close quarters fight with Gijay. Cosmo actually throws his knife into Gijay's shoulder, which means he's completely unarmed, but Gijay realizes that was some crazy ---- and runs away. The remaining Keral Defense Forces and solo ship attack the Buff Clan in a incredibly destructive battle. Cosmo is wounded and taken to the medbay immediately. Meanwhile, Kitty is escorting refugees on the planet to a shelter when she comes across Dharam and his escape pod. He shoots her, and we get possibly one of the most depressing and haunting songs in the whole show, in a moment that I think will stick with anyone who takes the time to watch the full series. Cosmo gets a blood transfusion from the only other match on the ship, Kerala, and as the narrator lets us know, this is a big deal because of the two peoples mixing. He then has an insane fever dream where he floats through the cosmos. The thing I like about Cosmo is he isn't shaken by this experience, he wakes up mad as hell, even calling Cheryl a sociopath. Cosmo knows that Kitty died, and having basically no way to process it, he just decides to swallow those feelings and move on, only being more determined to overcome the Buff Clan. Bess officially decides to contact the Space Union military and travel to Earth for reinforcements. The Buff Clan debuts a new weapon, the Garu Beam, which is basically a gun they strap on a mech that shoots a beam that fries people's brain cells. Since the Buff Clan has figured out that the Idion responds to the mental state of the pilots, they just decide to destroy the pilot's brains. The Idion is able to fight off the Garu-equipped mecha with some punches and kicks that honestly might be some of the show's best animation. Bess says screw it and uses the ship's DS drive to jump directly to Earth, with Dharam firing a ton of biosensors at them in an attempt to find their location. Arriving at Earth doesn't exactly go the way that the crew of the solo ship hoped because the Earth Union military doesn't really roll out the red carpet for them. It would seem that Dharam was able to follow them, and the Earth Union military tells them to turn their little butts around and go anywhere else. A sympathizer from the Earth's science department named Kolbok meets them and agrees to take Cheryl to the Lunar Base to use the Gloria supercomputer. Cheryl believes that using the computer to analyze the Ide's data will give them the answer that they've been looking for, and at the very least, maybe they could figure out how to harness the power to fight the buff clan. With Cosmo covering them, Kolbok, Cheryl, and Jolliver sneak into the base and access the computer. While Kolbok is shot by a military officer, the other two successfully extract the data and find that the Ide truly is a form of infinite energy. During the battle, Gi-Jay crash lands on the moon but survives, and Dharam, who's pissed that Gi-Jay failed once again, decides to just leave him there to die. Back on board the Soloship, Cheryl explains that the Ide is actually a living entity with its own ego that is composed of hundreds of millions of consciousnesses. This makes me think of the Dwemer from Elder Scrolls and how they just disappeared, you know? Seems like the sixth civilization all combined into a big energy ball that has god powers. Jolliver goes into even more detail, saying that the Ide was awakened by a purely defensive instinct, which explains why it gets more powerful whenever Liu freaks the **** out. The crew has a pretty dark moment here, wondering if they can even do anything to contain the Ide as they see a meteor head for the Earth. The Earth military also learns all this information, as Gloria's computer terminal communicates directly with Earth. I mean, because of course it would. They demand that the Soloship be handed over to them. The crew does not want the Earth military to have the ship and gain control of the Ide. At this point, they don't really want anyone to have that power, fearing that both the Buff Clan and the Earth Union would use it to wage war. In the worst case scenario, they believe the Ide, which is starting to have more and more of an ego, would defend itself from capture. They don't really know how it would, but they know it would probably be bad. Darum makes one final desperate attack on the Soloship as well, knowing that if he doesn't succeed, the Orme Foundation will have to join forces with their adversary, the Buff Clan military's commander, Doba. Too bad for him, because this is where Ideon decides it's time for the main mech to become unbelievably overpowered. The Soloship crew discover a huge gun hidden in the depths of the ship, saying that they thought it was originally part of the engine. This thing has a few names, the Ideon Gun, Wave Gun, but no matter what you call it, it absolutely rocks. Using the Ideon as its power source, this gun unleashes a huge wave of destructive energy that, even when at a low power output, destroys Darum's ship and mech at the same time, though he lives. And this is only the start of how OP Ideon becomes, as the newly arrived Buff Clan commander Rukuku Kill is about to learn. Since the Ideon already has a gun, how about two giant ****-off swords with the power to cut entire fleets in half? And all it took to summon these bad boys was, uh, cooking a baby with a brain-melting laser? Fair enough, no pain, no gain. While this is happening, Gijei shows back up and saves Cheryl from getting squished, but then knocks her out. I guess he survived by hiding with the survivors from the lunar base attack. When she wakes up, she realizes Gijei has dragged her off somewhere, and he asks her to show him the power of the Ide. Through his battles with the giant, he has become almost obsessed with it, to the point where he's ready to cast off the title of samurai to learn more about it. Cheryl ends up hiding him in the depths of the Soloship, which is a pretty good hiding place. I guess it's a pretty good time to mention that Gijei becomes my favorite character. Though he starts out as an antagonist that's incredibly ruthless in his pursuit of the Ideon, watching him cast aside the only way he knows how to live in order to try and figure out the mysteries of this weird power is incredibly interesting to watch. He even gets his ultimate revenge on Darum, who challenges Cosmo to a duel without telling him that he's strapped with a nuclear bomb. Good thing Gijei comes in clutch with a badass sniper trickshot at the last second. With this, Gijei comes back to the Soloship, and they try to decide what to do with him. Luckily, Kasha doesn't get a vote, because she tells him to go kill himself in Minecraft. Bes tries to talk to the Earth Military one final time, but it doesn't work out of course, because they just throw him in jail along with Cosmo. They even try to guilt trip him by having his parents come talk to them. Bes has made up his mind that the Earth Union can't have the Ide at this point and lets his parents disown him, until Karala and Gijei break in and help them escape. At the end of this episode, the Ideon gauge powers up so much that I can't even really show it. In fact, I feel like it was going to give me a seizure, and I didn't really want to look at it. Gijei helps the crew remove the tracking devices on the Soloship, and they get a message from the Earth Union saying that the Soloship is now considered part of the Earth Military under Bes as its captain, and they all share a nice laugh over that. Onboard Rukuku Kill's ship, we get a small taste of buff clan politics, as Kill makes fun of Darum's last message to Harulu. Yeah, turns out the two were actually lovers, and when Harulu gets word of this, she literally has her servant assassinate Kill. She ain't playing around. It's okay though, cause Cosmo blows up their ship with the Ideon gun anyway, and all it cost was one of the co-pilots named Moira. I haven't really mentioned him at all because Moira is barely a character, but he spends all episode trying to have development, and for that offense, he dies. Sorry buddy. The Soloship crew is at a loss at what to do and discuss finding a remote planet to just live on alone. It's at this point that Bes passes out with a terrible fever, and spends the next few episodes at a commission. At this point in Space Runaway Ideon, the Ideon itself really starts to take the reins when it comes to piloting. Pilots seem to have less and less agency, and the Ide becomes more and more in control, stopping at nothing to defend itself, and becoming progressively more and more destructive every time. GJ fills in as an Ideon pilot after Moira's death, and while the crew is not happy about it, Cosmo ends up leaving the decision to a coin flip. Luck is on GJ's side, and I think this moment really illustrates how resigned Cosmo, and the crew at large, is to their fate at this point. No one really even fights Cosmo's decision to flip a coin. They've been feeling out of control of the Ide long enough that no one really feels like they even have a choice. The Ideon cage becomes more and more unstable as the show goes on, with Kerala finally suggesting that the Ide has a full ego, and may even be able to distinguish between good and evil. Bes has a crazy fever dream where he actually comes face to face with a representation of the Ide. He's told that the Ide is an accumulation of hundreds of millions of consciousnesses that exist to defend themselves, and something known as the Place of Ide. Now what this place is and what it contains is never really explained, but to me I just figure it's probably heaven. The Ide at this point is considered an omniscient being, an ancient god that is starting to awaken. The final episodes of Space Runaway Ideon kinda turn into a foreboding piece of cosmic horror, and while it's not as brazen as something like Event Horizon, Devilman, or even Berserk, it gets pretty dark. It definitely feels creepy and oppressive, especially when the members of the crew become so hopeless and feel like such puppets to the will of the Ide that they just go crazy and jump off the ship into space. Now that is cosmic horror if I've ever seen it. We get a shot of the solo ship at the end of the episode, and realize that the meteors haven't been originating from planet Solo, as the solo ship itself is seen to be the meteor's origin point. What a cool reveal. The solo ship is tricked onto a planet called the Night Star, where the Buff Clan and Earth Union military have joined forces to fight the Ideon. They blow up the ******* moon with FTL missiles, determined to take out the entire planet to destroy the solo ship. However, it just doesn't work, as the Ide has become too powerful for that weak ass ----. The barrier coming off the solo ship is so bright that the Buff Clan think it's a far away star at first. GJ and Cheryl believe that the Ide has manifested as an evil power. However, GJ believes the Ide to be intelligent, and capable of reason, so he still hopes they can awaken the good inside of it. Which would be a good ending to the series, right? Because the Ide becomes so powerful that it's able to contain multiple nuclear explosions with its barrier from inside the solo ship. It becomes the last hope of the crew to make the Ide reason, but at this point, they're really just along for the ride. The solo ship ends up going back to Agion from the midpoint of the series, and those guys still really, really hate them, and end up working with a Buff Clan samurai named Ser Dron in a plan that gets Cheryl's sister killed. The supreme leader of the Buff Clan military finally shows himself, along with the leader of the Orma Foundation, and he's pretty pissed off that all of his subordinates are more interested in like, furthering their personal accomplishments than destroying the Ideon. Geez man, it's almost like your entire society is structured around personal achievement. You can't really be surprised about it. The Buff Clan sets up its fleets in a universe spanning ring around the solo ship's location. They can detect the solo ship without the use of the tracking devices, because the Ide is now outputting so much power. GJ has a drink with Cheryl in her room, who's still grieving for Lyn, and we see that GJ and Cheryl have become a thing. Quite the character development for Cheryl to go from hating Kerala, for being part of the Buff Clan, to being in love with GJ. The Buff Clan finds the planet that the solo ship is hiding on and launches a huge attack. The Ideon gauge becomes a blinding white light, and for a moment, it seems that the Ideon is fully invoked, being witnessed by GJ. The Ideon uses this power to destroy the Buff Clan fleet and the entire planet with its swords, and it's a good thing that GJ's goal was to see the power of the Ide, because after witnessing its full power, he ******* dies. Like, Stone Cold Dead, see a favorite character. This loss drives Cheryl completely insane, and she spends the final episode laughing maniacally drunk off her ass on the bridge of the ship. While I said I hated Cheryl earlier, I'm going to cut her a break here, because she deserves it. I hope if I live to see the end of the world, I can do it while laughing my ass off wine drunk. Oh yeah, there's also been a bunch of foreshadowing that's showing Kerala might be pregnant. There's no hiding it now, as she starts the first pangs of labor while making coffee. At this very moment, the Ideon gauge freaks out and lights up and blasts the through space at ludicrous speed. Kerala and Jolliver are nabbed right off the bridge in a flash of light and transported right to the Buff Clan flagship. It doesn't take long for Lord Doba to catch his daughter and her comrade, and Kerala begs him to call off the attack and listen to reason. She says that they can no longer control the Ide, and it transported them there as a last ditch effort to cooperate. Doba says that that is the exact reason they can't let the humans possess the Ide, not knowing the Ide is the one planning them. Kerala tries to use the baby she is having with Bess as proof that the humans and Buff Clan can not only coexist, but also intertwine. Well, this has the exact opposite effect that she had hoped, as Doba becomes enraged and attacks Kerala with his laser sword. The solo ship appears at super speed and rams into the Buff Clan flagship. The Ideon launches and deals massive damage to the attacking alien ships. Kerala and Jolliver escape by stealing a shuttle, and in mechatrope fashion, the Ideon almost grabs them before they are shot by a laser and explode right in front of Cosmo. Cosmo gets enraged, and the Ide projects his voice across space, saying that Kerala represented the ideals that would have suppressed the Ide's invocation. Surprisingly, Cosmo spots a surviving Jolliver and Kerala floating through space. He saves them and brings them back aboard the solo ship. Doba orders an all-out attack with the full power of his entire fleet, and at this moment, the Ide is fully invoked. The Ide had given humanity one last chance to cooperate by bringing Kerala and Doba together, but even with the evidence of Kerala and Bess' child, they failed. The baby inside Kerala is said to be the trigger for the Ide's invocation, and with its arrival, both humanity and the Buff are wiped away. Space settles into a sullen silence, with the massive conflict finally ending. In a final, actually hopeful shot, we see the image of Lu traveling through space in a new existence, and we can only hope that the crew of the solo ship has found their place and peace in the universe, no longer being a space runaway. And that, everyone, was Space Runaway Ideon. Honestly, it's a show that's quite a ride, went places I didn't really expect, and depending upon how you look at it, has a pretty depressing ending. This is another time, much like with Macross, that I'm very fortunate to be able to go into Ideon with no prior knowledge of the story, it's totally blind. Personally, I found it really, really enjoyable, and if anyone was going to ask me what would be a good entry point to 80's mecha anime, I think Ideon would be right at the top of my list. With pretty good animation, phenomenal music, and a story that would go on to influence a ton of classic anime works, Space Runaway Ideon would be a crime to miss. Thank you for taking the time to watch all of this, I really didn't expect this script to be 12 pages long, but here we are. Now that Space Runaway Ideon is done, we'll be moving on to another show that has been highly requested in January. Besides that, of course, we have more of the Gundam retrospective coming up this month, and you can look forward to a special Christmas episode as well. I truly hope you enjoyed your time today, and I will see you again very soon. That would be great. My original goal for this video was to cap it at half an hour. As you can see, that didn't work. I'm doing that, though. Believe in me, please, that I can not ramble like I am now. Anyway, thank you so much to my channel. Members that stuck around in the content droughts while I work on these videos, they take quite a long time, but I am getting better. Yeah, again, thank you so much. This one was really great to watch and make. Ideon, man, what a classic. So glad that so many people have really suggested I watch this one, even though I was uninitiated in Super Robot shows. What a great one to start with, really, even though, like, a lot of people probably say I should have started with, like, Mazinger or something, but hey, in the future, we'll definitely be getting to that and Giant Robo and Tetsujin and, like, everything. I'm just gonna watch every mech. I don't care. Anyway, 2023 is almost upon us, and with that is gonna be a lot of new stuff. I feel like production is gonna be upped in 2023. I'm really starting to get a lot of traction with these videos, which I wasn't suspecting, but that's cool. And then also, of course, if you wanna check it out, I do have a gaming channel linked on the main channel down at the bottom. In 2023, I've been doing a lot of work this month to get stuff ready for that channel next year, and my main plan is to just have, like, an upload there every day, because I really, really used to enjoy Let's Plays, and I find them incredibly relaxing to record and just yabber, jabber, whatever, over gameplay, so if you are interested in me talking about anime and gaming and stuff kinda sorta close to a podcast with stuff like Titanfall and Super Mario in the background, check out that gaming channel, because that might be something like not a lot of edited content over there, low production value. It is just something for me, because I feel like doing it. So, yep, that's there for you if you want it. Again, thank you so much for watching this video. I'm gonna cut this end card off here, because it's the longest one I've ever done. You guys are ******* awesome. You're all stars, and hey, I'll actually see you way sooner than normal.