While not as underground as my latest review, this one is also quite obscure. Even if it was made by Studio Sunrise, one of the most famous anime studios out there, though today it's called Bandai Namco Filmworks. That doesn't change the fact that they did a lot of anime about mecha like Gundam, Code Geass, and it's the case with this one as well!
Wild Knights Gulkeeva, aka Beast Warriors Gulkeeva, is an anime from 1995, giving this typical Sunrise 90s feeling! And it's quite one of a kind as it mixes mecha and kemono in a way you rarely see even today.
So...what is this anime about? From wiki: "Wild Knights Gulkeeva is a Japanese TV anime series that premiered as a dark-fantasy version of the Momotarō legend. It was created by Hajime Yatate from Sunrise, who also serialized a manga version in Shogakukan's Shōnen Sunday Super magazine.
The story takes place in a world known as Earthside, which exists along with three other inhabited worlds, Nosfertia, Heavenstia, and Eternalia. When beings known as Darknoids descended from Nosfertia and began their invasion on Earthside, Heavenstia sent 3 Animanoids (beast-humans) for the task, but they must first rendezvous with the legendary warrior Radias, who is currently reincarnated as a young human teenager named Touya Shinjou. Upon learning his true origins from his foster parents, Touya decides to fight beside the Animanoids to defend Earthside. "
It seems that, according to a comment by director Masamitsu Hidaka in the booklet of the complete DVD box set, the original plan was for the show to run for four seasons, with toys also being released! However, the toy release was canceled, and that fucked up this anime since then. Because of that, they went from four to two seasons. That might explain the way the anime changed in the second season, which I will elaborate on in a bit. Still, according to Masamitsu: "The plan was for Touya and his friends to go to Eternalia in the third season, where they would interact with the suffering people there, further expanding the drama, and developing the story of the beastmen. In the fourth season, the plan was for Touya to make what could be called the "ultimate choice," which would be closely related to the theme of the work, but the show was canceled after just two seasons."
Because of this cancellation of those two seasons, the series writer did a manga and a novel, but as far as I can tell, neither was translated, and both are different from the anime, so I'm not sure if either could really be considered a sequel to the anime. Only the novel seems to be a sequel of some sort. If you guys know where to see the manga or novel translated into English, please do tell! Because without either, all we have is an anime that only has two of the four seasons planned! And that sucks. So we need to keep that in mind when judging this anime.
Before we elaborate more on the plot, we need to talk about the characters so...
- Touya Shinjou: The MC of the anime. Lived as a normal teenager until the invasion of the Darknoids. That's when his adoptive parents tell the truth about who he is, and he awakens as the legendary knight Radias, using his powers to protect Earth...and by Earth, I mean the specific city in Japan that he happens to live since it's always the place that, for some reason (depending of the episode) the Darknoids have to attack lol.
As the MC, he's nice and is mischievous and active, even being the vice-captain of the kendo club in his school, but he can be very naive and foolish as well. He struggles a lot to accept his "fate" as Radias, which is one of the main plot points of the first season.
- Greyfus: https://imgbox.com/g/oUbu6LyNqL A werewolf warrior who came from another world, like the others, to help Touya in his fight. He uses a laser whip as a weapon.
Despite being rather stoic, he can be curious like a puppy (hehe), and if he sees a machine or something he wants to know how it works, he won't hesitate to dismantle it completely! He can also be proud and arrogant.
He, like the other furs, can fight on their own, but when Touya uses his power as Radias on them, they can "grow up" and technically become a cyborgs or something like that. In Greyfus's case, he becomes a big feral wolf wearing armor! https://imgbox.com/g/tdWnAhMDU4
Easily the most gentle of the group has a soft spot for kids and gets along with them very well. He likes to drink and has some curious habits, and, for some weird reason, is the focus of most episodes dedicated to him when they're about one of the Gulkeeva warriors. Even more than Greyfus, who in theory is the "main fur" of the party!
He, like the other furs, can fight on their own, but when Touya uses his power as Radias on them, they can "grow up" or "mecha up" or armor up or whatever term you prefer and technically become a cyborgs or something like that. In Greyfus's case, he becomes an even bigger gorilla...wearing armor! https://imgbox.com/g/4uixYuGOi0
- Beakwood: https://imgbox.com/g/VTQvcTJIt5 An eagle warrior who came from another world, like the others, to help Touya in his fight. Uses a laser bow as a weapon.
Appears to be the most mature, calm, and meticulous of those guys, always being polite when he speaks. Loves nature and is a poet! But, for whatever reason, he's also the ONLY of those guys that never got a single episode either dedicated to him or where he plays a major role, and that sucks!!
He, like the other furs, can fight on their own, but when Touya uses his power as Radias on them, they can "grow up" or "mecha up" or armor up or whatever term you prefer and technically become a cyborgs or something like that. In Beakwood's case, he becomes a badass giant armored eagle! https://imgbox.com/g/oLx0dPqkdP
- Tedium/Didium (depends on how you prefer to read his name in Japanese, I will go with Didium): https://imgbox.com/g/JhF5XrN9Cv A bear warrior who came from another world, like the others, to help Touya in his fight. Uses a stick as a weapon.
By far, the one that has more of what we can call character development in this anime, for the furry warriors. His stuff is one of the main plot points of the second season, which makes sense since he only shows up by the end of season 1. This means that part of season 2 is dedicated to him, which is good and also bad since it's not like the anime did a good job in developing the other three furs well or anything.
Since he's the only one who got some development during the anime, and it's very closely tied with another character I'm not talking about to avoid spoilers, all I can say about Didium is that he's also the only one who got a human girlfriend during the second season. But as with most good ideas in this anime, they really barely do much with it, so...yeah. But he's still a good character!
He, like the other furs, can fight on their own, but when Touya uses his power as Radias on them, they can "grow up" or "mecha up" or armor up or whatever term you prefer and technically become a cyborgs or something like that. In Didium's case, he becomes a bigger armored bear! https://imgbox.com/g/CxEYfIgI5S
What is probably the worst issue this anime has, aside from being cut in half as we lost two seasons to conclude the plot properly, it's an issue that some anime like this, such as Buddyfight, also had in its first three seasons. Too many damn useless human characters.
They exist only to get in the way of the plot, as they barely add anything to it. Probably because this is an anime in which they were thinking about the action first and the plot and characters second. Maybe this explains as well why only Didium, aside from Touya (and the spoiler character from the second season), even got some development. What they got was good, but it was almost muffled with the anime having to give screentime to so many useless characters, or what is the "filler of the week". So many things happen in one episode that nobody gives a shit in the next episode, like Greyfus's loli girlfriend dying (not kidding...uh, yes, kinda? It's such a weird episode xP).
We will never know if the plot or the characters would be better in the third and fourth seasons. But what we got is an anime you're going to see mostly for the fighting! And the fighting alternates between ok to good in some episodes and quite mediocre in others, it's really the very typical 90s animation of Sunrise when they sadly had a budget to work with there. So with that in mind, it's good enough that we have some good action, even if not in all episodes.
Since it's made by Sunrise, you're probably thinking it's all about mecha, and you would be half-right about that! All of the enemies of this anime are always piloting some mecha. The variety among them is quite crazy, you can tell the animators had fun with those designs. There are so many of those that we can divide them all into three types, there's even a wiki about that https://mmecha.fandom.com/wiki/Mecha_and_Monsters_from_...
Only our heroes don't ever pilot a mecha. Yes, they fight without piloting one, which is kinda crazy, heh. But after a while, Touya uses his power to transform the furry warriors into those super-strong versions with armor and such, which usually allows them to fight the mechas at the same level.
And the fighting is what this anime is about, there's a lot of it. While both seasons go with the "mecha of the week to be defeated by some guy that usually is introduced to pilot that mecha and then killed in the same episode" plot, the second season is where the fights really got more intense and fucked up, with lots of death and destruction around the characters. That's when you really feel our heroes are in this war, and they are on the side that is losing. Maybe because of that, alongside the plot giving them more stuff to work with, like Didium being introduced, is the reason why I say the second season is better, but maybe you would prefer the almost slice of life mixed with mecha battle of the first season.
That's also why, for the first time, I don't need to put a spoiler section here. Not only there isn't much to analyze, criticize, or talk about in this sense. Plus, as I mentioned, this is an anime more for fans of mecha who want to see mecha action. Even if ironically, the mecha is only on the side of the villains in this anime xP.
What about the furry, though? Are they enough for me to recommend checking this anime out? Well, to talk in-depth about them, we need to check the...
Today, anime focused on kemono characters or where they play an important role in the plot is a thing! But...back then? Aside from stuff like Pokémon that was rare as fuck. And even less in something as serious as an action-focused mecha anime.
So that should be more than enough to make Gulkeeva famous as fuck and all of their characters should be among the most common you see in Rule 34 art! After all, as you guys saw in the links, those warriors are very hot, good designs there! And remember, all of them are part of the main cast, which should help with that! But that's not the case. Why?
I believe it's because of two things: they had half-assed both the kemono and the mecha aspects. And when you remove either from the anime, there's nothing there to write home about.
This isn't a review focused on the mecha aspect, so I'm not going to talk about it in detail as I do about the kemono. But the kemono was half-assed for sure! We indeed got three and then four kemono characters as part of the main cast, which is very good, and all four have great designs. However, only Garriel and Greyfus have some episodes that are kinda dedicated to them, and even so, they're all filler. It's not like we learn more about them, their past, or something like that in those episodes. A good example of that is the very fucked up episode where Greyfus meets this...loli girl who technically became his romantic interest, dies, and then she is never mentioned again. Uh...what? Why waste an entire episode on some weird filler like this? You could have used that episode to show some cool dynamics between the characters, and their past, teach us something new about them, or to move the plot forward, or something!
That's a big issue with this anime, it's 80% about the fights that usually happen because of filler reasons, and the fights aren't that good because of the animation. The plot only moves faster in the second season, which is maybe why it becomes a bit better. And that's also when we get Didium, the only of the furry characters to get what we might call character development, with his own arc and such, and it's good. But that is a case of too little too late. I doubt that most Japanese who are or would become artists would watch this anime until the second season, they certainly would have dropped it by then. And that's assuming they even knew about this anime to begin with, since it is quite underground today, so imagine back then. This is an example of how even if the designs of the characters are quite good, which is the case here, it doesn't mean that it's enough to make them or your anime popular. You need to get the characters a good plot/script to work with.
Now, aside from our four furry heroes, we do have a few other kemono that show up. A few kemonomimi, too. But sadly, most of the enemy pilots that our heroes defeat (and murder in the same episode they show up) are humans. Well, Darknoids that just happen to look just like humans, that's it. If only one or two of the main villains were kemono too...but that's not the case. They're all humans in appearance.
This means that 90% of the time, the only kemono you will see in the anime is one of the four beast warriors, or more than once, since they're usually together. But usually, they're either fighting or "trapped" in this filler episode.
The thing is, all the other kemono are mostly in Eternalia, as you can see here https://imgbox.com/g/sPJQFAS7bH, but we barely see anything happening in Eternalia. Most of the anime takes place on Earth. And that's also why there's no "major" character in Eternalia that is a kemono.
Aside from those guys and some kemonomimi enemy pilots here and there, we only have three kemono, which are also enemy pilots! Guards: https://imgbox.com/g/Pf3AgZbacB Mirage: https://imgbox.com/g/epNASTn0QO Gentle: https://imgbox.com/g/5Z2xCFswVN And all of them died in the same episode, they are barely introduced, and they never interact with the main cast since they only show up to them to fight and die lol. So...yeah. Those are the reasons why I said they half-assed the kemono in this anime despite the great designs they have.
At the end of the day, we can only count on our four furry guys and remember that Didium only shows up around the start of the second season. While all four have great design, they're wasted in this mecha anime because of the weak plot with animation that isn't exactly the best that Sunrise ever did. And the fact that they canceled the anime before the third season, where they were going to Eternalia, really fucking suuuuuucks!
Maybe that season would be bad, but the mere fact that they would be in Eternalia means we probably would get new kemono characters, maybe even villains. Or, at least, our furry guys would do something more interesting than the weird or boring filler they usually did in the first and second seasons. But yeah, a big shame we will never find out.
So, for those reasons, I believe that Wild Knights Gulkeeva 4 deserves a...*turns around and points dramatically at the anime* A TWO OUT OF FIVE OF LOF IN THE KAMIKAZE SCALE!!!
Now, normally, for the number of kemono characters alone, which is four in this case, and all four are part of the main cast, and the fact they have great designs, even if they felt wasted here because of the poor script/plot, I think would be enough to get a there,e and indeed it's close to it. But I had to cut one point for two reasons.
Despite the presence of those four as part of the main cast and being on the screen a lot, this is NOT an anime that focuses on kemono. This is still a mecha anime, all about the fight against the mecha. And because of the poor animation and the plot with all its filler and such...yeah...I don't think I could recommend it to mecha fans because there is waaay better stuff out there, even at that time this anime was out. Including from Sunrise lol. If only they had delivered on the number of kemono characters as they did with the mecha...but as it is, unless you REALLY did the designs of any of the four furry guys, chances are you might like this anime more because of the mecha stuff than the kemono.
Also, we cannot ignore the fact that anime was canceled before the third season! Unfortunately, this means the anime ended right when technically they were going to the best part, which is the characters going to Eternalia to conclude the main plot. So, the ending is just...open, and it will never be concluded unless one day this gets a reboot, which would be a dream if it ever happens.
So, I recommend this more to mecha fans who like kemono, but be warned that this is not going to be your best mecha anime of the '90s or something. As for kemono fans, only try it if you really dig into the design of one of the four! But remember, Didium only shows up by the start of the second season!!
The best furry character this time is...Didium! Good bear all around and easily the best developed of all knights~
The "kemono in the refrigerator" this time is... a tie between all the few kemono warriors from the Darknoids' side, as while their designs are good and all, they show up only to be killed as the enemy of the week.
Aaaand that’s it for this one! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this review. Please don't hesitate to leave your comments and opinions about it, and also about Wild Knights Gulkeeva if you happen to have watched it or maybe wanna check it out thanks to this review xD. I want to leave those journals as a place where people can discuss the respective things being reviewed here!
