[ci skip] Dancougar draft updated

content/post/2021-03-01-blast-from-the-past--super-beast-machine-god-dancougar.md

@@ -58,7 +58,31 @@ Aside the usual army of nameless mecha, drones and flying ships from Muge Zorbad
 
 "Well, what about the mecha?" you might ask. Well... that's one of the features that makes this series unique, in my view. Despite being shown in the opening since episode 1, the robot that gives the name to the series does **not** appear until the sixteenth episode. And what would the reason be?
 
-The reason is that the series does quite a slow build up of the story and the characters, which then are ready to be given their toy of mass destruction. This is markedly different from other classic robot shows: although some don't feature the main mecha in the first episodes (like *Golion*, *Daltanious*, and *Zambot 3* to name a few)
+The reason is that the series does quite a slow build up of the story and the characters, which then are ready to be given their toy of mass destruction. This is markedly different from other classic robot shows: although some don't feature the main mecha in the first episodes (like *Golion*, *Daltanious*, and *Zambot 3* to name a few), once it comes into play it basically monopolizes the episodes, save for notable exceptions.
+
+This is not the case of Dancougar. First the characters are given their vehicle and the possibility to turn them into the animals they are named after (the so-called *Aggressive Beast Change*). A number of episodes later, they gain the ability of turning into proper robots (*Humanoid Mode*). It's interesting to note that the mechas in Humanoid Mode do *not* have melee weapons common in many mecha shows, and instead rely on more conventional weaponry such as guns. The only exception is Ryo's Big Moth, which can occasionally engage enemies in hand-to-hand combat. This is nothing new, but a little more surprising as Dancougar is closer to the "classic" genre than to the "realistic" one (think *Gundam*).
+
+And then the main mecha is introduced in a two-part episode, with a very nice BGM (灼熱の怒り, or *burning rage*). As you can see from the clip below, there's another (small) element of novelty: the head is **not** the part that connects last during the assembly.
 
 {{< youtube id="tJHHeelNooc" start=1121 end=1189 title="Dancougar's assembly sequence">}}
-<span class="f5 lh-copy">Dancougar's assembly sequence.</span>
+<span class="f5 lh-copy">Dancougar's assembly sequence (BANDAI SPIRITS YouTube channel).</span>
+
+Lastly, the Dancougar basically has no weapons, a difference from many mecha shows: it basically relies on brute strength to destroy its enemies, occasionally with a large cannon. The only other upgrade that it gets is a flight unit, which is basically shown only in the last episodes.
+
+It must be noted that this progression is not limited to the mecha but also to the characters themselves, including new ones, which are slowly introduced during the series. This makes the journey quite enjoyable, although it must be said that there are, especially in the early epsiodes, many episodes that are almost literally copy-pasted from each other. Nevertheless, it is nice to see some adjustments in the characters, with some themes progressing through several episodes.
+
+### Climax and ending
+
+After the Dancougar is introduced, the events in the series "somewhat" accelerate (there are still some fillers here and there), with a further two-part episode which introduces the mobile base Gundor and the final objective to put an end to the war agaisnt the Muge Zorbados Empire. The last episodes are a series of hard confrontations between the characters and their enemies, first on Earth then in space, until it's time to actually go against Emperor Muge himself.
+
+And that's where the series ends. Seriously: it ends (pretty frustratingly) one episode before its natural conclusion, due to the bad ratings (as I mentioned earlier). It would be a bummer, but luckily the OAV that came out a few months later provides a satisfying ending (more on that later).
+
+### Animation, voices and sound
+
+To be frank, Dancougar is *plagued* by production problems. These were also present years later with its remake *Dancougar Nova*, so I think it's probably a systemic problem of Ashi Production. Keeping in mind we're talking about the mid-1980s here (so we can't expect anything spectacular animation-wise, at least in a TV series), the animation quality fluctuates from acceptable to *downright terrible* as shown in a few images below:
+
+ADD
+
+It's clear that at some point cuts were made because certain scenes couldn't be animated: in one episode, where the Dancougar fights a Muge mech in the water, one can't literally understand what was going on because the scenes are too disjointed. The assembly sequence of the Dancougar is not even complete in the episode it appears, and the one for the flight unit only properly appears in the **last episode** (earlier replaced with tacky close-ups of Shinobu's face).
+
+Nevertheless, during the action scenes it is *mostly* OK and does its job. While nothing particularly innovative, the character design by XXX does what it is intended to do. A note goes to the voice actors: almost all of them perform admirably (except perhaps Helmut, who is a little over the top even for being a psycopath), *except* one, who is voiced by Rie Fujiwara, who sings the two opening songs (愛よファラウェイ, *Love is far away* and ほんとのキスをお返しに, *ADD*). She does quite a poor impression of the character she's voicing (a bit like the early episodes of Shoji Kawamori's *AKB0048*, if you remember that series), and her tone is all over the place. Luckily, said character's screen time is limited (despite a major presence in the opening animation).