Customer Reviews

Madox-01: Metal Skin Panic

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I saw this movie in the late 80s and ive loved it ever since. Been waiting a long time for this to come out on DVD. Not your typical Mecha anime. A guy trys to impress his girlfriend by whearing a mecha-suit that was found, now hes traped in it and the army is after him!! Shows how diffacult it can be to roam around in the city wearing a tank!

Back in the mid-1980's, the only way for the average fanboy to get anime was through friends or other such unscrupulous bootleggers. Madox 01: Metal Skin Panic was one of the first such tapes that came into my possession, along with classics like Project A-ko and Area 88. All of these, of course, were in Japanese with no subtitles. But enough with the history lesson: you wanna know about the movie. For early anime, it's actually quite good: a self-contained story (somewhat hackneyed these days) about a boy who comes into possession of a highly advanced robotic exoskeleton through dumb luck. (It literally falls off the back of a truck and into his garage apartment.) Of course, he has a chaste-but-smoldering relationship with a girl, whom he loves. Although he is at first thrilled with his newfound toy, the army soon comes looking for its weapon, sending their resident tank-commanding lunatic who just happens to hate armored suit technology in general. Things look profoundly bad for our hero -- but who is that beautiful woman with the even more advanced Madox suit? Equal parts humor and fighting robot action make this a favorite, even now.

I'll spare you some time in telling you about a mediocre movie I recently viewed. Now, I like classic anime a lot. It's great to see the line work and paint that was put into the animation compared to all the CG crap that they do now a days. So, I found this pretty cheap on Amazon and picked it up. The plot synopsis is great: Boy finds robot tank armor and gets stuck in it. Soon the military is after him to reclaim the armor but he has to get to his girlfriend for their date before it's too late! I have this problem all too often.

Unfortunately, it's not quite as fulfilling as the synopsis might have you think. I'd also say the humor outweighs the action and animation. The characters were strictly one dimensional. Boy needs to meet girl for date or lose her forever! Responsible Army girl needs to reclaim the Tank suit because it's her project. Crazed military general needs to destroy the Madox-01 to prove his masculinity (seriously.) Pretty sure most of the budget was spent on the opening and ending, but it was mediocre most of the time.

Personally, I find parading around Tokyo in a giant tank suit to be hilarious. So that was enjoyable. But got very little out of this film otherwise. Check it out if you have spare time... It is only 45 minutes long.