Growing up with fellow Japanophiles in the 90s, we used to share stories about movies and shows we had watched. Often we'd share VHS tapes, but one I heard a lot about but never got around to seeing was Metal Skin Panic MADOX 01. One of my best friends at the time loved it and would talk about it all the time. So, when I had a chance to watch it recently I took the chance.
The story is simple, a prototype mech unit is lost whilst being transported from a military base. A teenage boy, Sugimoto, finds it and decides to take it for a spin to visit his old flame, Shiori, at the top of a prominent highrise building but he is persued by a old skool army man who resents the mech for challenging the supremacy of his tank division.
The film is a simple action animation with some light hearted elements, such as the mech going for a nice evening stroll around Shinjuku whilst the crowd don't see to mind it.
The 80s mech aesthetic, where the robot is being calibrated to the movement is a stunning achievement of animation and draws you in from the very beginning. It very much wears its influences on its sleeves as on the wall of the teen, there is an Apocalypse Now poster and it seems appropriate as Lieutenant Kilgore is the Colonel Kurtz of this animation, an army man who doesn't like change and is trying to roll back to the 'good old times' when his tank was the superior piece of tech.
The animation is very 80s in that it has blowout hair styles, tiny and faces and huge shoulders on the characters. It is all so charmingly late 80s but it moves at such a brisk pace that this OVA doesn't overstay its welcome at just over 41 minutes. It's well worth your time as a diverting fun piece.