GEAR Fighter Dendoh

GEAR Fighter Dendoh is a 38-episode Super Robot Anime directed and written by Mitsuo Fukuda and Chiaki Morosawa, a husband and wife team more famous in America for Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny, along with Yasuko Kobayashi of Toku fame.

Dendoh tells the story of an Alien Invasion of Earth by mechanical aliens known as the Galfa and two elementary school kids, Hokuto Kusanagi and Ginga Izumo, who are chosen to fight them by a giant kung fu robot called Dendoh. As chosen pilots of mankind's last, best superweapon, they are recruited by the organization GEAR to etc. etc. etc.

As people familiar with Super Robot anime can tell by now, Dendoh is pretty standard for the genre, and intentionally so. Where it excels is in its storytelling - not being Strictly Formula in spite of its genre conventions - and its likeable cast of characters and their relationships. And of course, tons of Shout Outs.

A sequel was planned at one point, but when that fell through the staff released plot details, character, and mecha designs onto the Internet for all to see.

This show provides examples of:


 * Action Mom Mrs. Izumo is a badass martial artist, and then there's
 * Alien Invasion
 * Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever
 * Arrogant Kung Fu Guy Ginga
 * Big Bad Emperor Galfa who intends to slay all human life
 * Big Bad Pet Emperor Galfa's horrific two-headed pet, Lagowe. Somewhat subverted as he wonders on his own.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy Altair who is revealed to be  A more prominent victim of this trope though is
 * Calling Your Attacks
 * Char Clone Altair
 * Complete Monster Emperor Galfa's most powerful minion, Zero
 * The Dragon Altair, later Zero
 * Empathic Weapon
 * Evil Counterpart Gear Knight Ogre, later becomes good.
 * Finishing Move
 * Food Chain of Evil Lagowe does this to the sotais to regenerate.
 * Gotta Catch Em All The Data Weapons
 * Goldfish Poop Gang
 * Giant Robot Hands Save Lives
 * Gratuitous English
 * Heroic BSOD
 * Hot-Blooded Both the boys, but especially Ginga
 * Hot Shounen Mom For both the boys, but especially Hokuto
 * Human Alien
 * Katanas Are Just Better / Everything's Better with Samurai Altair
 * Kill It with Fire The Dragon Flare data weapon
 * Kotono Mitsuishi Vega's voice actress
 * Luke, I Am Your Father Done twice, both times involving Vega...
 * Mask Power Altair and Vega
 * Mons sort of
 * No Export for You This article brought to you by fansubs, Hong Kong bootleg subs, and a half-translated copy of Super Robot Wars R
 * There is a fansub in the works based off the Italian version.
 * Odd Couple Hokuto and Ginga
 * Older and Wiser The stillborn second season would have had the original cast acting as mentors to a team of kids piloting Dendoh-based mecha
 * Ordinary Elementary School Students
 * Paper-Thin Disguise Subverted by Vega, who wears a wig and contacts in addition to the traditional mecha anime mask
 * Post Episode Trailer (featuring Hokuto and Ginga arguing about something pointless instead of telling you what's going to happen)
 * Robot War Technically
 * Super Robot
 * Super Robot Wars R and MX
 * Shout-Out To just about every Humongous Mecha anime out there
 * Spell My Name with an "S" Altea/Althea/Altair, Galfa is also sometimes spelled Gulfer
 * Stellar Name Hokuto means "North Star". Ginga means "Galaxy". Not to mention Vega and Altair...
 * Stock Footage
 * This Is a Drill The Unicorn Drill data weapon
 * Toyetic The titular mecha looks like a toy, appears to be powered by two giant AA batteries, and can only be piloted by two kids.
 * Verbal Tic, dawa, jyan, bari!
 * What Could Have Been Some key elements in the show were supposed to be for Sunrise's next Brave show after GaoGaiGar, Brave Saint Baan Gaan, But since the show didn't materialize, said elements came to fruition in this show.
 * Whip It Good The Viper Whip data weapon and Vega