Godannar

The Ultimate Marriage Between Man, Woman And Machine

—Show tagline

In 2042, Earth was under attack from an alien force called the "Mimetic Beasts". They carry the Insania Virus, which usually targets males and mutates them into monstrosities. The Hero, Goh Saruwatari, along with his partner Milla Ackerman, pilots the Humongous Mecha pair Dannar and Neo Okusaer and led the final battle against the Hive Queen of the Mimetic Beasts, driving it away at the cost of Milla's life, but in the same time, Goh saved a young girl named Anna Aoi, the daughter of his boss. Attempting to get over Milla's death (whom he actually loved), Goh decided to move on and...proposed to Anna, despite the age gap (Anna's still a high school girl, Goh is...well, someone that would be of a tenured salaryman).

Flash forward five years.

All's set for Goh and Anna to get married. Anna already confirms her vow, but right before Goh can declare his...he gets an urgent call that the Mimetic Beasts are back and he needs to go pilot the Dannar and quell them again, thus forcing him to delay stating the vow to Anna. Frustrated, she tries to follow Goh, only to find the Neo Okusaer, sealed after Milla's death. Anna goes on to pilot it (since she's somehow a master of a similar riding game) and helps Goh, and thus their life as a newlywed couple and Humongous Mecha pilot commence. Their two mechs can even combine into the mighty Godannar, complete with a final attack that requires both of them working in tandem to pull off.

Godannar (神魂合体ゴーダンナー!!, Shinkon Gattai Gōdan'nā!!, sold as Marriage of God & Soul Godannar!! in North America) is notorious for the amount of Fan Service presented, especially Gainaxing. At the same time, it's unique in that it combines over-the-top super robot action with, of all things, a nice dose of Character Development: more exactly, an examination of marriage, as Goh and Anna face difficulties both on the battlefield and in their relationship.

Tropes used in Godannar include:

Achilles in His Tent: Anna, after learning that Goh still has some feelings for Milla.
Adventure Rebuff: Token Mini-Moe Lou Roux is never let into battle due to the dangers. She rebels on her own eventually.
Affectionate Parody: Godannar is a love letter to old-school Super Robot shows and to the Ultra Series tokusatsu, and it's an absolute treat to any fan of either genre. The Super Robot side is well repented: from it's catchy theme songs (the first one sung by Akira Kushida, the second one's sung by Ichiro Mizuki and Mitsuko Horie) to its wholehearted embrace of cliches (Calling Your Attacks, robots "hulking out" into more powerful forms, Combining Mecha) and similar; the Ultra side has its monster designs and even behaviors call back to the old school Toku. That the monsters all explode when hit with the heroes' finisher just adds to the feel. As a result, this show is just one huge ball of awesome.
Alien Invasion
All There in the Manual: Lou's surname is never mentioned or shown during the series. Likewise, you'd never guess the Valentine siblings aren't blood-related without Word of God informing you otherwise.
An Axe to Grind: The Goddiner, China's super robot, has a pair of huge tonfas that can be turned into even bigger axes... and into a pair of kusarigama... and can be joined together to form a drill. Yes, Goddiner RULES. And yet it never makes it to Super Robot Wars.
Back from the Dead: Shizuru Fujimura, killed at the end of the first season, comes back right in season two through sheer force of will. Also Milla.
Bait and Switch Credits: Specifically, the first ending, which gives the impression that Anna's going to die, as are lots of other people, and doom and despair will ensue. The "Lake of Blood" doesn't help things, either, or the fact the song's called Trench Coffin!
Battle Couple: Damn near all the characters.
BFS: Ken's "Gainer" wields one. Its partner, "Celeblader", transforms into an even bigger sword for Ken to use
Body Horror / Nightmare Fuel: The Insania Virus.
Bridge Bunnies: Konami Sasagure and Momoko "Momochi" Momozono.
Brother-Sister Incest: Knight Valentine and little sister Ellis...almost.
Calling Your Attacks: HEAAAARRTT BREAKEEERRR!!! SOULLLL BREAKERRRRR!!!!.
Combination Attack: GODANNAR TRIPLE DRIVE!!!.
Combining Mecha: Every country's Super Robot has to be formed by combining two units.
Cannot Spit It Out: Damn near every tech in the Dannar Base.
Can't Catch Up: Subverted; the Godannar may be the most powerful robot on the good guys' side, but it can't do everything. Its component units, Dannar and Neo-Okusaer, are more than capable of winning the day without combining, and the other robots in the series can more than hold their own as well (even Lou's teeny-tiny "Cosmo Diver"). Also, some units specialize in environments in which the Godannar's actually useless, like underwater/in space (Cosmo Diver) and aerial fighting ("Dragliner").
Catch Phrase: In the dub, Shizuru gave us "Who the hell do you think I am?", way before Kamina)
Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- Both the Dannar and Neo-Okusaer are launched by being dragged through the launching strip by a mechanical arm. Said arm pulls them by their crotch.
- When Shizuru is doing her farewell speech, she says women aren't what they seem; they may be tough on the surface, but they're nice and soft on the inside. Cue a shot of the inside of the monster's mouth, which is meaty and wet and... let's just say a drill wouldn't look out of place inside it. She also destroys said mouth by shooting it with a nice, long, phallic cannon.
- The official DVD promo points out the Freudian implications of a husband and wife "combining".
Ecchi: Nothing too explicit, but the series is famous for its naughty humor.
The Engineer: The maintenance crew, obviously.
Fan Service: Overloaded, to a point where the staff made a Doujinshi to fund the production of the second season. But to roughly summarize:
- A robot using a whip? Check!
- A brother and sister who love each other a little TOO much? Check!
  - Kinda averted. They're not blood relatives.
- Lesbians? Check!
- Massively megalogigantic ultrabouncing mammaries, even on the robots? Check!
  - And the hips and booty to back it up? Check!
- An intelligent woman who keeps her co-pilot as a submissive slave? Check!
- Phallic symbols out the wazoo? Check!
- A big, muscled, manly man and a teeny tiny girl who adores him and follows him around? Check!
- Clothes getting ripped to shreds? Check!
- Slimed up girls? Check!
- Hot looking guys? Check!
- Transformations(actually done by the robots) where people are seen naked? Check!
- A girl in a Japanese school PE uniform? Check!
- Panties? Check!
- Sexy brainy people? Check!
- A spectacle wearing, delicious older lady? Check!
- All possible forms of cleavage? Check!
- TOUGH chicks? Check!
- Sexy people in uniform? Check!
- Completely random hot springs on a tropical island? Double check!
Gainaxing: To the max, even the mechas if they look girly. Except Lou, but then again, she's a loli.
Giant Robot Hands Save Lives: Ingeniously subverted: the Dannar has airbags that deploy specifically for this purpose.
Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: They never explain where and why the Mimetic Beasts come to Earth...
Going Commando: When wearing the pilot suits. Also, it seems that none of the female characters wear bras.
Handsome Lech: Knight.
Heroic BSOD: Goh gets sorta traumatized at one point in the show to the point he can't pilot, and he really goes on screen saver when Shizuru dies.
He Who Fights Monsters: Ken.
Hot-Blooded: A massive subversion for Mecha: the more hotblooded a guy is, especially a pilot, the more they're likely to succumb to the Insania Virus and enter "Rabid Syndrome". The only exception are perverted or submissive men...or Tetsuya Kouji.
Hotblooded Sideburns : In epic number.
Hot Shounen Mom: Anna's mother Kiriko Aoi.
Humongous Mecha: Indutiably.
Instant Armor: A borderline use in the Mimetic Beasts, who can rapidly construct bodies for themselves out of whatever materials happen to be handy, including people.
Jumped At the Call: When Goh ran off to fight the Mimetic Beasts, Anna's first impulse was to jump in a mech and run right after him.
Lantern Jaw of Justice: Goh.
Latex Space Suit: All of the pilot suits.
- Also, the crew of Cosmo Base. And the engineers of Dannar Base. And the medical staff. The members of Mission Control put these on as well before the final battle, with the two Bridge Bunnies thinking they'd never have to wear the tight things.
Little Miss Badass: Lou takes herself more seriously than most of the other characters.
Lower Deck Episode: Episode 17.
Love Dodecahedron: Goh has three women going after him: Anna, Shizuru and Milla, though the latter two back down for Anna. Shizuru herself has Kouji and Goh's little brother Shinobu swooning over her.
Male Gaze: Without it, this series would not exist. Period.
- Oh, Shizuru. Camera focus goes to her lovely butt. Her butt is so big^{[dead link]} it gets her stuck while entering her mecha.
Manly Tears: Plenty, given it's a friggin Super Robot show.
Married to the Job: Protagonist Goh Saruwatari is married to Anna Aoi, daughter of his boss Dr. Kiriko Aoi, who is also now his mother-in-law.
May-December Romance: Goh is a Salaryman, Anna is a schoolgirl. Subverted later, when Go is put into stasis and wakes up years later... and he and Anna are the same age, physically speaking.
Meaningful Name: "Okusaer" is taken from the word "okusa", which means "wife" in Japan. "Dannar" is taken from "danna", meaning "husband". "Godannar" is a combination of Project "God" and "Anna".
Mistress and Servant Boy: Ekaterina and Kukrachyov, the pilots of Valspinner, which actually used the combination command "Slave On". It even became a plot point of how submissive and "unmanly" Kukrachyov is when the male pilots one after the other flip out from the virus. Just to drive the point home, Shadow, one of America's lesbian pilots, is the only girl affected by it because she's the "manly" one of the two girls.
Ms. Fanservice: Nearly any notable female would count, but the trope champion of Godannar is undoubtedly Shizuru. Oh god, Shizuru!
Multinational Team: Other than Japan, there's Russia, USA, Britain and China.
Name's the Same: The Goddiner pilots' names are really the Japanese names of Meng Huo and Zhu Rong.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Ken's "Blade Gainer". A giant super robot ninja with a cape and earrings and a skyscraper-sized sword, with a GIANT ROBOT CROW perched on its shoulder. Piloted by Ken, whose voice is the same as Colonel Roy Mustang and Rufus Shinra, with shout outs to the Double Blizzard from its blade. Yeah.
- Super Robot Wars K takes it a step further, by making it a something of an expy of Van, who just happens to be in the same game. It even has the ring jingling...
Not Quite Dead: Kouji, shot down near dead many times, but his response is always "I'm not dead...".
Odd Couple: Goh and Anna: a man at work with a high school girl that hasn't even graduated. Some May-December Romance, huh?
Out-of-Clothes Experience: Shizuru, after she "dies" at the end of season one. Sadly, it ends up just a Framing Device for a Recap Episode.
Parental Abandonment
Put on a Bus: Lou for much of season two.
Refuge in Audacity: There's not much else to say when a woman's massive breasts start jiggling because the cellphone she has in her cleavage is set on vibrate.
Rescue Romance: Goh and Anna.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Lou and Ken.
Robeast: The Mimetic Beasts.
Running Gag:
- "I'm not dead..."
- Also Morimoto's "Will you m-...m-...m-..." to Hayashi.
Shoo the Dog: How Lou gets separated with her soon-to-be-dead father, the beginning of her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
Stock Footage: Any Dannar/Neo-Okusaer launching sequence or any Combining Mecha sequence.
Stripperific: All female pilots...even Lou.
Training from Hell:
- Right after Anna debuts in piloting, she's subjected to this.
- Lou also goes through one when being trained to pilot by Ken, set to a Training Montage, to boot.
Transforming Mecha: The Cosmo Diver has a vehicle mode for underwater and space mobility in addition to a humanoid form. Dragliner first separates its somewhat underwhelming humanoid Real Robot cargo, and the remainder of the bomber goes into Beast Mode.
Tsundere: Deconstructed. Shizuru was this for Go, but she only managed to push him away from her. When she decided that she did love him... he was with Anna already.
UST: There's SO much UST in this series, it's probably what fuels the robots. Plasma Drive be damned.
Vapor Wear: Not one female on the show wears a bra.
The Tease: Shizuru does this Kouji with glee, which does nothing to squelch his ginormous crush on her. It's implied that since Shinobu like her too, she does this purposely get them to fight over her for the lulz.
Victoria's Secret Compartment: Kiriko in the first episode and Shizuru in the final episode keep their cellphones in their cleavage. Shizuru keeps hers on vibrate.
The Virus: Insania Virus.
Walking the Earth: Lou and Ken are shown doing this. It even looks like it's pulled out of Fist of the North Star; perhaps a Shout-Out?
Where Are They Now? Epilogue
Whip It Good: Ekaterina's robot has a laser whip...and is QUITE appropriate, considering her personality.
World of Ham
Wrench Wench: All female technicians in the Dannar Base.
X Meets Y: Getter Robo meets Ai Yori Aoshi.
Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: A conversation in the first episode between Anna and her mother reveals this had taken place off-screen regarding Anna's by this time very visibly pregnant cat. Mew.