"The Madox Slave Trooper battlesuit is the fastest, most agile and dangerous weapons system ever created for ground warfare... and now it's in the hands of a clumsy High School student who's lost the manual and is late for a date with the girl of his dreams. Get set for mass destruction, explosive comedy and a night on the town!"
"When Koji Sugimoto found the missing Madox he never thought he'd end up a wanted man! But now he's locked into the U.S. Army's toughest war machine on a head-long charge through the streets of Tokyo. Out to destroy him is the maniac Lieutenant Kilgore and his mini tank, who was beaten once before in test runs against the Madox. Kilgore is obsessed with trashing the battlesuit and reducing it's hapless pilot Koji to a greasy spot. Meanwhile Elly Kusumoto, the Madox designer, just wants to rescue her precious mecha before it's too late....."
"And Koji? Weil, Koji has a date tonight in Shinjuku with his long lost love Shiori, but with Kilgore, Elly, the cops, the marines, the defence forces, the tanks and the helicopter gunships out to get him, he's in for the ride of his life....if he lives that long."
Story & direction: Shinji Aramaki Character design: Hideki Tamura Mechanical design: Shinji Aramaki & Kimitoshi Yamane Animation director: Hiroaki Goda Art director: Yoichi Nango Sound director: Yasunori Honda Copyright: Artmic/Soeishinsha Inc./Pony Canyon Inc. Language Format: English Language Running time: 41 mins Certificate: PG Label: Manga Video Catalogue no: MANV 1105 Price: £9.99 Release Date: 2nd October 1995
This is Manga's latest attempt at the giant robot genre, the story being that a sophisticated military mobile suit has ended up in the hands of a young high school kid named Koji Susimoto, who funnily enough is an engineering student and so figures out how to use the thing. From then on all hell breaks loose as the army try to get it back again with Koji only fighting to get to a building where he has a date with a girlfriend he hasn't seen in three years. It's the typical "must get to a certain place no matter what" scenario. What with a mad tank driver and the dedicated designer of the Madox after him, will Koji get there in time?
As regarding the dubbing, it's standard UK par with the guy from Megazone 23 doing the voice for Koji and not too badly either, but the voice of the designer guy Kusamoto sounds like she's reading off the script she's been given because she sounds very wooden and inflexible. Kilgore sounds just right though. So all in all this a smart burst of mecha related action which is fun while it lasts. [Dave Parker]