| Reideen | |
| Genre: | Action, mecha |
| Type: | Manga |
| Author: | Yoshitake Suzuki |
| Illustrator: | Karasuma Tasuku |
| Publisher: | Kadokawa Shoten |
| Demographic: | Shōnen |
| Magazine: | Shōnen Ace |
| First: | November 25, 2006 |
| Last: | July 26, 2007 |
| Volumes: | 2 |
| Type: | TV series |
| Director: | Mitsuru Hongo |
| Music: | Yoshihiro Ike |
| Studio: | Production I.G. |
| Network: | Wowow |
| First: | March 3, 2007 |
| Last: | September 1, 2007 |
| Episodes: | 26 |
Reideen (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese animated television series remake of the 1975 Super Robot anime Reideen The Brave. It was produced by Production I.G and directed by Mitsuru Hongo. Which was originally broadcast on the satellite network Wowow in 2007. Sentai Filmworks has licensed the anime for North American release.[1]
The anime series has a two-volume manga counterpart, running in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shōnen Ace from November 25, 2006 to July 26, 2007.
The show is the only entry of the Reideen series to not be animated by Sunrise who previously animated the original 1975 Brave Reideen and the 1996 re-imagining Reideen the Superior.
Junki Saiga is a normal high school student with a gift in mathematics. His daily routine is disrupted when his family gets news that his father's remains have been discovered - a noted archaeologist and researcher who had gone missing while exploring a site many years before. Among his remains were notes and artifacts that needed to be identified by the family near a notable triangular mountain in Japan known as "Japan's pyramid", a place suspected by some to be man-made.
A meteor containing a strange robotic life-form falls from the sky and begins to cause destruction, putting Junki in danger and causing a mysterious bracelet from his father's research to activate and merge him with an ancient robot buried within the pyramid - a robot the runes describe as Reideen. It is now up to Junki and guardian Reideen to fight against this unknown alien threat from the sky.
As the story progresses attacks come from multiple directions: the main aliens, who only want Reideen's power, and will then raze the Earth and move on; a faction within the Vigilance Corps (similar to Japan's Self Defense Force) that wishes to discredit and remove Reideen in favor of Human-built remote-controlled mecha; and Roxell, an alien with horns on his head who used a similar giant named Gadion on his homeworld, only to be defeated by the overseer aliens, and his planet destroyed. Some of these enemies want Reideen with or without Junki as its pilot/power source, while others just want Junki/Reideen out of the way.
Junki grows continually torn between doing what only he can do, in piloting Reideen against the giant beast machines sent to destroy cities and the landscape, and his enemies' attacks toward him while he does not receive any help from the Vigilance Corps nor his friends.
The giant Reideen appears as a warrior with a hooded head and feather motif. In reality the giant can transform large pieces of itself into other objects to suit his purpose. The following is a list of weapons/equipment wielded by Reideen:
Sentai Filmworks licensed the series in 2014 and released a subtitled DVD set with the first thirteen episodes on December 16.[2] [3]
In episode 7 at time 16:30, a scene from the opening sequence of the anime Cromartie High School is recreated with a waist-high view of Junki and the Analysis Section gang strutting in formation down a hallway.