Karala (that poor, poor woman) has an absolutely terrible time being trusted by the Logo Dau colonists. She’s also the last hold out on trusting the Buff Clan defectors. That detriment though is fascinating, a true wildcard that has to be reigned in. Things are very black and white to Kasha both to her benefit and detriment. She doesn’t care what everyone else’s qualms are they are the enemy, they attacked the ship and they need to be stopped. When the enemy retreats, she’s the one yelling to finish them off. Kasha is just as confident as the other pilots and pushes to absolutely crush the Buff Clan whenever possible. While she has some initial anxiety over piloting, that quickly gives way to aggressive fighting tactics. She becomes the main pilot for the legs of the robot (Ideon) the Ideo Buster. Kasha ends up being the most blood thirsty character on the Solo ship (the ship that houses our protagonists). Kasha isn’t afraid to squish a human being I thought Ideon was setting her up to be a thorn in the side of the group, the girl who displays reticence in opposition to the boy’s courage and ends up getting dragged for it. She has an antagonistic relationship with Cosmo (our boy protagonist) which in my predictions meant she would end up as the fake out love interest. She’s strong willed meaning that the other boys of the group minimize everything she says (lots of “what would girls even know about this?” sort of stuff). She’s part of the group of children from Logo Dau who were destined to pilot the robots. Starting the show, I thought I knew exactly what Kasha’s arc would be. While there are plenty of memorable characters, none of them stood out to me as much as Kasha. Ideon grapples with national identity, imperialism, and ecological destruction over 39 episodes. The show eventually becomes so much more than that and really exceeded my expectations. The Buff Clan attacks, gets rebuffed by our child protagonists piloting the robot, and retreat to fight another day. The earthlings are attacked by aliens known as the Buff Clan, who want the weapons for themselves. The Earth colonists of the planet Logo Dau find ancient vehicles that resemble trucks that form into a giant robot. My anime knowledge is strictly Toonami related (putting me in the 90s-early 2000s) so I was taken aback when this show felt more like Voltron. They also governed my initial impressions of Space Runaway Ideon, an anime from the 80s that at first resembled those Saturday morning adventures. These structures allowed me to engage with whatever show I was watching, no matter what the premise was. These were shows made for boys and misogyny was ingrained in us early. That last character is usually always contentious with the other characters, is the butt of jokes, and is wrong in any given situation. Characters fit nicely into boxes: serious (and usually male) protagonist, goofy comic relief, romantic interest and a shrill girl. There is a fair amount of repetition in the episodes which usually climaxed with an action set piece, which afterwards the story was reset. The crew of characters are out on some mission or embroiled in some conflict and engage in one off adventures. I had to catch the shows week to week so their episodes all resolved around the show’s core premise. Repetition and archetype are the two adjectives that immediately jump out at me when I think of the old Saturday morning adventure cartoons I watched as a kid.
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