Space Warrior Baldios
SPACE WARRIOR BALDIOS
( Uchuu Senshi Baldios )
Index:
THE STORY
Everything starts in the future on a very
far planet, Planet S-1. S-1 is horribly polluted for reasons unknown and
it is slowly dying, dooming it’s inhabitants to certain death in a
couple of years.
There is a big struggle between the scientists and the military:
scientists (led by prof. Raigan) claim that they can find a cure for the
planet, on the other hand the military (led by Gattler and his
beautiful bodyguard, Aphrodia) want to find a new planet, leaving S-1
behind.
The scientists indeed discover a way to heal S-1, but the military plan a
coup d’etat and kill the emporeor of S-1, framing Marin, prof. Raigan’s
son, for the murder. The military destroys all the labs and the
machinery which could heal S-1 with them and kill prof. Raigan. Marin,
driven by anger, kills his father’s murderer, Milan, which is Aphrodia’s
brother. Marin escapes from S-1 with a new spaceship developed by his
father, the Pulser Burn.
An intense portrait of Marin
S-1 population is loaded on a very big
spaceship and is preparing to jump in the subspace in order to reach the
solar system. Meanwhile Aphrodia, who has been just promoted to the
rank of military forces leader, blinded by hate swears revenge for her
brother, pursues Marin in outer space and fights with him while the
spaceship jumps in the hyperspace. The shock catches both of them in the
warp too, and Marin finds himself stranded on the moon in 2100 AD. He
is captured by the Blue Fixer team, one of the Earth special forces, led
by Commander Tsukikage and prof. Queenstein. Of course Earth forces
think that Marin is a spy and they are very dubious of him, with the
exception of Jenny, a member of the Blue Fixer team.
Commander Tsukikage
Since S-1 can use subspace jumps, earth
forces are no match for them. The Blue Fixer team is so forced to
cooperate with Marin: prof Queenstein modifies the Pulser Burn in order
to combine with two other spaceships developed by Earth forces, forming a
giant super-robot which can jump in the subspace, the Baldios.
Blue Fixer Team: Oliver and Raita
Of course, Marin is made the pilot and so
the war begins. Will Marin be able to fight his own people? What is the
future of earth?
Prof Queenstein
COMMENT
Baldios is a very strange show. First of all, the robot plays a marginal
role in the whole scheme: it’s just a robot, a very powerful instrument
of war, it’s not a sort of alter-ego for it’s pilots or an amplyfier of
their emotions and feelings like in a lot super robot shows, especially
the ones created by Go Nagai. In some episodes the Baldios doesn’t
appear at all, or it has just some quick fights with the Aldebaran’s
UFOs.
Aphrodia
The focus in on the characters, who are
portrayed very accurately and deeply, and their relation with their own
hearts, their struggles and with the others.The perfect example for this
it’s the strange and fascinating relationship that runs between Marin
and the gorgeus Aphrodia: they are attracted by each other but the
shadow of their past, their own stubborness and their role in the war
deny the love that they secretly feel for each other. Aphrodia is both a
victim and a weaver of her fate: the fear of losing her role and the
fear of exposing her true feelings will take a very heavy token on
her…but i won’t spoil anything here.
Marin and Aphrodia holding hands in the serie’s ED
Baldios has taken lot of the Greek’s
tragedy: the nature of man is tragic, the characters recognize that the
coherence to their own hearts and ideals is the only right choice to
make, but this often cost them their own lives, and often this struggle
is kept locked in their heart, with the outside world left unhable to
understand and know their real deep motives. These struggles regard
sometimes the individual, sometimes the society and sometimes both. This
never goes down in the gratuitous “tear jerking” or in the easy drama,
but is more subtle and aims to provoke some toughts in the spectator.
Go! Baldios!
This sad, but fascinating conception, a mix
between Greek tragedy and oriental philosophy and religion, brought me
to mind this little poem from the Hagakure:
“The other day I was talking to a group of people, and I told them that the ultimate love I believe to be secret love.
Once shared, love shrinks in stature. To pine away for love all one’s
years, to die of love without uttering the beloved’s name, this is the
true meaning of love.
A poem tells us:
I shall die for my love
Know the truth only in the smoke that remains–
My lover’s name kept secret to the end.
The kind of love this poem describes is the most elegant kind of
love. Once, when I made this remark, apparently four or five people
present, impressed by the poem, took up the line: ‘Know the truth only
in the smoke that remains…” and coined the phrase ‘lovers in smoke.’
This philosophy of love applies to everything. This makes, for
instance, the lord-retainer relationship quite clear. Also, one’s
self-control when alone applies to self-restraint on an official
occasion.
Unless one refrains from acting ignobily in solitude or even thinking
about lowly matters secretly deep in his heart, he does not look pure
and clean.”
Aphrodia is thinking
There isn’t a clear distinction between the “good” and the “evil”
characters, nor a side is entirely “good” or “evil”. Earth’s
institutions, like the World Union, are often portrayed with a shadow
behind them, as well as the S-1 ones. The show does not want to force
the spectator in a precise perspective.
Maybe the main message in the show is that the real enemy lies not
outside of us but inside of us, under our own skin, hidden in our very
heart. Only sincere compassion and a clear and honest view of our own
interiority can save Earth and humanity, like the two beautiful “the
resurrected demon” episodes show (which i won’t spoil them to you here),
which is again a recurring theme in both Eastern and Western philosophy
and spirituality.
S1 Dictator, Gattler
Other relevant themes are the destruction caused by pollution, the
true nature of totalitarian goverments, the struggle in fighting for an
idea.Unfortunately Baldios, despite a very high critical acclaim, had a
low share and so the serie is incomplete. Only 34 episodes (which only
32 of them were aired) was fully completed, leaving thus the serie
incomplete. Some shots and ideas, along with some storyboard, for the
incomplete episodes can be seen in the Roman Album dedicated to Baldios.
Luckily, one year later a movie was created in order to give a proper
conclusion to the story. The movie is partly new material and partly a
summary of the serie, changing a lot in the process. In my opinion this
summary part doesn’t do justice to the serie’s deepness and complexity.
The new material is very good and gives a coherent conclusion to the
serie’s events.
A special mention must be made to the beautiful soundtrack created by
Kentaro Haneda, which captures the melahncony behind the serie very
well, and to the characted desing planned Mutsumi Inomata, which gifted
us with a very stunning Aphrodia and a very fierce Marin, among the
other things.
Marin, the journey of life (Marin, inochi no tabi)
OTHER APPEARANCES
Baldios and it’s storyline, albeit with
some heavy modifications, appear in the PS2 turn based strategy game,
Super Robot Taisen Z (also known also Super Robot Wars Z) and in it’s
sequel for the PSP.
The Baldios also shows up in the comic book dedicated to the PS2
videogame in two of it’s short stories. In one of them we have a short
appearance of a very angry Aphrodia, portrayed in a sarcastic way: in
the other we have a full fledged fight between the Baldios and the
Daitarn 3.
Baldios and Marin as portrayed in SRW Z comic
Aphrodia from the other SRW Z comic book short story.
Also, there are a couple of doujin
(indipendent) mangas based on Baldios: i’ve found some info regarding
six of them, i don’t know if there are others of them around. It seems
that these six works have been all created by the same author, Nekolai.
There is a comic called “Flowers for Aphrodia” divided in two parts
which were published in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Other two mangas,
“Journey to Eternity” and “Marin’s assassination” have been published in
2009 and 2010.Also there are two other side-stories: “Baldios Baka Hon”
and “Baldios Baka Hon Two” which have been published in 2008 and 2009
and seem to have more umoristic and light-hearted tones.
Blue Fixer team as portrayed by Nekolai
Flowers for Aphrodia cover
I’ve managed to find some info only for
“Marin’s assassination”, which has been presented at the 78th comiken
(comic market) edition: it is a new story ideally set between episode 31
and episode 32 of the serie.I sadly haven’t managed to find other infos
about it apart from a couple of nicovideo and youtube videos which are
some kind of “trailer” to promote this work (you can find them under the
video section of this page). I hope to find some more infos and
eventually manage to get a copy of all of these mangas someday.
Nekolai’s Baldios
Marin and Aphrodia from Nekolai’s Flowers for Aphrodia
There is a comic version of the Baldios
movie in 4 volumes, but informations about it are very scarce. I suppose
it’s an anime-comic, a comic made by stills of the movie but I’m not
sure. If you have more informations about it, let me know.
The four volumes of Baldios movie comic version.
Last but not least, the S1 empereor Heika,
which only appears in the first episode of the serie, is featured in a
lot of memes in the japanese internet community because of his strange
helmet. Heika is also featured in some fan-made MUGEN mods. An italian
developer also created a beta-version of Baldios for the MUGEN engine.
It’s sadly lacking sound, but apart from that it’s fully usable.
VIDEOS
Baldios OP
Baldios ED, Inochi no Tabi (normal)
Baldios ED, Inochi no Tabi (extended)
Baldios in Super Robot Wars Z 2 for PSP
Nekolai’s comic trailer 1
Nekolai’s comic trailer 2
LINKS
Space Warrior Baldios wikipedia page (Eng)