Brain Powered Copyright © 1998 Sunrise, Inc.

On paper, BRAIN POWERED looks like a winning combination. It is conceived by Yadate Hajime (ESCAFLOWNE, COWBOY BEBOP) and GUNDAM creator Tomino Yoshiyuki, who also directed it. This brainchild of his boasts Nagano Mamoru of FIVE STAR STORIES fame as the mechanical designer. Inomata Mutsumi (TALES OF DESTINY) designed the characters while the very talented Kanno Yoko (MACROSS PLUS, ESCAFLOWNE, COWBOY BEBOP) composed the music scores. Backing Tomino up financially are WOWOW (Japan's first pay satellite TV station), and industry giants Sunrise and Bandai. This is an impressive list of names. Indeed, Tomino was so confident about BRAIN POWERED he bragged it will outdo EVANGELION.
Don't you believe him. I can sum up its problem with one word: confusing. The story setting, the plot, characterizations, mecha designs and even the terminology are all masterpieces of ambiguity. After watching the first two episodes, I'm not even sure what to call those "things" the main characters pilot. They were referred seemingly at random as Grand Cher, Antibody and BrainPowered.
The plot is vague, and what little that makes sense utterly fail to impress me. One fine day, Utsumiya Hime and friends witnessed the birth of a BrainPowered from an Antibody. Hime likes what she sees, gets inside the unit, and tries to help it "adjust" to its new existence. Two Grand Chers (resembling a BrainPowered) from Orphan arrive on the scene (Orphan is an organization with a hidden agenda that will affect all humanity in the area). Their mission is to retrieve Plates for Orphan's master plan. Seeing that their target has "revived" into a BrainPowered, the two pilots, Kanan and Isami Yuu, proceed to follow Orphan's standard procedure of destroying such Antibodies. (Confused by the terminology yet?) Hime objects, and finding out that she can control the BrainPowered, she manages to escape with it and her friends.
What with one thing and another, one year passed. It is Yuu's birthday, and he has had enough with Orphan, and the rest of his family, who are major figures in Orphan, but do not exactly control the organization. He hijacks a BrainPowered of his own and ran away. His sister, in a display of Asuka-like arrogance and anger, orders a pursuit. Meanwhile Hime, who is now part of Novice Noah, an anti-Orphan organization, is sent to intercept the whole mess. Some action scenes later, Yuu gets away. His search for B-Plate leads him to a university, and an over-enthusiastic researcher. A somewhat comical sequence follows, and the second episode ends with some grand gestures being made back at Orphan.
If this is Tomino's idea of outdoing EVA, he needs to try harder. He can start with ditching the Tomino formula. Just about everything he created is "random teenager encounters wonder robot, discovers natural pilot talent and gets drawn into conflict. And oh, there is teenage angst." His rehashing the same story has gone beyond old and entered the realm of caricature. The same goes for the blatant parallels with EVA. I almost got the feeling that Tomino is saying, "I know why EVA sells, and I can do better." Except that he isn't. EVA throws in fan service here and there. So Tomino makes the entire opening sequence fan service. I mean, what else can you say to an opening that has nothing but a bunch of naked women spinning around with a smile plastered on their face? As I watch BRAIN POWERED, I began to wonder if it is just Tomino's twisted version of EVA.
The animation quality tethers between okay and bad. You can tell this is a TV production. The character designs are on the simple end, reminding me of ZETA GUNDAM's. Likewise the backgrounds and color palette are also fairly plain. Sad to say, even the mechanical designs have the same simplicity, which is a pity because Nagano's talent is best expressed in designing detailed, complex mechas. The simplified designs mean it can be tough identifying different BrainPowereds. There are a lot of computer animations, and these are pretty impressive but poorly integrated. The constant shift between generic animation and good CGs only adds to the feeling that BRAIN POWERED lacks consistency.
The music is the only bright spot in the show. Kanno Yoko's compositions are, once again, a pleasure to listen to. Whether her music actually goes well with the shoddy animations is an entirely different matter. I can't shake the feeling that they are a little too grandiose for what is happening on screen.
Tomino seemed to have misplaced his creative cap somewhere between ZETA GUNDAM and CHAR'S COUNTERATTACK. This is just his latest addition to a series of titles that I just can't warm up to. He should have taken a cue from the title while he worked on this project, because brain powered it isn't.

Released in N. America by AnimeVillage.com
VHS, 60 minutes
English Subbed: ISBN 1-58354-223-1 $24.98
Available now in the USA
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