There are very few series as influential as Aura Battler Dunbine, so it is great to see an all-new and remastered version now available in high definition. Considering that this anime defined much of the alternate world, or isekai, genre, it’s great to see it widely available again.
The premise of Dunbine has rebellious Japanese motocross racer Sho Zama transported to the strange realm of Byston Well along the aura road.
Byston Well is effectively a separate dimension between the “land and the sea” and is inferred to be what we would think of as the afterlife.
However, war is brewing in Byston Well and Drake Luft is capturing people from Upper Earth, like Sho, to pilot new powerful machines fuelled by the pilot’s aura with the intent to conquer the realm.
Due to the fact that the aura of most Byston Wellians is rather on the weak side, having people from Upper Earth pilot these new aura battlers is rather crucial.
The result of all this is that people like Sho are drafted into a conflict and a world they know nothing about and that makes for both fascinating drama and an involving narrative.
Dunbine was one of Yoshiyuki Tomino’s later standalone anime series after Mobile Suit Gundam and it is arguably one of his best.
Much of this though is down to several other major figures that played a key role in making Dunbine what it was.
The first was Yasuhiro Imagawa, who worked on the storyboards, did animation direction as well as production on the series. Imagawa is renowned for his pathos-driven narrative, with series such as Giant Robo and Mobile Fighter G Gundam being notable. Imagawa’s involvement in Dunbine then gave weight to the story and the danger the characters would often face.
Following that, we had Tomonori Kogawa pen the character designs as well as come up with a lot of the story for the series. While most anime of the period tended to be quite cute in its characterization, Kogawa eschewed that in favor of something more mature and elegant. He also played a big role in stylizing the mecha themselves, with the Billbine actually being one of his designs.
Which brings me to the mecha design in Dunbine.
This is probably one of the most distinctive parts of the series and much of that is down to the brilliance of Kazutaka Miyatake from Studio Nue. He approached the aura battlers in a uniquely naturalistic way, famously basing the titular Dunbine off aspects from various beetles and other insects.
Within the story, this is rationalized that the aura battlers are built from the deceased remains of various beasts and monsters indigenous to Byston Well, which is something the later OVA covers more overtly, though more of that latter.
Admittedly Miyatake was a key figure in the mecha design for Dunbine, but Yutaka Izubuchi also worked on many of the later aura battlers. However, he very much followed Miyatake’s lead in retaining the various naturalistic elements that had been defined already.
You then had the fantastic musical score by Katsuhiro Tsubonou, who merged pastoral orchestral elements with modern instruments, resulting in an aural representation of the narrative clash between the naturalistic setting of Byston World and its use of technology and culture from Upper Earth.
All of these people and aspects turned Dunbine into a series that was profoundly greater than just the sum of its parts. However, one of the shrewdest decisions made was to pitch the series at older teenage audiences, rather than the typical kids that tended to lap up traditional mecha shows of that period.
This is why over three decades later, Dunbine still captures the imagination of people and inspires all manner of other anime and games. For one, when I spoke with Koji Igarashi of Castlevania fame he specifically cited Dunbine as a major influence on his work. Not to mention the obvious inspiration Dunbine had on other series such as The Vision of Escaflowne and Panzer World Galient, to name but a few.
So to have the entire series widely available again is something I genuinely cannot enthuse enough about.
In terms of this release, Sentai Filmworks has done a lovely job. The English dub is from the original 2003 release on DVD by A.D. Vision, so has some pretty funky translations, but the new English subtitles are very well done.
The issue specifically with Dunbine is that Tomino and his team took their names for various ships, mecha and characters from European sources and then used those as a basis for something similar sounding. This makes direct translation a pain, as many of the names used are not straight up translations of the words that inspired them.
In any case, the issue that tends to surface with Dunbine translations is a lack of consistency but this new Sentai Filmworks release is nicely done in that regard.
The only downsides to this new Blu-ray set are twofold; there are almost none of the extras from the original Japanese Blu-ray release and the follow-on OVA is completely absent.
Admittedly, the TV series is a standalone story and you don’t need the OVA to follow the whole narrative. However, the Japanese Blu-ray release included it and it is shame that it wasn’t part of this set as well.
The good news though is that the remastering of the series is fantastically done, with both the visuals and sound being excellent throughout.
The best of this new set is that it exists at all and is reasonably priced. The previous DVD release back in 2003 is incredibly rare now and while I have the whole set, for many trying to track down each of the DVD’s is both time consuming and often hugely expensive.
So this Blu-ray release solves these availability and pricing issues very nicely and for that I am grateful.
Overall, Aura Battler Dunbine is one of the best and defining isekai anime of the early 80’s and doesn’t require you to watch any other anime in order to understand the whole story, something that early Gundam series often fall foul of. So if you want a visually unique and narratively mature anime, then you might just want to venture into the world of Byston Well and see where the aura road takes you.
Aura Battler Dunbine is released for Blu-ray on August 28 and can be pre-ordered from both Right Stuf Anime and Amazon.
Disclosure: Sentai Filmworks sent me a copy of this Blu-ray set for the purposes of this review.
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and do toy reviews over at hobbylink.tv.
Read my Forbes blog here.
