Grendizer U ep.12 Review: Duke Did What Now?

So I kinda guessed you’re my fiancé’s sister, but I still went through with it cause I pity you…

With only 2 episodes left, Fukuda and Okouchi have to resolve the mess they made in the last episode of Grendizer U. And what do they do? they doubled down on the stupid drama, dragged it out and let Kouji with his Mazinger carry the show on their shoulders, while Duke Fleed is off with his girls to star in a high school romcom.

Continuing from the last episode, after the “marriage ceremony”, Tirona stood on the beach, crying and spouting her bs. While she keeps on insisting that she’s doing this to protect her sister, it’s obviously that she loves Duke and wanted to keep him for herself, as well as preventing her sister from forming a sacred bond with him. Duke also seems to be in pain, wallowing that he “betrayed” Rubina. The trope of “mistaking 2 twins for the other” is not often used in mecha, and usually it’s the bad guys that are tricked, but Duke – despite professing his passionate love for Rubina – got caught out by this stupid thing. Truly the scriptwriter wants to stir some cheap drama.

Back at the new base, the team is gearing up for an assault on the Vegan Star – where Gandal, Blaki and Zuril and other Vegans are using as a base. And we are introduced to the Cosmo Special, by putting all three Spazers onto Mazinger X. I have to say, I was quite disappointed by how the Spazers are utilized. I expected them to be similar to the Aile Strike (since this is Fukuda), where every 2 or 3 episodes, we’ll get introduced to a new Spazer and then have Grendizer combine with it to fight. Alas, they are mostly standalone fighter units – just like Kouji’s TFO in the original.

Terona came back and was faced with Rubina. Of course, Rubina was caught off guard by the marriage sign on Tirona’s hand. She slapped her but then apologized right away. Now Rubina is one of those “holier-than-thou” kinda princess. Her slapping Rubina and then immediately apologizing is explained as: oh she initially thought Tirona wanted to steal Duke for herself, but maybe she was just protecting her by preventing Rubina to side with the Earth and incur Vega’s wrath. That’s a very…weird way to justified it, especially when we see her being VERY uncomfortable when they all met in that base on the Moon.

And then came the assault. As mentioned, Kouji and his Mazinger is carrying the entire show. All the sakuga budget is going into Mazinger’s fight this episode. And we’re introduced to the Vega Beast King Gori. The new design of this King Gori is very savage and badass. His animation is also very fluid and crisp as well. Im really looking forward to Mazinger and King Gori’s fight. And here is another problem with the show: where the hell is Grendizer’s fight? The series is called Grendizer U, but the decisive battle are mostly fought by Mazinger. Grendizer’s most impactful fight is the one in ep 1 as well as the one where he Crusher Punch the Vega Star. Aside from it, Grendizer has been very lackluster despite being the namesake mecha of the show. And even in this episode, all it did was flying around doing nothing. Despite the OP playing while the skirmish happens, most of the spotlight fell onto Mazinger.

And now we come to the absolute cringe of the episode. A secret meeting between Duke, Rubina and Tirona. These three met in the Moon base. And Rubina questions him about the blunder, and he just said “well I felt something was weird” and “after all, I cannot abandon Tirona”. This type of dialogue really turn Duke and Tirona into a scum couple. And Rubina became the victim in all this, but not quite. We were shown that Rubina was also quite an intimidating princess back then, but Duke was the person that opened up to her. Both the sister fell in love with the young prince, but Rubina knew Tirona pretended to be her and gifted Duke the necklace. I guess from then on, Rubina knew Tirona love Duke, but she also did. It’s a very weird dynamic that you only see in dramatic rom-coms and is entirely unnecessary for Grendizer.

To be honest, a bit of love triangle is fine, but just dragging it out with stupid Seed tropes isn’t helping anybody. And Fukuda even pulled a Meer Campbell by having Rubina took the shot for Duke and died in the process, while blessing Rubina and Duke. Making it this way will completely destroy their relationship after the battle because Duke wholeheartedly love Rubina, and he went through with the weird wedding because he was half-deceived and half-pity Tirona. Tirona, while she loves Duke, she also love Rubina fiercely and the guilt that she stole Duke from Rubina, and that she was the survivor and not Rubina will push her away from Duke. If they decide to stay together afterwards, it will be one of the most awkward relationship in mecha.

Well, we’re pretty much at the end point already, and with 1 episode left, it’s almost impossible to “end” the series in a conclusive way. King Vega will definitely not be taken down, and the obvious result will be the Vega Star being pushed back to where they came from. The series got bogged down by wasting time with unnecessary relationship drama as well as Cassado. His subplot contributed nothing to the show, furthering undermining Hikaru because she was the one that let him live and caused all the troubles after. In an interview, Fukuda said that Cassado was supposed to die in ep 3, but the female animators wanted to draw him so they kept him alive. Reasons like that really affect the series’ quality and that led to where we are now.

I have no hope for a satisfying resolution of the series, I just want to see some badass Grendizer fight in the next ep. But at this rate, Mazinger X will take care of everything. Truly Kouji is the main face of the Dynamic multiverse!

Aaron

Check our more reviews here: