Combat Mecha Xabungle

Finished yet another Tomino's series and this one is actually quite good! If Ryosuke Takahashi had Fang of the Sun Dougram then Tomino in turn had Combat Mecha Xabungle to match. Taking place in a Desert Planet of Zola, Xabungle is a misadventure of a youth named Jiron along with a group of misfits exploring the desolate land with a share of fighting and looting along the way, eventually leading to uncovering the truth of their planet.

 In terms of mecha design Xabungle had two notable contributions toward mecha series overall, the series features heavily on bipedal walker type mecha which will be prevalently used by Tomino on his later works such as King Gainer and G-Reco. Then Xabungle is probably one of the earliest Mecha series that had Transformable Battleship Mecha which are later perfected by Macross. 

Considering Mecha Anime in 80s are mostly made to sell Toys, there are not much room for good storyline but Xabungle surprisingly managed to had depth in the setting indicating that the writers spent good amount effort for Xabungle's world building. To put it simply Xabungle is the pioneer of Post-Apocalyptic Mecha theme in particular Desert Punk where humanity tried to survive on harsh condition after a great conflict ravaged the planet, wiping out highly advanced human civilizations and desertifying majority of the landscape along. This is probably the most important contribution of Xabungle as later mecha series such as Zoids, Gundam X or any Desert Punk Mecha can  have its themes traced to Xabungle.

 Personally i am not too fond of Xabungle's story as majority of the casts are unlikeable. From the Main Protagonist who is very unbearable early in the series to the main heroine subplot of getting brainwashed that make the second half part become a drag. However what makes me able to endure Xabungle is it's good portrayal of the conflict between of Advanced Civilization with its Primitive counterpart, as the former group which are called Innocent in Xabungle manipulate the latter for their sinister end. This brand of class conflict theme is later perfected by Tomino in his later works, Turn A Gundam.

 

By present standard , Tomino's work may seem mediocre to bad as majority of his non gundam works are wasted potentials most of the time. However it cannot be denied that his 80s works lay out plenty of important groundwork for Mecha series and Xabungle is one of the cornerstone. If you want to have better understanding of Mecha series, Xabungle will be part of the encounter at some point as many of the later Mecha Anime's themes derived from this one. If i ever revisit SRW Z, i think i should better attention on Xabungle's plot but i at least recall the decent people from the Innocent faction at very least survive in the game. With Xabungled finished i think the only Tomino's major mecha anime that i haven't watched are Zambot 3 and Ideon but i think i should be watching the latter quite soon. Lastly while i am not too fond of with the main mecha, Iron Gear because it is as fat as the unbearable main protagonist, at very least i find Iron Gear and Xabungle to be quite memorable.