I have really been getting into Sports Anime this year. And by ‘sports anime’ I really am only referring to Haikyuu, Ping-pong and Hajime no Ippo at the moment. Forgive me if my tastes haven’t branched out very far yet as I have found that I prefer my fantasy anime in a fantasy world and my sports anime to be ‘grounded’ in the reality of our world. I know that there are parts of all three anime I have mentioned which are exaggerated or break the laws of physics (such as the ability of some characters in Haikyuu to be able to accelerate towards the ground faster than the acceleration due to gravity compared to other characters), and I can accept that as its all part of the lore of the world. There is, however, one exception where fantasy meets sports which I thouroughly enjoy, and even then it is severely tinted by nostalgia glasses.

I am a huge Zoids fan and the first Zoids anime which aired in New Zealand in the early 2000’s was New Century. I still remember my initial disappointment that Yu-Gi-Oh wasn’t on that day, and wouldn’t be again until this new series had completed its run, but that was a short lived disappointment. The first episode hooked me and I was an instant fan, going so far as printing out images to create my own episode guide. I remember catching some Transformers Beast Wars in the 90’s and enjoying the mechanical robot animals so this new anime was like a tonic for an itch that I didn’t realise I’d had.

Probably not such a controversial opinion, but Zoids New Century is a sports anime: human pilots use large mechanical organisms in team competitions to fight over rankings and earn prize money. Teams can rise in the rankings through accumulated victories and can fall if they receive repeated defeats. The main team we follow is the Blitz Team, and although Bit Cloud and the Liger Zero are the main characters, I’d have to say Brad Hunter is the best pilot on the team. Honestly, if he was the one piloting the Liger Zero then they would be in S-Rank from the beginning of the show, especially if Jamie had been piloting the Reynos as a permanent combatant instead of being in a support role so often.

Yes, New Century/Guardian Force and Genesis both have more mature storylines which tackle themes such as war, the desperation to survive, the fact that there are ‘good guys’ on both sides of any war and how innocents can get caught in the crossfire (and we don’t mention Fuzors), but there is just something that gripped me about New Century. Perhaps it was that there wasn’t as ominous of an atmosphere (it was a game), the shorter episode count (so there were fewer repeated action shots) or the fact that the animation was so good for its time (and has mostly stood up to the test of time) but I remember this Zoids anime the most fondly. There are fight scenes where you can really feel the weight of these machines as they engage with each other; the camera shakes and dust clouds are lifted with each impact. I think that the first fight between Leon in his Red Blade Liger and Bit with Liger Zero epitomises this when they first engage and they are rolling around like actual cats trying to paw and bite at each other following the threat display where they size each other up (ignoring the fact that the Liger Zero is basically like a ‘sport’s model’ Blade Liger and weighs 40 tonnes less so would lose out in both intimidation and throwing its weight around).

The best overall fight, however, has to be the climax when the Berserk Fury/Fuhrer takes the stage and only the combined efforts of the Blitz Team could subdue it. The Liger Zero had expended all of its armour in the previous battles throughout the tournament and only its base armour was left. Brad and the Shadow Fox had just been incapacitated and the Fury was charging its charged particle beam as the hover cargo was swapping armour while desperately trying to manouver to minimse the damage from the incoming attack. There is a huge smoke and dust cloud when the blast hits and a lul in the battle music as the Fury roars in triumph. All seems lost until the main theme (No Future, it’s a banger!) brings the hype in time with Liger Zero bursting from the cloud and dealing a Strike Lazer Claw directly to the facial armour of the Fury. The action then really ramps up as they fight all the way to the wreck of an Ultrasaurus leading to a stalemate between Liger Zero and the Fury. However, if Vega hadn’t ejected at that point then the outcome would’ve likely ended in Liger Zero being destroyed as its front legs’ damage would’ve hindered its mobility so that eventually a charged particle blast couldn’t be avoided.

Here is a 60fps video so that you can see what I mean about the fight.

Still gives me chills.

Now yes, there are some over the top scenes, such as running on top of missiles, and the forced love triangle between Bit, Harry and Leena got a bit annoying and tedious, but this is an anime which has a bit of a cult following for a reason. If this post has inspired you to check out Zoids New Century out then here is a link to a website which streams it and the other Zoids Anime from the 2000s.

Battle mode 0982. Ready, fight!