14-05-2025
‘Xabungle' Gets A New Lease Of Life With Some Experimental Animation
'Xabungle' is a quirky and fun mecha anime from the early 80s.
The 80s mecha anime classic Xabungle has been given the same treatment as Dunbine from last year, with some new experimental animation.
As part of the Sunrise World initiative, Xabungle is the latest classic anime to be given a modern facelift with some new animation from Kamikaze Douga (shown below).
The same team did something similar last year with Dunbine, which was met with huge success as Dunbine is still a very active and popular series in Japan.
The response to this new Xabungle animation has been positive, but not at the same scale as Dunbine, as that footage ended up receiving 1.6 million views.
As for Xabungle itself, it's a much-loved show, with the likes of Hideki Kamiya being a big fan of it. Xabungle was also one of the main inspirations for Gurren Lagann, as director Hiroyuki Imaishi explained when I interviewed him.
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Released back in 1982, Xabungle was also one of the formative mecha anime directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino. It had a lighter, almost slapstick tone that was in part his attempt at doing his own version of Future Boy Conan, of which he also worked on as a storyboard artist.
The mecha were also designed by Kunio Okawara, but a lot of the additional designs were penned by Yutaka Izubuchi, which gives the whole series a unique visual style.
The good news is that Xabungle received a proper physical release a few years back, and you can check out my review of that if you are at all curious.
As for this new piece of Xabungle animation, it will be interesting to see how it does. As these are often created to test the waters for older series and see if they still have a following.
Follow me on X, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and am currently featured in the Giant Robots exhibition currently touring Japan.
