As this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Wings of Rean, there was a nice event in Shinjuku to commemorate the anime, coupled with some announcements.
Released back in 2005, the Wings of Rean was sort of a sequel to the 80s light novels of the same name written by Yoshiyuki Tomino, especially as both the books and anime feature the character Shinjiro Sakomizu quite prominently.
However, Wings of Rean was set in the world of Byston Well, which is also the setting for Aura Battler Dunbine, but this is regarded as being a separate story.
To be honest, the Byston Well mythos is quite fractured, with Dunbine and its spin-off OVA being one thing, and the 90s anime Garzey’s Wing and Wings of Rean being another.
That said, unlike the Wings of Rean novels, this anime also featured aura battlers. The latter designs were also more akin to “aura samurai” and really leaned into the strange insect origins of how these mecha were constructed in Byston Well.
Admittedly, this was also the case for Dunbine, with Kazutaka Miyatake’s insect-infused designs being a defining aspect of the anime. Something that Yutaka Izubuchi contributed to in the original TV series and later in the OVA, as well as the extensive designs he did for the Aura Fhantasm artbooks.
Dunbine is also a very “current” anime in the sense that it’s still getting lots of new toys and being consistently featured in recent Super Robot Wars games, so the Wings of Rean definitely doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Back when this anime was released in Japan, though, it was one of the first ONA series, or “Original Net Animation”, which were released online. Thankfully, we also got some very nice US DVD releases of all six episodes, which I still very happily own.
At the time, I thought that the Wings of Rean was a unique work, as it tackled complex themes very deftly. It also dealt with the clash of old and new Japan in a cultural sense, and that was fascinating to see play out.
In the two decades since, I think this anime has become more relevant than ever, so while the showing today was for only the first two episodes, the big piece of news was that a Blu-ray box set will be released next year (shown above).
In addition, the amazing orchestral score by Yasuo Higuchi will also be getting a proper CD release next year. This is especially excellent news, as back in 2005, this was one of the few pieces of merchandising the anime didn’t get, and while we had a digital release a few years ago of this genuinely amazing score, I cannot wait to pick it up on CD.
There was also a nice talk show featuring Yoshiyuki Tomino, character designer Masashi Kudo, producer Yoshitaka Kawaguchi, and the voice actor for Asap Suzuki, Jun Fukuyama.
The discussion covered a lot of ground, but it was great to hear Another Century’s Episode 2 mentioned, as the mecha from Wings of Rean were also featured in that game.
My only hope is that, much like the original DVDs from two decades ago, the upcoming Blu-ray release also comes westward next year, as this anime definitely needs to be made more widely available again.
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