Stream The 80s Sci-Fi Action Comedy That Changed Anime Forever

Metal Skin Panic is an anime just like any other; it follows a young engineering student employed as a mechanic, Koji Sugimoto, who inadvertently comes across a Slave Trooper MADOX-01, a new land anti-tank weapon (a mecha) that has been lost when the truck transporting it had an accident.

Of course, being a curious engineering student, he decided to enter the mecha armor, which then closed around him. Unable to leave the suit due to a software bug, Koji has to meet his girlfriend but also survive a tank attack from an American soldier, Lieutenant Kilgore.

Of course, the two eventually clash, and Koji receives assistance from the suit developer, Eriko Kusumoto. The plot mixes mecha action elements with comedy and drama, which perfectly encapsulates the typical excess and creative ambition of the 1980s Original Video Animation (OVA) era of feature-length anime being released on VHS tape.

Metal Skin Panic was an artistic masterpiece of its time; the animation was exceptionally well-detailed, and the mechanical designs clearly influenced mecha designs going forward.

In fact, both Appleseed and Bubblegum Crisis drew their inspiration from Metal Skin Panic—admittedly, all three were produced by the legendary Shinji Aramaki, hence the similarities. The overall animation quality was also quite good, and many believe that it compensates for some narrative weaknesses Metal Skin Panic suffers from.

But that isn’t what actually makes this anime an important piece of modern entertainment history. Its story dates back to the mid-1980s when A.C. Greenberg came up with the application for his new video technology that allowed him to overlay subtitles on VHS tapes.

Up to that point, anime was usually watched in OVA format on VHS tapes; sub and dub versions were the wildest dreams back then, so those who enjoyed anime often had to rely on that one friend who was proficient in Japanese, to live-translate the events and dialogues coming from CRT screens.

Feel old yet? Well, Greenberg’s tech allowed him to overlay subtitles on the tape, enhancing the medium accessibility for non-Japanese speakers. He then leveraged his friend’s frequent trips to Japan, which bore fruit in licensing Metal Skin Panic—a rather obscure anime, even in Japan.

Well, Greenberg and his friend, R.J. Woodhead, overlayed the subtitles and released the Metal Skin Panic OVA on VHS. The anime didn’t make any significant success initially, but it did demonstrate the financial viability of funny-looking Japanese cartoons in the American market and revolutionized how we approach Japanese pop culture.

Needless to say, Metal Skin Panic crawled so that Akira could walk and Goku from Dragon Ball could run/fly. Those interested in watching this crucial piece of anime history can do so on streaming at Prime Video, hoopla, and tubi.