Oh man, folks, do we ever have a doozy today. The folks out at A&E sent out a copy of Robotech: The Complete Series, and if you have even the vaguest interest in animation, especially of the Japanese variety, then you’ll definitely want to get in on this.

Robotech: The Complete Series is pretty much what it says on the box, nearly thirty four hours of Robotech, from the First Robotech War to the Third Robotech War and including the Robotech Archives. Things all get started when humanity finds itself in possession of an alien space fortress that has mysteriously crash-landed on the planet. Themselves in the midst of a world war, humanity decides to shut down its various wars and band together to figure out just what the hell it is that crashed on the planet in the first place, and what it may represent. You’ll get to watch humanity take on the Zentraedi, and then fend off the Robotech Masters, and then the Invid will get involved. And, after all that, you’ll get a whole load of behind the scenes footage and the like–a whole disc’s worth, in fact–just to cap the whole experience off.

Naturally, as you’d expect from something as extensive and all-inclusive as this, some of it will be better than others. And indeed, some parts will lag a bit while other parts will be packed with more action than you ever thought a cartoon from the eighties (and beyond) could offer up. But for the most part, the action will be relatively dense. It’s pretty hard to get bored while watching Robotech, if for no other reason than something is constantly shooting at someone else, occasionally interrupted by something else blowing up.

And you might think this is simplistic, and you’d have good reason to think so, but this is actually a whole lot more complex than you might think. After all, we’re talking about a series that covers almost a full day and a half of footage, so you know there’s a lot going on in here. It’s a fine piece of anime, and nicely representative of the genre. If you want a good look at where anime came from–and where anime might well go from here–then you’ll want to settle in with this massive chunk of Robotech.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Robotech: The Complete Series a full ten out of ten. There’s more than enough action to keep most anyone satisfied, and as a history lesson, it represents a major achievement in anime and is well worth your time to watch.