Mainframe does another Gear-8 job

For years I have been keeping an eye out for the series Heavy Gear, and today, at a used media store at Westmount, I found it. Based on a video game that I have never played, it follows the battles and rivals of two teams of giant robots known as Gundam, sorry Battle Mechs, no wait... Gears! Been done before? Not quite. There are the futuristic elements such as the titluar Gears armed to the teeth (pun intended) with missiles, machine guns, and melee weapons, plus the fact that all the battles are televised with flying cameras propelled by superconductors, but it does not have a continuing storyline. It has more of the Saturday morning cartoon feel to it, much like the first season of Reboot, also made by Mainframe Entertainment.

That alone was one of the reasons I yoiked it off the shelf as soon as I saw it. I've found that Mainframe is for television what Pixar is for the film industry. When Toy Story came out, it was heralded as the longest production done completely in CGI to date. Not as widely noted was the fact that Mainframe had produced two 12 episode seasons of Reboot by the end of 1995, the same year Toy Story was released in theatres. About 500 minutes of material compared to the 75 minute feature film. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, I'm just saying that some other companies deserve the lime light too.

The other reason was that I had never seen it before since it was never televised in North America. For what reason, I have no idea. This show looks like it would have had a good home on The Zone (YTV), especially since Mainframe is a canadian company.

Nonetheless, it's a good little show, and I'm glad that I have Volume 1 added to my collection. I was releaved the show was pretty good, because the DVD features are crap. No special features, no additional languages, no captions, there is not even a Play All option. The main menu consists of the five episode titles, a shot of the Gears, and the series title. After an episode is done, you are returned to the menu. I guess they didn't think it would sell, so not much effort was put into the disc features. At least it has a menu though.