The story in a nutshell: The S.S.I (Scientific Secret Investigation) team, consisting of Ken, Minoru, Tetsuya, Daisuke, and Mari, were put in place to protect citizens and fight the evil Iron Alliance whom are hell bent conquering Japan and creating a robot empire. The Iron Alliance seem to be unstoppable as they have countless powerful robot enemies (like Big Bison, Deimos Z, Sky Shark, and King Deviler) at their command, but the S.S.I have a secret weapon themselves- a giant robot named Red Baron. Will the Red Baron be enough to counter attack the dreaded Iron Alliance?

Note: In addition to the ongoing battle against the Iron Alliance, the show contains several characters who are prominent in the show such as Ken’s family, a bumbling inspector, and mysterious outer space villains.

Much like the abysmal “Iron King” series which I reviewed recently, the 39 episode series “The Super Robot Red Baron” is another “Ultraman” wannabe. The only difference between this show and “Iron King” is that ‘Baron’ is flat out FUN. While no doubt cheesy by today’s standards, I personally found the program’s high energy fights, the model work, the variety of giant robots, the kung fu action, the futuristic weapons, and the crazy POV angles to be thoroughly entertaining. This is an action-packed serialized Japanese children’s show that fully delivers on what it sets out to do. There’s no filler to be found here.

Another aspect of the show I appreciated was it’s willingness to be unpredictable. The show is surprisingly a little violent and contains some truly killer episodes and cliffhanger that no kid’s show in the U.S. would EVER do for fear of protests, fines, and parental outrage.

As entertaining as the show may be, the non-stop robot fights can be slightly tiring and repetitious. Also, I found some of the show’s comic relief characters (namely Daisuke) to be utterly obnoxious. Sometimes he just never seems to shut up.

The only extra is a lengthy liner notes booklet that contains everything you ever wanted to know about the show.