Exosquad: Season 1 [DVD]

At long last, after 16 years since it originally aired, the first season of Exosquad arrives on DVD. I thought that Universal was going to let this show rot in their vaults. This series was ahead of it's time in many ways, and that it was Universal's first animated TV attempt made it all the more impressive. Exosquad is a epic series that depicts a war between humans and their creations who want a real identity for themselves, whom unfortunately are led by a dictator who holds fanatical visions of a supreme "destiny" and attempts to achieve it at all costs.The show concluded it's run after 2 seasons, and though the war is resolved in the final episode it still leaves off with a huge cliffhanger. Perhaps the best thing about the series is that it was one long continuous plot told in a whopping 52 episodes. This was uheard of for an orginal American animated series back in the mid-1990's. Cutting out commercial time, this saga goes on for almost 17 and a half hours. Though the animation is a mixed bag and shows it's age, the series approach to the plot was mostly very serious, the script and voice acting were solid, many characters were well developed, and it explored and touched upon many thematic elements and complex issues, among them racism and the psychological effects of war.The noticable flaws (to me anyways), were that many of the character and vehicle designs and color scheme clearly lend themselves as of being the action figure toy type, it could have benefited having a more (while good) varied musical score and sound effects, and that occasionally some of the plot elements seemed akin for more juvenile animation. These would have been ok, except that with the plot itself and the depth that it has, it seems that adults and teenagers would appreciate it more than younger kids (fans, you know what happens in Episode 11 "The Brood").That was perhaps the biggest obstacle the series faced as an airing program. It was marketed to the wrong audience, yet contains elements for a younger demographic, and it required a committed viewing and long attention span to understand the story arches. Add this to the fact that during it's initial run the show would air in haphazard timeslots, and you have a recipe for having the majority of TV viewers, animation or otherwise, never hearing about Exosquad.Overall, the series is criminally underrated, and deserves to be checked out by anyone who enjoys animation or science fiction, and also because the characters have real emotions and motivations.This DVD set is unfortunately bare bones, but hopefully some extras will be included in a future release of Season 2.Now about getting Season 2 on DVD...

It was the dawn of a golden age for mankind. Venus and Mars had been terraformed with the help of a race of artificially created humans known as the Neosapians. This allowed the Exofleet set out to explore the rest of our solar system. This series was a staple in my teenage years. I have so many memories of this series. So many epic moments, it's hard to chose a favorite. But having this series first season on DVD was a great treat. I still love the scene from the episode called "The Brood" where Captain Marcus takes control of the Exo Fleet and foolishly challenges the might of the Neosapian's Earth and Mars Fleets. Such a epic battle. It's a shame that season 2 was never released. But if you enjoy well done Sci-Fi, you owe it to yourself to check Exo-Squad out!

Even though Mobile Suit Gundam was created well before Exo Squad; this was a show I'd never seen before on animated television, as a kid, and it blew me away with its mature themes and storytelling having grown up in the 1980s I'd saw a little of that with Transformers and GI Joe (which the two shows I still love) but you had two types of shows that are either safe and marketable but still leaves room to insult the intelligence of the viewer (e.g. The Masters of the Universe) or shows with a overbearing social message while insulting the intelligence of the viewer (e.g. Care Bears, Captain Planet and the Get-Along Gang).Now what got me hook onto Exo-Squad was, it was a war, not this 'rah-rah-rah! beat up the bad guys; but no one is allowed to die' No! Much like Gundam, everyone gets hurt or dies such Captain Marcus on board the Resolute, Alec Deleon near the end of the war. But you also saw the horrors of war, unlike other kid's shows, where humans were 'deported' from Earth which was more of a coverstory to commit mass genocide, mass starvations on Venus, force labor labor camps. Plus it's a show where all the characters are flawed, not perfect (unlike Captain Planet where all heroes character are perfect). Such as JT suffers from survivior's guilt, Marcus is an officer with very little command or combat expereince due his promotions were during a 50 year peace and he sees his chances for glory, Shiva is ever the soldier even though he later on believes that Phaeton might end up costing the Neo Sapiens the war still remains loyal to him, Phaeton, much like Girhen Zabi from Gundam, is the shadow of Hitler.I'm hoping there will be enough demand for the season 2 to released on DVD because I really want this show since it does go well with my Gundam collection.Also in one of life little ironies both Exo Squad and the original Gundam series suffered same fate, cancelled for being commerical failures but Gundam had such a following among college students who want more, Sunrise had enough brains to commission Yoshiyuki Tominio to condense the TV show into 3 movies and create Zeta Gundam which breathed new life into the franchise for the next 30 years, I wished Exo Squad had that same chance.

This is a great show, with well written plots, and Characters.

Even though this dvd is only the first 13 episodes, it is still agood purchase, especially if you like the show. There are no extras though and we need the rest of the series.

I used to watch this show when I was a kid. Since then I've always wanted to see it again, so my expectations for this DVD were extremely high. I remember it being amazing. Watching the disc, I wasn't disappointed. It holds up extremely well, and I highly recommend it for both adults and children. Please buy this DVD so they're encouraged to bring out the second series!

Excellent! Prompt delivery and it arrived in an impeccable state. This is an excellent piece of scifi... yet not a lots of people knew it existed.

it's a shame that it's not region free i cant watch it on my dvd playeri didn't know that it was going to be a u.s import

While this show doesn't age quite as well as some others from this time, Exo Squad was a fun watch and has more substance than a lot of the other cartoons in the genre.