Space Warrior Baldios. A relatively unknown little show that got cancelled and had to rush an ending, later corrected by a compilation movie. Baldios wears it's themes, and heart, on it's sleeve. Right from the start, the environmentalist themes are made clear. Aliens, that happen to look, sound and act exactly human, ruin their planet with pollution so the totally subtle Fuhrer Gattler decides to travel to migrate everyone to another planet, after accidentally ruining their actual chance at salvation, a radiation cleanser being invented by the protagonist and his family, whilst framing them for murder. It's a quick, fun and inventive setup that leads the protagonist and the evil alien faction to earth, battling for control across 34 episodic conflicts. They want to kill all the humans and live on earth, whilst the good guys want to protect the pure earth from the alien's pollution. I guess not being genocided is also important.

Baldios takes the timeless, if predictable monster of the week episodic setup of showing some new robot the bad guys build, often a new character that'll probably not appear outside of that episode, and resolving a conflict within 20 minutes with the help of the titular mecha Baldios, who's strangely underutilised throughout the show. As a mecha, it's not great. The transformation sequence is gratingly slow and bland, none of the design elements or attacks of Baldios are memorable and are really quite derivative, and the action is rarely interesting.

However, the show is saved by it's solid heart. The episodic stories can be slow and predictable at times, but they're also often solid and contain character development that carries on throughout the show. There are several interesting themes with lots of racism levied at protagonist Marin Reigan due to him being the same race as the antagonists, and his plight of fighting to protect a planet that's slow to care about him was interesting at times. There are some genuinely solid long-term story arcs too, particularly the reoccuring conflict between Marin Reigan and Aphrodia, military commander of the bad guys and also total babe, but sadly the show's cancellation meant this long-term arc and many others simply had no conclusion at all.

Soundtrack and visuals, action aside, are actually quite strong for the show. It's an emotional OST with reoccuring musical motifs and a really solid OP/ED. These elements emphasise that classic mecha romance vibe the most. It's also worth noting the show gets surprisingly dark at times, especially the final arc. Overall Baldios isn't a bad way to kill time, especially for those interested in obscure shows and old mecha, but it has a lot of wasted potential largely thanks to it's early cancellation.