Will I be missing anything critical from Space Runaway Ideon if I watch the compilation movie version, or would certain episodes be excluded? And if I did watch the full series, would I still need to watch A Contact?
The two movies were originally released as a back-to-back double feature. You can watch them as a full experience, but you’ll miss out on character development and the pacing is super janky. A Contact compiles ~30 episodes of the TV show into ~90 minutes (the remainder of the show being the “TV ending”). The most apt comparison to watching the movies by themselves is watching Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion (Anno was directly inspired by these movies lol).
If you have the time for it, watching the series is recommended. If you watch the show, you can probably skip A Contact.
Watching just the movies isn’t an optimal choice, but I’d recommend it over missing out entirely (kind of like the Gundam compilation films - the compressed version is an easier sell to someone who isn’t used to older anime).
Will I be missing anything critical from Space Runaway Ideon if I watch the compilation movie version, or would certain episodes be excluded? And if I did watch the full series, would I still need to watch A Contact?
The two movies were originally released as a back-to-back double feature. You can watch them as a full experience, but you’ll miss out on character development and the pacing is super janky. A Contact compiles ~30 episodes of the TV show into ~90 minutes (the remainder of the show being the “TV ending”). The most apt comparison to watching the movies by themselves is watching Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion (Anno was directly inspired by these movies lol).
If you have the time for it, watching the series is recommended. If you watch the show, you can probably skip A Contact.
Watching just the movies isn’t an optimal choice, but I’d recommend it over missing out entirely (kind of like the Gundam compilation films - the compressed version is an easier sell to someone who isn’t used to older anime).