"Super Dimension Century Orguss" was an anime created by japanese animation company "Big West" in 1983. It was not an actual sequel to "Macross", but it reunited the same creative team in the hopes of creating another big hit. Sadly, it was just too different from Macross and any other SF anime, for that matter, and it was not very successful in japan. In the states, it is remembered only for the huge pile of Orguss toy and model merchandise that made it to american toystores... and that is quite a pity, because it was such a unique, quirky, and charming show. Not quite as brainy as "Hitchhiker's Guide", not quite as slapstick as "Futurama", but certainly in that same vein of bizzarre, mutiverse-hopping adventures and ontological puzzles.
The simplest explanation I can offer of ORGUSS's very un-simple plot goes as follows: on the eve of world war 3, cocky mech pilot Kei Katsuragi tries to detonate an experimental "dimensional bomb" to break a bitter stalemate on the battlefield. The untested bomb malfunctions, creating a bizarre aggregate of 100 different alternate realities all crammed onto the same earth, which is imprisoned inside of an impenetrable forcefield that traps heat and greenhouse gases along with it's various denizens. Kei joins up with crew of the Glomar (see picture above), a hovering land battleship inhabited by the Emaan, a very humanoid race from an alternate reality in which humanity got their act just a little bit more together. The libertarian society of the matriarchal Emaan becomes explored in depth during the show's run, their nomadic lifestyle, their compulsive drive to turn a profit in trading technology with alien races, and their oddly utopian sexual behaviour (all emaanian tribes/clans are expected to sleep in one big collective bedroom, with adjacent "privacy" rooms reserved for sexual trysts).
So this weird patchwork world is extremely unstable, given "dimensional storms" where large areas can suddenly shift from the distant past to the future. Along the way, the crew of Glomar (again, see above picture) encounter dragon's, dalek-esque robot empires, future nazis, barbarians, carnivorous plants, giant vampire bats, and all other manner of strange creatures and antagonists from earth's possible futures and pasts. Just awesome, completely awesome.
Like I said, it really is a shame that more people didn't watch this show. Giant robot shows, and sadly, anime in general, have fallen into a system of cliches and tropes that are still repeated today (the reluctant pacifist hero who doesn't want to fight has been done over and over since Gundam), but Orguss has no time for such cliches... it's too busy playing weird games with shifting settings and timelines, and sneaking in an obsession with Lewis Carrol under the surface.
Virtually all of the show's very unique robots showed up as model kits and AMAZING toys by the innovative (and much lamented) Takatoku toy company, but as far as I can tell, there never were any models of the Glomar, not even fan-produced or scratchbuilt. If you can find one, you are looking harder than me. So I built the one you see above, a big heavy doorstop type thing made out of sculpey.
It is also worth mentioning that the interior of the Glomar has a weird Jules Verne thing going on; lots of ornamental brass and mahogany. And the ship seems to be constantly floating across a pink sunset, with the characters chatting lazily on the deck, cheerfully discussing the possibility that they, and the earth itself, are most likely doomed.
