WARNING! This review will contain spoilers, some of which might be considered game-breaking for people who have not seen this yet. I will be clearly marking where what I consider spoilers begins though, so you are safe to read up to that point.As with most my reviews, let's bring up the quick summary of why you might want to watch this or not.Watch if:- You generally like mecha anime (not limited to the Gundam series),- Your expectations on the military portion of this show are not too high,- You'd like to be introduced to a more in-depth view of battles using giant robots than your average mecha "transformers",- Mild fanservice is acceptable,- Realism is not a factor.Do not watch if:- Giant robots are stupid and not Kawaii enough,- Seeing flags makes you ship pairs in any anime and you get disappointed when romance is playing second fiddle,- You're expecting down-to-earth realistic application of military technology,- Your plot expectations are based on series like Gundam. Although this sums it up somewhat, it does pose some questions as well.I'd like to start by saying I enjoyed this anime, even through its often obvious shortcomings and shortcuts. That is not to say I would wholeheartedly reccomend it. Quite frankly there are several things that would have been easy to fix and would have made this show really good, if not great. Those will however be discussed in the section containing spoilers.Let's go with the usual breakdown, MINOR spoilers ahead (safe to read before watching the show).Story 5/10 (Plot: 2/10 Premise: 8/10) You might find this part of my review most confusing. The idea for the setting is pretty good. You have your giant robots and even the concept of making them look human is quickly dismissed with quite the logical explanation. You are being told how wars hav changed and are now decided betwen giant "hedgehogs" spiked with guns. There apparently is no more room for ordinary soldiers or weapons. Enter the MC, an (you guessed it) exchange high-school student somehow on-loan to the military, who might just change the world.... This is where things start to go downhill (although at a bearable pace). You will set your expectations high for the content just to be served another small team against the world scenario. The MC will be handed all possible flags on a silver-platter and between those he will Macgyver" his way through 200,000 tons of armor many many times in rapid succession. There is virtually no character development between "arcs" and you might not get that "continuity" feeling 24ep series gave back in the day. Somewhere alfway through the show you might also start to question how on earth is anyone living safely anywhere on that planet at any time.Animation 8/10 (CGI: 9/10 Characters: 7/10) I really liked the way CGI was immersed into the show, though as with all explosions there will be some sketchy scenes there and again. Characters are your standard out-of-the-box models, though look decently detailed when animated which makes them feel more realistic. There's no need for someone to have green hair here so that you remember who the f... he was. Vehicle animation seems decent enough as well. Overall one of the stronger points of this show.Sound 6/10 (BGM: 5/10 Sound effects: 6/10 VA: 6/10) I liked the OP, and although this usually does not affect my score I am human and my opinion is biased towards my tastes, like everyone else's, as such sound gets 6/10. Apart from that there really isn't much to say. It's not annoying. Luckily enough there are no long english phrases in this show.Characters 8/10 Another strong point which makes up for the fanservice and love flags popping up all over the place is the MC and his sidekick/friend. Refreshingly blunt, although as always absolutely beyond their physical age way of thinking makes for a good laugh sometimes. There is a ton of cliche and boring elements to the harem-esque part of the show, but somehow you feel like these guys can be forgiven.************************ SPOILER ALERT **************************ABSOLUTELY DO NOT READ BELOW BEFORE WATCHING************************ SPOILER ALERT **************************
You've been warned.
After reading all of this you might feel like I disliked this show rather than liked it, especially confusing given the high overall rating. I did like the idea for it, and I was even going to forgive the barely-teenage MC, all in trade for exploring the idea of consequences to people vs giant robots. It started off ok enough, they broke some objects by pure luck and thinking on the spot... but then it's the same thing again, and again? It can't always be up to the same two people to handle impossible tasks it just has no plausibility to it at all. Now there was still hope here, to show the effects of war and that there is no justice to it like they initially wanted to believe. There were several times when this could have been easily exploited into some good messages. And just as soon as the miners were massacred I thought "this is the moment". Set up by the MC realizing there is only cruelty in war, that it's a tool for profit.. Of course by a completely implausible set of circumstances all the miners survive and the strong point goes out the window. And it's not like the show is against showing dead bodies or even the idea of casualties - it's not. It will show bodies in abundance, but mostly "enemies" and always with the "Villager B" or below relation to the story. If we consider this is a show about war it just makes no sense to not exploit that angle. Nobody's ever made a rom-com about a boy and a girl that never meet, and this feels similar in execution. If you're expecting drama or a story that's involved and twists morals right and left you will find nothing of it here. Not a drop. Two guys surviving insane explosions gets old fast, saving grace being how refreshing the characters are. Even though the fanservice scenes and all the super-preplanned-exactly-the-right-moment-situations MC gets with every girl in a 500mile radius he still comes out ahead. He does end up bland in the end though as the show keeps demanding less war more "hero of justice" action, but I still expect the fanservice will get the show a second season. This was most likely adapted from several almost-separate volumes as it feels the continuity factor is not there as much. It is pretty in terms of visuals, but then all mecha anime are nowdays. What stands out is the fact they're not human-shaped robots which was what tempted me into it. Once it was explained in the show (and somehow I had hoped it would be) how human-shaped robots would just fall over I set my expectations higher than I should have. I was expecting a better insight into how ordinary soldiers might fight battles against/alongside giant robots, how war casualties and war zones would look like and what the consequences of large-scale resource expenditure would have on the world. Not to mention the angle of damage to the planet all the fighting using giant robots as those would do, and seeing how they fought every second weekday that planet must have been close to an extinction level event. I got none of that and less for my trouble, but I still can't say it was a bad show. It could have been great, and it had all the cards in hand, just decided to fold.