3S Review no. 74 (short, simple and salty/sweet/spicy)
Oh how the mighty have fallen, or you know, I would like to be able to say that, if the mighty on question hadn’t already fallen dozens of times, just to stand up for a little while, only to fall a dozen more. So, this show disappointed me not because I wasn’t expecting a disappointing show from sunrise or from the gundam franchise, but because if you watch the prologue you can actually hope that maybe you get a decent story.
What you get instead of a decent story? A school! Yes, a school, how exciting, a kid gets transferred to a mech armor school (?) from a planet that doesn’t even have a normal school, so it is the typical country bumpkin comes to city, said bumpkin is really kind, socially awkward and gets excited or frightened with ever single thing, it plays exactly like that, but in space, with robots. It is boring and unexciting for the most part, and completely nonsensical in its entirety. I mean, in this school, everything gets settled with duels, really cool right? Also the one who is the top duelist gets to marry the directors daughter, even more cool right? And these are rules set in stone that can never be broken except for the fact that everyone breaks the rules constantly for their convenience. There is not even a point in the whole school existing other than testing the robots and the pilots, only that each pilot has his own robot, so it is not an even playing field, how do you even judge a fighter in fight where on holds a broomstick and the other a machine gun. Supposedly there is a system and a council so everything is fair between the different houses or manufacturers of mechs, but it is simply a dictatorship where the most powerful company does as they please with no one have a saying in it, for example, a let’s say trial is held to determine if the protagonist’s mech is actually a gundam, there is no evidence whatsoever that it is, but the head of the council says it is definitely a gundam, why? Cause “I said so”. I shit you not, that happens and you got to watch it with a straight face. Nevermind the fact that later they clearly watch a gundam fight that they made and no one even says a word, no one, like they didn’t even notice, or it is not worth mentioning. So, to make a long story short, the story is a mess. The school is not even a school, like they get to learn, basically we don’t even watch them learn, they just do a test after four episodes or something. The whole drama is silly, everything happen just to happen, the stakes are not there, the discrimination between spacians and earthians is unnecessary and immature, and I don’t even wanna mention the forced GL just for the sake of it. Yes, there are some good typical gundam momments here and there, like the ending of episode 6, but what leads up to these moments is so cringe worthy that in the end it falls flat.
Characters are equally bad, the main lead is the typical kindhearted kind with an extra dose of annoying and crying little shit. The other main girl is even worse, she goes on a fuckin rampage saying she won’t have anyone making decisions for herself anymore, then proceeds to make decisions for others, then everyone proceeds to do the same thing cause that what is everyone doing on this show apparently, just decides whatever the fuck they want while the other s don’t even get a saying. They duel while betting something that has nothing to do with them, like if they win the get to do something with another person, the other person is not even a part of the duel, but gets no say in it. That is the absolutely laughable reality of the characters in this show.
Animation is alright, the fights are not terrible animated, in the 5 or so minutes of fighting that we got in the first 6 episodes, exciting stuff. There is some questionable cgi, but most of the time even that is not half bad. Overall nothing to write home about.
Sound is very good though, all the tracks are great and really fitting, opening and ending are passable. Voice acting is stellar and I can't for the life of me comprehend how can the VA of the protagonist actually voice act that annoying girl, but, she somehow does it.
So, is it worth a watch? Well, no, this is not a good show, but do you know what it is? The only mecha show of the season that can even be called watchable.
End of season update: Well, thankfully i was braced for impact, i was expecting nothing from the incompetent writing of the show and i it still somehow managed to make me facepalm. The ending was so unbelievably forced, so terribly lacking build up, foreshadowing, premonition, so completely out of character, that it made think to myself that the incredibly stupid scene momments before that the other guy kills his own father for no reason at all, other than that the plot said so, was actually passable. And to think that i was lenient enough already to ignore the plot loan from the cheap romance genre where everyone randomly bumps into each other at the right place at the right time they go and end the season like that. People, if you want to know how to end your work with a bang, how to surprise your audience, how to make your character develop, this right here, this is the prime example of how to NOT FUCKIN DO IT.
That is the first time, that i rated the characters section of a show as 1 out of 10, and somehow, someway, after the season finished the show made me come back and drop it even lower. I guess there is a first time for everything.
Screenshots
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