randomredneck

Hello fellow anime viewers. It's another review from RandomRedneck. Seeing as its April fools day, I'm reviewing a show so stuffed full of cliche and uninteresting...stuff that it could count as a joke itself. I speak of IS: Infinite Stratos. A show that tries the old method of "Mix harem plot with X" and falls well short. Let's begin, shall we? Warning. Some spoilers ahead.

STORY

Whoever wrote this apparently just threw some darts at the board of typical anime story types, and threw it in here. This show can't make up its mind. Is it a harem high school show? Mech fighting show? Enjoy trying to figure it out. See those fancy armor suits? Yeah, you can count the times they matter in an episode on one hand. The story is so reliant on the same old thing, you can see the jokes coming a mile away. And I'm not even getting into the idiocy of the last three episodes, which include at least three deus ex machina powers, and some legendary character never mentioned until episode 11 suddenly becoming important.

ANIMATION

Now I will give credit where credit is due. The animation is actually pretty good. The characters all look pretty good, and the scenes involving the IS units are pretty well animated. Though the CGI used for them is a little conspicuous at times.

SOUND

Another subject where I'll be kind of nice. The music is all right. The score is passable, and the ending theme is damn catchy in my opinion. Opening theme? Not so much.

CHARACTERS

Characters. Oh boy, I was waiting to get to this part. The characters in this show are some of the most insufferable group of harem characters I've ever seen. With the exception of Charles/Charlotte, who I liked, as did many others for some reason, you're not gonna get award winning characters here. We have Ichika. Our "hero" and the typical clueless protagonist of a show like this. Five girls want a piece of him, and of course, he barely notices them. He fills out the annoying roles you'd expect. The super special teenager, save everybody guy. He is such a bad lead, that I feel like smacking him. Next we have his main love interest, Houki. Can you guess what she is? Yup, the childhood friend, now tsundere character. She isn't really that captivating. Tsun-tsun here, dere-dere there, exactly what you expect. And yes, even though we don't get much lead up, she is the one Ichika picks. Shocker huh? We have three other girls, Cecilia, Rin, and Laura, but they pretty much exist to take up space, and crave Ichika's c**k. Seriously, Cecilia and Laura have potential when they are introduced. Cecilia is the rich bitch, Laura just a regular bitch. After losing a fight to Ichika? They lost all traces of characterization, and become members of the drooling fan club for the moron. Rin...is just there. Characters are one of this shows BIG flaws.

OVERALL

Save yourself the time and avoid Infinite Stratos. If you don't mind the typical story and characters this show has, you probably won't mind this show. Hate that sort of thing? Steer clear. Thank you.

Yours truly

RandomRedneck.