Kyoukai Senki

There aren't a lot of reviews for this show so I thought I'd share my take on it as well.

The anime is nothing great, but also nothing really bad. Japan is occupied and it's up to our heroes to save it by working together. The premise is a bit strange, positioning essentially the rest of the world against Japan, but that's just an attempt to raise the stakes.

From a writing perspective, quality varies. You'd see a buildup to a climax, only for it to be resolved summarily. Characters are introduced just to be killed off in the next scene. Even the heroes have very little backstory.

The animation is cheap. Panning shots to give the sense of motion, characters talking with their backs to the camera, reusing action sequences.

There is very little actual violence or it is off screen. Most Mecha are AI controlled, so destroying them is like playing a game. There are command units which are piloted though. Kind of felt sometimes like it's an ad for a video game.

There are some nice episodes in there though. Especially "Anniversary" is a great "slice of life" intermezzo.

All in all, it seems like a run of the mill show geared towards kids or teenagers with very little substance. Not bad, not great.

The plot of the show is clear, I'm not sure what some reviewers were doing in the first few minutes of episode 1 but it's all laid out there: Things in Japan went south economically and the country was destabilized. Other nations moved in to help, but got too comfortable and essentially now are squatters and occupiers. This sort of thing happens. Imagine any country putting a military base in another sovereign territory to "help out" and then using that as a foot in the door to seize more territory.

It's true that the 4 occupying groups in Japan are painted largely in a negative light -- some are worse than others. Try to look at it this way, it's 2061 when this story is taking place. And nobody has said that this is OUR 2061. Alternate futures and histories are a thing. The North American Confederacy in Kyoukai Senki is, for example, either an alternate United States, or Americans have a rough 40 years ahead of them.

So the world isn't a happy place, the new warfighter is piloted mecha, AIs exist but not in great number... and our teenage protagonists are caught in the middle. These are pretty standard mecha anime tropes. They're at a minimum acceptable and at times the story beats are done very well. The action is good. The technical designs are great. The dubbing is good, or watch with subtitles -- they're fine too.

I'm enjoying the show. I didn't go in expecting Gundam as some may have. Maybe it does crib material from Code Gaess, I wouldn't know, I haven't watched it to make any connections there. You could make a lot of comparisons to other mecha fiction but at the end of the day ... Kyoukai Senki is still decent at worst and at times highly watchable real-robot anime. So give it a shot?

Trying to imitate "Code Geass" world outlook. The screenwriter of this anime seems to be victim paranoia. Four big organizations seized Japan for no reason. Did not explain the reasons for the occupation.

At the same time, there are the following hard wounds in the script: 1. The first few episodes contain the hint that "all countries except Japan are bad people" 2. Trying to convey to children through anime that "the Japanese are persecuted, and your children should stand up against the world" (But it is clear that Japan is a fascist camp in World War II and invades others) 3. The weak Japanese were occupied, but once they had power, they would retaliate immediately.

In general, if you haven't seen "code Geass", please go to watch "code Geass". If you have seen "code Geass", you will have the same nausea as me when watching this animation.