Suisei no Gargantia

In this series, Ledo, a lieutenant, crashes on Earth, now covered almost completely by oceans, and is a foreigner in this strange land because of his language and cultural barriers. He soon grows to understand the locals who live on floating fleets across the seas of the world. There is one LGBTQ character: Lukkage, the Pirate Queen, who has two sex slaves who are her pilots, and has a crush on Pinion. This show is just as good as Sym-Bionic Titan, , but I just enjoy those shows more and feel that they have strengths that this show lacks. In any case, this show has a justified rating at the present time

A quite entertaining anime with 13 episodes (plus two OVA side story episodes) about individuality, duty, compassion, the nature of humanity and laser throwing flying mecha of course.

Ledo is a soldier of the Galactic Alliance of Humankind. Born, raised and bred to fight Hideauze, a race of space- faring octopi and the greatest threat to the survival of the human kind in the galaxy. He lives in a quasi- symbiotic relationship with his mecha Chamber. The height of human engineering in the fields of artificial intelligence and warfare.

Ledo and Chamber end up stranded on our earth, the long lost birth place of humanity, after they get separated from their fleet during a flight through an artificial wormhole. They very soon have to notice that the humans left on earth are different than their space warrior descendants. They love freedom, good food, entertainment and most shockingly: they help the weak and old people instead of killing them for the greater good.

The strong side of this anime are the two main characters Ledo and Chamber. Their character development and attempts to cope with the unfamiliar environment make up for most of the weak points of the show. Another strong side of the show are it's art style and ship designs.

What annoyed me the most were the side characters. The three young girls Amy, Saaya and Melty are carbon copies of each other. They seem to have identical personalities, look similar, act the same way and do the same things. Which is especially annoying since one of them is the love interest of the main character Ledo. You could switch them out mid-scene and I probably wouldn't have noticed. Also the elders (or whatever they are called) of Gargantia have severe cases of brain farts every time they show up, they constantly make absolutely irrational decisions and seem to be destined to lead every single one of their subjects into certain doom whenever they have the chance.

Overall Suisei no Gargantia ("Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet" in the English dub) is an enjoyable mecha anime. It's nothing special, but it is worth your time if you like science fiction stories about the human condition and a good portion of mecha battles now and then.

First of all, this is simply a beautifully animated series, both in characters and background - colorful and simply pleasing to watch. You could view this simply for that alone, as long as they didn't give you a terrible story - and they didn't! The story and drama are not overwhelming, certainly, but there is pretty much only one story arc, and the creators stay on the mark for the whole series. You could see from the extra characters & situations that were brought into the series that they were no doubt tempted to pursue other story lines - like other anime do & never quite resolve - but in the end they chose not to and stayed faithful to the singular plot line that they began with.

The main concept finds present day humans - sometime in the future of course - the product of past scientific tinkering, along with a dying sun, which first created a frozen planet, and then when things warmed up, a water planet. Everyone lives on gigantic ships which band together in fleets, making de facto cities - this particular fleet being "Gargantia." The "verdurous planet" is of course Earth, with a few tweaks and changes. The humans in this world must eke out their existence on board these ships to create a lifestyle & mini-civilization that works for everyone. We do have some occasionally-bad guy pirates - there will always be those - who will come by to wreak mild havoc now and then, but that's life on the verdurous planet. The people of this world are simple, ultra naive, and occasionally stupid, but most of them seem to have good hearts, which they believe is their strength. Society's fundamental morality now has become the sanctity of life, and one of the ethics of the story is what it means to be human, juxtaposed against the many machines they use, and the sea creatures which they will only kill for food.

Into this basically pacifistic mix comes a young soldier, Ledo, who has been thrown back in time through a wormhole, and winds up on this water planet. Everything is strange to him, including the language. He pilots an advanced computerized robot, which he calls Chamber, and which is for all intents and purposes an A.I. being, except it takes its orders from Ensign Ledo. Ledo must learn to adapt in the new world, for where he comes from, humans only have worth as warriors with no free time or private lives whatsoever. He finds everything in this civilization random, disorganized, and purposeless. He doesn't understand saving the weak, for in his reality, they are valueless and "culled out." Only the strong survive and have worth there, and that worth is judged by their battle expertise. They are at war with alien beings which resemble giant squid type things, and killing them is Ledo's and all his people's entire existence. Here, on the verdurous planet, he must come to understand relationships, helping the masses and the weak, getting a job that is not killing, and finding his heart. However, he discovers giant squid type creatures here on Earth that resemble the aliens he fought in space in his prior life; after his AI robot does a DNA analysis, he finds that the Earth squid and the space aliens he fought are the same creature, which provides a mystery element to this series. Ledo is sworn to killing all these creatures, which puts him at odds with the pacifistic Earth people. That conflict must ultimately be resolved.

Altogether, this is a simple and straightforward story which has many rich elements in it, not only visually, but in its story. The characters are diverse, and mostly normal, with some young females that are shown as pretty sexy in their bathing suits & bikini garb, just so one doesn't forget that beauty is still important even on the verdurous planet, but the creators don't make a big thing of it, it's just there to be appreciated; that's all there is in the way of fan service. The series and story do not overwhelm with many elements and sideline plots, rather "Gargantia ..." tells the one it started with beautifully, interestingly, and adeptly. I highly recommend it as a very pleasant and relaxing bit of entertainment.

The writing alone makes this show worth watching. It's a very interesting plot that blew my mind. The show also has good animation quality, decent voice acting, and excellent pacing/direction. Overall it's a great show, highly recommended!

I love a good anime that takes great effort to make believable and exciting mechs that actually add to the story line. Gargantia really hits the mark. They spend 80% of the episode time developing all of the major characters. Finally, in the later portion of the season, everything comes together in a captivating fight of ideals. I couldn't stop watching the last 3 episodes.

I really appreciated that they creators of this kept the plot focused on what it means to be human. They didn't try and go after 15 major plot lines, but rather stayed on one main story line to the very end.

Loved it!