Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari

This is a hard series to describe. You can tell from the designs, premise and characters that this is a blatant Eva ripoff. Similar looking robots battle giant enemies, and the MC is surrounded by a tsundere piloting a red robot and a kuudere piloting a blue robot. There's even an older love interest that's a parallel for Misato. Except the MC has no trouble getting into the robot. And he's good at his job. And the girls actually want him. And the tsundere is mentally stable and makes a good housewife. And the kuudere is able to bond with her found family. Instead of ... the angsty introspection, parental issues, and childhood trauma, we have humor and some actual bonding between the characters via a good helping of slice of life scenes, as the MC lives in the same house as his harem. Then on top of all this there is the parallel world premise, wherein the most they did with this was including the parallel version of the tsundere in his harem as well. Now that is truly next level harem antics. Anyway, they could've done more with the concept but it was an interesting and unique element nonetheless.

I tolerate the harem shenanigans at best. I would be more OK with harems if they didn't insist on having an average at best guy at the center of it who just attracts ladies by being nice. But looking past that, because this is anime and there's always BS like this, I did enjoy the decent helping of slice of life parts since they fleshed out the characters and forged the relationships. The robots here don't have to rely a power cord and aren't forced to deal with the monster of the week through gimmicks, so we see them maneuver around more and win through choreography, which I appreciated. I also greatly appreciated that the series usually didn't take itself seriously. It's the type of series where the enemy films TV specials announcing the time and place of their next attack to give people time to evacuate, and our heroes are allowed to surrender without harm at any point. The antagonists aren't really that evil either; even they get involved in some of the comedy and are humanized.

In terms of character personalities the MC is your standard harem lead and the girls in his harem aren't much more than their tropes either but the screentime given to them and the comedy makes it all decent enough. And again, during that screentime I had to overlook a lot of the harem shenanigans like the girls being jealous of one another over this average dude.

As the second half comes on the series starts taking itself more seriously and utilizing its parallel world premise more, which provided a level of intrigue and compelling storytelling that I didn't expect from it. So yeah, it's not all SOL harem shenanigans and comedy either. Thankfully they didn't go too far with the dramatics as anime series are wont to do when they try to take themselves too seriously. My one issue with this part is that D.'s backstory is rushed and poorly explained. Overall, though, I like where things ended, which themselves are reminiscent of the hypothetical world that Shinji imagined at the end of NGE.

Unironic Review about the plot, art & sound and Character development.

NTS: Picked this anime series up from a random isekai related recommendation post on reddit. Didn't expect much from this series considering it was an older mecha series (they tend to have basic plot progression and characters), and I watched unironically oblivious to the Evangelion parody. Despite being a fairly basic plot structure and generic harem character palette, this series was actually fairly interesting to watch. Let's get into why!

Story:
We are given an immature, pre-prepubescent nerd that is able to see large mecha fight and destroy his surroundings without affecting his world; thanks to ... the opening scene with a mysterious artifact that most likely split the interaction with it into two different worlds (like a butterfly effect) Nonetheless, this teen male picks up a popular, high in demand chick who seems interested in him till he meets her old man, a mad scientist - Long story short he finds himself in the dystopian parallel world as a result of the ancient artifacts. His job in the parallel world is to draw an end to the war as soon as possible so that both worlds experience peace (also to stop his mecha hallucinations).

My thoughts on the series:
I felt that despite trying to stay exclusive to the mecha genre, this series fails to develop a structured narrative by the end of 13 episode (I didn't bother watching the special) It is a debatable claim however, I really wasn't grasping a powerful narrative apart from the 'save both worlds' mindset - Not the worst but not innovative especially considering it relies on mecha and similar human figured robots to develop the plot. As such, I will be rating this series a fair 7/10 in terms of plot.

Art & Sound:
1999, a fairly well aged series in terms of animation and music. I enjoyed the main theme that played in between key events in the series but that was about it, most of the music played were fairly generic - Art style to me was fairly average especially for the date it was made in. As such, a generous rating of 6/10 will be given for art & sound.

Character:
In terms of character development, I'd say all of the side characters as well as the FMC (female main character) had most of the major changes in this series. All the female characters in the harem have more power individually over the MC even at the end of the series - This is fairly ironic considering MC is the person that shines in his mecha on the battlefield. Not a fan of this but atleast it didn't dwell on fan service such as other known mecha series.
I'd rate this series a 6/10 in terms of character development, not the best but definitely well needed improvement in character development for the MC .

Enjoyment:
I was fairly discouraged in the first half of the series because I felt the plot was intentionally being forced to progress - It happened quite fast this way which is why I wasn't as emotionally connected to the characters. Nonetheless the ending definitely didn't disappoint seeing everyone in a good mood is a better ending than a series that kills off characters for 'plot progression'. As an older series, I'd say there needs to be a higher threshold for leniency because most of the mecha plots weren't innovative or unique, so I'd rate this series a solid 8/10 in terms of enjoyment, beginning started off a bit rushed but was on the right track and entertaining by episode 6/7.

Overall: 7/10

Story: 6/10
Art & Sound: 7/10
Character: 6/10

I watched this show at the suggestion of anime guru DigiBro on youtube. Some spoilers contained: And this show indeed has parallels (see what I did there) to Evangelion. It takes a completely different direction however. Instead of gritty action, tear shedding drama, an amazing score, brilliant animation and strong characters we get.... lackluster battle sequences with obvious plot tricks to have the main character fight his girlfriends, entirely muted drama under no circumstances is there ever a strong feeling of danger, the sound is actually serviceable or maybe I am just getting convinced by the fact that it seems to be an advertisement for ... pioneer, the animation is fair to horrible depending on which sequences you analyze but certainly those CGI scenes where the mechs leave the hanger are like mid 1990's fallout 1/2 cutscene level at best, and they would look better hand drawn, lastly: the characters are weak. I will elaborate a little bit: take for example the main character he is just generic, I figure that like any bland or generic character who takes the spotlight we are supposed to somehow feel like we are in his place because he is bland or generic enough to be any male of his age... None of the characters are given proper development, backstory, or are even clearly defined other than just using cliches when they realized that they hadn't given these animated creations a life of their own. For example in the last episode which is called Special on here, really its episode 14, Professor Sanada mentions: "You know how D is..." like what how does anyone know how D is? She is entirely blank with little to no development she is a completely deprecated version of Rei. Rei on the other hand while cold and difficult to understand did have some backstory and the way that she would act in a situation would be clear to anyone who watched Eva, as it was clear that she is loyal and would follow orders to a tee even at her own health's expense if it was for someone she cared about (Episode 1 when she tries to pilot unit 1 because Gendo asked her to, and End of Evangelion when she cares more about Shinji than Gendo so she rejects him and helps Shinji decide the outcome of instrumentality through introspective questioning). None of the characters get any serious thought in Dual Parallel Adventure. They revert to the typical shounen troupes--which Eva does as well to be fair-- i.e: with Mitsuki Sanada displaying some tsundere afffection for our plain jane protagonist, especially when it seems she is being displaced or her position is being threatened by outsiders (Mitsuki Rara, Yayoi, D..?). Having been penned by Masaki Kajishima who also made Tenchi Muyo, we should expect similar lack of depth and overtly silly harem elements which do make quite the appearance. Ironically I would accuse Evangelion of positing the harem for Shinji as well but it makes up for its trope use with clever manipulations such as the scene where Shinji falls on Rei but he doesn't get slapped to the moon, but instead they awkwardly act like nothing happened because that would be more realistic. The highlight of the entire show is those tug at your heart string moments when things are going well between Mitsuki Sanada and Kazuki; finally they get a chance to date, and she teases the hell out of him even randomly tickling him before they almost awkwardly kiss but don't *sigh*. Anyway of course the distance between these two increases as the harem comes back when they travel back to the other dimension again, and inexplicably she is captured so she is still the focus for a little bit, but the following battle is a direct duplicate of an earlier one in which the other Mitsuki (Rara) became mind controlled to do her mother's bidding. The ending is horrible which I figure is actually episode 13, with 14 just being an extension that serves no relevance or purpose. We don't see any more romance and the characters have now all been bonded as family although I don't think that will stop Kazuki from eventually impregnating Mitsuki. Yea I went there. Anyway its decent enough to watch with the understanding that it is like a B movie, but don't expect anything spectacular.