(12 episodes)
What’s it about ?
In the near future, random terrorism has become such a problem that there’s now an academy devoted to training mercenaries from elementary school onwards.
Characters
Kinji, our high school boy protagonist. While he spends most of the episode whining about wanting to quit the mercenary school, he suffers from a bizarre medical condition that alters his behaviour to one of a cliché action hero when he gets to excited. Anyway, on his way to school he discovers someone planted a bomb on his bicycle, and he’s stalked by killer Segways. He’s saved at the last minute by…
Aria, aka the standard Rie Kugimiya-voiced tsundere loli. The variation here is that, like nearly every character in this setting, she’s armed to the teeth. (How does she hide those katanas behind her back ? They’re taller than her torso !) She makes her entrance by parachuting off a skyscraper in a scene that was probably meant to look cool but just ends up making no sense whatsoever.
Shirayuki, Kinji’s “friend” who does all his domestic chores for him, in the hopes he’ll take the hint. (He doesn’t.)
We get to see a few more characters at school, but none of them rise above the usual stereotypes for now. There’s even a teacher who spends all his screentime delivering a lecture describing the setting to students who presumably already know all this stuff.
Production Values
Some decent action sequences, but the most striking thing here is the rampant fanservice, with every single girl being heavily sexualized and our protagonist landing into more chests than reasonable.
Also, gun porn. Lots of gun porn.
Overall Impression
What the heck is this shit ?
The writers probably find it clever to have the protagonist complain at length about the premise. It’s not ; it’s just bloody irritating and makes me loathe him. His plot-convenient MPD and the harem hijinks don’t help one bit.
Some people might get some entertainment from crazy shit such as the killer Segways, but this kind of manufactured zaniness just rubs me the wrong way. Avoid.
