(1st episode is a 42-minute special)
What’s it about ?
In the future, Earth (?) is under assault from interdimensional kidnappers in giant mecha. In response, the authorities have set up their own mecha response forces, segregated by gender. Also, a good number of people seem to possess random superpowers.
Characters
Amata, our protagonist, projectionist at the local theater. (Business isn’t great, what with people staying at home to avoid the random mass kidnappings.) He’s a fanboy of a very cheesy 10-year-old movie he keeps projecting… and he sounds like he knows the main actress personnally. His superpower is that he starts flying whenever he gets excited (he weighs his shoes down with lead to avoid the embarrassment).
Mikono, our female lead. Amata finds her crying during his favourite movie’s projection, and it’s tepid romance at first sight. She spends most of her screentime either panicked or crying.
Cayenne (prophetic visions of DOOM) and Zessica (some sort of force attacks ?) are regular pilot of the mecha defense forces trying to fend off yet another attack… until Amata suddenly flies himself and Mikono into another mecha, and forces all of them to unite into a giant flying combining mecha ; despite the confusion they all manage to stall the attackers enough to send them retreating.
Nobody seems to have much of a clue why this happened, aside from the top general of the defense forces (who repeatedly refuses to provide any exposition for the benefit of his colleagues), and a dude with an eyepatch who gets to spout vague nonsense in random locations without any indication of who the heck he is.
Production Values
This episode screams “we have BUDGET !”, and may be slightly too much in love with its CG animation. Still, it’s impressive stuff.
The soundtrack comes courtesy of Yoko Kanno, although I’m not sure whether this is one of her lesser efforts or the bizarre editing just does it a disservice.
Overall Impression
This is a complete mess. It completely lost me 7 minutes in, when it became clear that piloting mecha was a blatant metaphor for sex (“it feels so good !” “Us pure maidens uniting with a man ? Ew !”). The incessant tone shifts, haphazard pacing and bland characters don’t help one bit. And once you get past the shock and awe of the production values, you’re left with a very pedestrian story that piles on the clichés without bringing anything new to the table.
Also, the protagonist is yet again played by Yuki Kaji, whose whiny voice is a sure means to make any action lead sound like an annoying loser. Yeah, no thanks.
