Egao no Daika

This is a great anime about mechas & war in general. One of the best actually. The creators of this show for some reason tried to market it as a some kind of Macross-like drama, while it is anything but. For the same reason the low overall score - mecha fans can't find this anime(or dismiss it as being different genre), and teary shoujo-drama fans are dissapointed that this show doesn't have (or barely have) what they were looking for.

The story overall is interesting but it is not what makes this anime so great. It is the mecha fights & war story.

The mecha fighting in ... this anime is great for those reasons:
1) There is actual tactics being used & characters have to utilize their mecha functionality to win. No "love/friendship/loss" power spikes, no self-aware mechs, none of that. If you are outplayed, you die (or eject if lucky). No ammo = you die. Bad luck = you die. You break the line even for good reason - you, and possibly your squad die too.
2) There is no MC bias or something like that. Characters around main heroines die left and right, just as in real war. This makes this anime WAYYY more mature drama, than those teary ones where MC "saves the day & all his friends with the power of friendship". Here, no such powers. Only your mech and your piloting skills for everyone.
3) The sides are mostly evenly matched in the war, so we see losses & wins on both sides. Unlike for example Aldnoah: Zero , where MC's team almost always wins with no losses.It is interesting to see the war unfold.

Also, the characters are surprisingly mature & act rationally. There are some comedic reliefs - but even they are felt like a cracked dark joke by somebody who are due to charge enemy lines in 1 minute and have 99% chance of dying in that attack.

Do not want to spoil anything, but the ending is thought-provoking and while feels somewhat rushed leaves a very good overall memory.

Overall 10/10 - If you like mecha & also dislike the "power of friendship" and "MC always wins" tropes, this anime is a must watch.

The Price of Smiles focuses on two young women living on a distant planet with both their kingdoms at war. The first, Yuki, is the princess of the kingdom of Soleil and national symbol following the loss of her parents, who has an idealistic belief in wanting the best for everyone while oblivious to the true reality of war. The second, Stella Shining, is a soldier within the Grandiga Army attempting to find purpose in her life after having been raised as an orphan and has difficulty expressing her true emotions to others due to her rough upbringing.

To start things, I'll just say first impressions ... with this series can be a bit misassuming. The first episode has you believe this may be a light-hearted mecha series with the typical story setup it establishes with Yuki's character and I've read that this has led some folks to not watch the series beyond this point as a result. The Price of Smiles isn't afraid to explore how harsh the realities of war can be. While the series explores how both kingdoms have justification to fight in their war, it shows both sides committing morally questionable acts to accomplish their goals and the series isn't afraid to kill off major characters to emphasize this. It also shows that having the more capable mecha within the series can mean squat as Grandiga's greater numbers for their armies are occasionally shown to overwhelm Soleil in spite of their superior technology. Plus, idealism isn't always a good thing to have in a brutal conflict such as war, which Yuki is painfully shown to realize throughout this anime's 12-episode run.

As far as the storytelling for the series goes, it has its ups and downs. Yuki and Stella serve as the focus characters for each side of the war to explore how their kingdoms are faring. The series does a solid job showing off the justifications both sides have in their conflict and that the characters focused on in both factions are not irredeemable. Stella's character focus was largely solid in exploring her rough upbringing and shown to undergo gradual development as she comes to develop bonds with her brigade members and finds purpose for herself. Yuki's character focus is more weaker as the series chooses to still have her stick to her idealist beliefs throughout the series in spite of the hardships of war she is confronted with and makes her feel quite out of place in the story that Price of Smiles is going for. The ending for the series also felt both a bit rushed and rather anti-climactic in how it addresses both a certain element of Stella's past and how the war gets ultimately resolved in spite of hints to this direction being alluded to. In addition, the series can get fairly heavy-handed in how it expresses its themes at points and this could potentially turn off viewers who hate this approach to storytelling.

In short, Price of Smiles offers a mostly solid, though somewhat flawed, series that takes some creative risks with bucking a number of the typical cliches of a mecha war series in exploring the realities of war and exploring how the focus characters withing both kingdoms cope with these realities. Personally, I felt Stella's developments with the series were better handled than Yuki's and I do realize this series is likely to not be everyone's cup of tea with the rather mediocre first episode and the heavy-handed approach to handling its themes. Still, I'd at least recommend sampling the first few episodes of the series to see if it's something you may have interest in watching the entirety of.

Generic Shounen-ish feels this time, embodied in female mc in a fantasy-sci-fi and military genre. Contains cliche moments where triggers are not pulled at crucial moments. Heck the only reason I finished till the end is cuz it's one of the very few sci-fi genre not focused much on mecha ace 1v1/showcase fights and has giant battleships that uses artillery weapons (fire sounds) instead of plasma/lasers.

For story setting, it did well on portraying each sides (kinda the feels of there's no necessarily good or bad sides in war just bunch of jerks and terrible decisions

Overall some may find it to their liking but ... to those who hates too much "let's pick flowers and sing kumbaya together" ideals, you might find yourself wanting to punch the characters on the screen. You will either find it not bad if you're still into typical fantasy/shounen-ish genre like Is it wrong to pick up girls in a Dungeon (sorry, was not able to find similar feels with female mc), or very terrible (reads as annoying) if your taste is contemporary fantasy like Kumo desu ga and Kuma Kuma (29-5-22)