Mugen no Ryvius

Readers who grew up watching Toonami and Adult Swim in the early 2000's are probably familiar with the fact that the anime mega-studio Sunrise put out a bunch of hit series in the mid-to-late 90's (Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, The Big O, and Cowboy Bebop to name a few). However, if there's one Sunrise series that didn't make it to TV outside of Japan (technically this excludes Escaflowne) that's definitely worth checking out it would probably be Infinite Ryvius (pronounced like: "Revi(se) Us").

Infinite Ryvius is a space opera that feels like a twist on Gundam but with a bit of The Lord of the Flies ... thrown in. The twist is that everything is reversed. Rather than centering the show's perspective on the pilots of the titular mech, this show follows the daily lives of the survivors, all children, living on the titular ship as they defend themselves from attacking ships while searching for safe harbor. It's main character, a far cry from a hero, is just some kid trying to keep it together while things fall apart around him. Even the Hobbesian themes of The Lord of the Flies are turned upside-down as the kids attempt to establish and re-establish law and order on the ship, often with horrifying results (really, IR is more of a political satire than Hobbesian fable).

The main characters of this show are a pretty "unlikeable" bunch: there's the MC who basically never does anything and almost might as well have stayed home, his brother a mega-edgelord who'd compel even Hiiro Yui to slap the shit out of him, the would-be hero who's obsessed with boinking his sister, and a bunch of girl characters who... just kinda really suck but in different ways I guess? Anime fans who are prone to complain about "unlikeable" characters or who can't deal with the cruel situations they create might want to steer clear of this one but as "unlikeable" as they may be the drama that plays out between them really held my interest and had me saying "just one more episode" again and again. I also enjoy the show's wacky minor characters who break up the melodrama like the girl who keeps misplacing parts of her lizard costume or the boy who has to abandon his clothes when his shower is interrupted by an evacuation order. The characters in this show would probably be awful in any other show, but IR does really well with them, I'll even admit that I genuinely have a soft spot for most of them.

In a lot of ways this is a show that probably would've never made to TV in the US, its very much a show for the true anime fans who can appreciate the way it plays with genre and character tropes. As for me, I definitely think Ryvius is worthy of being included amongst Sunrise's better known late-90's hits, a period where the mega studio's ambitions and creativity ran wild, and more than any other anime, it helped pave the way for future Sunrise productions like Gundam SeeD, s-CRY-ed, Planates, and Code Geass through its contributing staff members. As a score, a 9/10 might be slightly high, but I really enjoyed this series (OSTs really good too) and hope other people check it out.

This show is essentially "Lord of the Flies" on a spaceship combined with mecha fights. Children are trapped on a spaceship, attempt to form their own civilization, and fend off unknown enemies for as long as they can. As time goes on, their morale breaks down, and their civilization begins to crumble.

This show has the pieces to make something special: characters, setting, animation, and story, but average execution affected the overall result.

There are themes of forgiveness, standing up for what you believe in, and redemption, but some characters often go way beyond delinquent into straight up evil. By the end, I thought some characters ... were irredeemable and could not stand them anymore, even when they learned their wrongs. Having to watch a few of these insufferable characters was rough.

The overall plot felt underdeveloped, with me constantly questioning the motives of the outisde-ship villains, the Sphinx, and the Geduld phenomenon. While aspects can be left up to mystery just fine, other parts I felt were critical to become invested in the story. Therefore, with those parts being barely addressed, it made the situation feel less urgent and meaningful.

I did appreciate many scenes and character arcs that happened throughout the story, which is probably why i continued to watch all the way to the end. The shows does make you care about the main characters as they are constantly pushed to their mental limits.

The story takes a while to get going. The real meat of the emotional drama starts around episode 19. Had they kept that level of drama earlier, it would've made me more invested.

Animation, while hand drawn well, had a severe lack of variety of the ships and combat. All the colors were the same, and made it very difficult to follow along with the action.

Overall, a decent watch for space and sci-fi fans, but I don't see it as an underrated gem. If it were available on blu-ray, it would have to be at a big discount sale for me to pick it up.

I wish I could've liked this, really, I tried so hard to like this. The premise was kinda interesting and characters seeming had a story to them... But after 25 episodes of spiraling further and further into a pile of horse sh*t, the last episode did absolutely nothing in terms of conclusion. I've not much to say except don't bother with this. Not a single resolution you want to be made, is made. There is no fulfillment. Seriously. (As for specifics, spoilers below)


...Spoiler Warning...


The main character wasn't particularly bad. In all honesty there's a lot worse out there - take Future Diary's protagonist for example. ... So why in the ever-loving frICK does every single character have a problem with him? And noone really seems too bothered by the fact that his little brother keeps beating him up?? He even got shot by what was supposed to be his 'best friend' and I don't recall him ever apologizing after the fact either. This was just frustrating as hell to watch. MC never gets a chance to fight back because all the people around him are deluded and yet MC is criticized for always going along with everyone. What was he supposed to do? Take charge? Revolt? Then he'd probably get blamed regardless. Most likely by the same little brother who gets offended whenever MC breathes. Oh, and great conflict resolution on that relationship, because I definitely was glad that the tension I was most curious about got resolved OFF SCREEN. What's the point of all that set-up if nothing is ever actually addressed?

Final thing to complain about. So... final episode. If you watch 25 episodes of bad things getting worse, then you would expect some kind of resolution, right? Maybe we see how people dealt with the trauma of the event, how the public reacted, trials maybe, the children's families, ANY progress in that crappy romance? Nope. Instead, it's a timeskip and the brothers are apparently fine now for whatever reason and MC gets back on that ship. The very same one they were held hostage on, assaulted, attacked, harassed and manipulated on. I'm seriously baffled as to how they can act like everything is fine after all that was done. But I guess I shouldn't have had such high expectations going into this.

As a last takeaway: DO NOT watch this series if you don't like injustice, easily affected by negative situations or, if you don't want to suffer. It's not worth it.

TLDR; MC gets treated terribly for no reason and no conflict resolution. No satisfying conclusion whatsoever.