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I really don't understand what happened with this anime's ratings. All the reviews on the front page have rated it highly for good reason. I give it an 8.5, but I could understand someone rating it lower. However the current 6.8 is just grossly undeserved. After 70+ days of anime through MAL, I know what quality anime deserve a rating like this. For MAL standards, it's probably a 7.5 to an 8 at best.

In order to discuss potential turn-offs for other viewers, I have to mention my two favorite aspects of this anime. The first is the politics. The storyline is motivated by political intrigue ... between nations. The story jumps into convoluted scheming, and the writing can move over explanations relatively quickly. The viewer may find themselves left behind if they aren't paying attention. It reminds me a bit of game of thrones, only without the gruesome deaths and sexuality, if you can imagine that.

The other aspect is the world-building. It's a medevial meditteranean/arabic setting. Such a setting is rather unusual as far as anime go; the world of magi would make a good comparison here. As a part of the political intrigue, the character necessarily travels around. I absolutely loved discovering the world, seeing the various cities and learning about their lifestyles. It's a bit like early One Piece where the crew is visiting very different islands—only not as extravagantly unique, as only One Piece can be.

So here's the problem: The downside to the worldbuilding is that a lot of the names and labels are foreign. There are no "princes" or "lords;" there are pashas and prenses and kulaks, with weird names like Mahmut, Kuluch, or Torqye. These unusual words only compound the complexity of the political narrative, and overall the anime can be hard to latch onto if you're just in it for looking for a quick hook. You may have to rewind a few seconds on sentences you didn't understand, or may find yourself confused at some of the references to some sultanlu you can't remember.

***If you know you're someone who likes in-your-face appeal, where are your drama is read on each character's facial expression, a hot girl or flirting and wondering which couple to ship, or supernatural action, this anime is not going to deliver these for you.***

Being from studio MAPPA, it reminds me a bit of Rage of Bahamut: Genesis (not Virgin Soul), specifically in that it doesn't do anything new, but it's a clean product and a fun watch if you enjoy the more modest storytelling. I personally appreciate breaking away from some of the overdramatized cliches.

I docked -1 point for being overly contrived, although that's probably in part because they move the story so fast and don't have time to develop organic progression, and another half point for not having a great wow factor, not doing anything new.

Oh, and while it is contrived, the pacing nevertheless felt really good to me. The story does mini time skips (a couple days to a couple weeks) in order to maintain focus on a proactive plot. You'll never look back on an episode and feel like nothing happened, like your attention span is being fed bread crumbs to keep watching. I personally love anime written this way. But for those accustomed to lengthy flashbacks or slowing down to wring drama out of an event, this might actually be a turn off, so fair warning.

Welcome to my candid review. This is an adventure anime with elements of fantasy and tinged roughly equally with moments of light humor and dark violence. The first episode focuses only on humor and is NOT like the remainder of the anime, which is actually much more serious.

There isn't much complexity to this anime. It's fairly straightforward, blunt in its character design and writing, with standard-fare switch ups between serious and lighthearted episodes, young characters, as well as delivering a measured rather than ambitious plot, overall making it a simple anime that would fit kids well. The catch to this anime is that for all ... its simple design, it has enough violence to coat it in mature tones as well.

The anime is at a crossroad between many different styles. Due to its lack of specific style it will probably deliver moments that you absolutely have no interest in, but other moments that will tug you along just enough to keep watching.

It's a nice anime, nothing amazing. If you find yourself not liking it, don't force yourself to continue watching. Just note that the anime doesn't really settle in until after episode 3.

This anime requires a distinction between fans of the FF7 universe and those who aren't. For those who aren't, I'd rate it around 5-7 depending on how strict you are with your anime quality. There's simply no way the plot of FF7 can be communicated while developing a whole new story on top of it all in one show. The flaws of the anime don't help much either. The dialogue is withheld, like they are reluctant to speak more than a few lines in a conversation; at times, it's derivative. The characters are entirely unexplained and many of them only have cursory entrances. The ... action involving Cloud and Tifa is solid, but the rest of the original cast of characters from the video game seem to solely exist in order to make a friendship cameo rather than any sensible contribution -- a cameo which newcomers will entirely miss out on and not be so forgiving for why it looks superficially underwhelming.

If you are a fan, this anime is at least an 8 (and I am strict). It's clearly fan service for us, but it's absolutely worth a watch because your familiarity with the universe will fill in the gaps in lore and quality. Several times I had goosebumps watching, especially towards the end. Seeing the characters in "real-time" action like you always imagined while playing is totally bad ass, and the fights play out just as strong as you felt in the game.

However, no matter who you are, it's definitely an upgrade over the previous Advent Children. It's worth watching this version even if you've already seen the original. There're new plot developments that add closure to all the loose ends in the original that you won't want to miss.

Although this anime seems like a typical high school setting, don't just it by the first episode. Mature tones, well-rounded character cast, and intelligent script quickly move in. The genre tag of "Thriller" is highly appropriate. There are several quite thrilling moments where the characters are all juxtaposed in tense situations and not necessarily predictable outcomes. There is also a real philosophical/moral aspect to the anime, so viewers who appreciate this might enjoy finding ways to relate Zankyou no Terror to real-life dilemmas. The script and characters are extremely well done and make such philosophical conjecturing plausible. In spite of the action one might expect ... of a "terrorist" anime, this anime has no action to offer. It's more of a philosophical, thrilling anime.

The biggest con for the anime is the series length. The first 3-4 episodes begin quite ambitiously; if you laid all the pieces on the board after episode 3-5, it's quite exciting how much potential this dynamic story could achieve. The problem is there isn't really enough time to develop a story of such complexity to do the complexity of all the characters justice. The result is an anime that has moments of thrilling suspense, but also equal or more moments of standard anime plot moving forward in order to draw all the complicated pieces to a conclusion in timely fashion.

8/10 because the highs are nice to appreciate, and the "average" parts pass quickly in such a short anime. If you can appreciate a modest philosophical anime, or are easily thrilled, you'll probably enjoy Zankyou no Terror. My score is based on this kind of viewer. If you're looking for an ambitiously complex anime, you'll be disappointed; this anime is not long enough for that. Otherwise you'll probably find it fairly average.

PS: Moments of English occur in the anime. The voice acting has a noticeable accent. I've heard much worse in anime, but the flawed accents do detract from the ambiance of the anime (subtitles are still present though). Personally, I didn't knock points because I appreciated they attempted to be authentic, which is what an anime should aim for, but fair warning to the rest of you.

Kill la Kill is a great example of a fan-service anime that proves that superficial themes can still display high-quality artistic skill in its presentation. If you enjoy these themes, then have no shame--this anime will rock your world! If you don't enjoy these themes, then don't watch this with high expectations. If you absolutely can't stand them, then don't watch this anime.

Satire's review discussed more thoroughly than I can the nature of the fan-service in this anime. The anime centers around overpowered students, gratuitous female sexualization, and appeals to common adolescent themes like rebelliously struggling against authority (parents, school, the ... world). Kill la Kill throws these around so much that it's taken to almost unashamed levels. While the abundant ecchi is often given a comical spin, it's a thinly-veiled attempt to downplay the fact that this anime is mostly fan-service. Kill la Kill adopts so many cliché fan-service elements that the actual content ends up being, well...cliché fan-service.

Kill la Kill's greatest quality lies in how incredibly well it consolidates and delivers these cliché elements. In a brilliant fan-service adaptation, they satisfy the ever-shorter attention spans of anime's largest audience by distilling the most popular fan-service themes and removing superfluous ones that may dilute the viewing experience. It accomplishes this with a refreshingly unique artistic style that is very in your face and honest in its intentions (its bluntness reminded me of Quentin Tarantino movies). While this leaves little complexity for the contemplative viewer, the anime is extremely easy to watch. The characters á la Gurren Lagann don't hold back and will dive right into the anime, pulling you along with it for an intense ride with no time to cool down. Ultimately, Kill la Kill removes a lot of the extraneous "fluff" and focuses on barraging the viewer unrelentingly with a balanced, fan-service-themed mixture of quality action, drama, and comedy in every single episode.

Therefore, if you enjoy gratuitous action, strong adolescent characters, ecchi sexualization, typical anime comedy and a revenge plot that offers little in the way of complexity, then this is probably going to be a fan-service dream come true for you because Kill la Kill does a fantastic job weaving these together. I usually hate these, but even coming in with such bias, I was still impressed with just how well the creators delivered them cohesively with a unique flair in their stylistic presentation. I would recommend Kill la Kill to anyone, with the caveat that this anime panders to a specific audience, and as such, viewers should temper their expectations accordingly.

Setting:

Suisei no Gargantia is set in a futuristic world where humanity survives in space, locked in an all-out war with an alien species called the Hidiazu, deadly squid-like aliens. Without a home planet of their own, and as the war has become increasingly more desperate, civilization has transformed into a militaristic society that eschews personal luxuries in favor of utmost efficiency, naming itself the Galactic Alliance of Humankind. "Liabilities," such as disabled persons, are euthanized; human reproduction is allowed only under government permission; families are separated at birth and contact never reestablished; and support of an organized military hierarchy given utmost emphasis. ... Total efficiency and removal of elements of lifestyle deemed unnecessary for basic human survival is a common theme in this series.

When one of the interstellar soldiers, our main character Ledo, crashes through a wormhole to land on Earth, this ideal of absolute efficiency becomes called into question. With Ledo stranded in a foreign world with no apparent quick prospect of returning home, he is forced to come to terms with the current residents of Earth, who live a lifestyle completely opposite to that of the Galactic Alliance of Humankind. They strain themselves only as much as they need to survive and spend the rest of their time doing whatever pastime they find most enjoyable; none of their day is under organized supervision. They function in large communities of interlocked naval ships, as this futuristic Earth has become a planet completely covered in Ocean. The citizens of this world have no knowledge of their space brethren or any extent of their own history, and this lost knowledge has resulted in a technology very primitive in comparison to the Galactic Alliance's. (It's more in line with our technology as we know it today, albeit their world is still completely different than our own--there are no cars, for example, because they live on the ocean).

My Opinion:

For the viewer, we are presented two contrasting lifestyles, developed through the perspective of the main character as he tries to find value in an inefficient lifestyle while simultaneously learning to critique his own upbringing. Because Ledo is a newcomer into society, the transition of explaining the world feels very natural, as we viewers are able to discover this futuristic Earth along with Ledo. Although a common theme is this debate between the merits of absolute efficiency or enjoying the pleasures of an impractical lifestyle, don't get your hopes up for a deep philosophical journey. The anime's focus feels more about telling a story rather than hammering home a meaningful lesson.

It's first few episodes foreshadow a darker side to the anime, but much of the early episodes are spent on this story-telling, and the anime feels very much like a slice-of-life, where not much happens except for dialogue to present the characters. Despite this, the anime changes pace in the second half, and we are left only really having established strong development with the main character. I felt the merits in the anime were the interesting setting and story, and I had little connection to anyone besides the main character.

As the story unfolds, we begin to explore the nature of the conflict with the Hidiazu and reasons for the Galactic Alliance's existence. This provokes some thoughtful questions for the viewer about our own course of action with developing technologies today or in the near-future. Unfortunately, this development stops short of providing some sort of didactic or thoughtful message for the viewer, which left me feeling a little disappointed. It almost felt like the anime ran out of time to be able to go further into this aspect.

Finally, the "feel" of the anime was a little divided to me, which I touched upon in the last two paragraphs. The first half of the anime has a very slice-of-life feel, and character development takes place at the expense of plot development. The second half of the anime delves into plot development, but it rotates in new characters at the same time--so the character development from before is largely no longer relevant! Admittedly, this may have still worked out fine had the anime been longer than 13 episodes, but when supporting characters are only becoming apparent or relevant halfway through 13 episodes, it's hard to find time to really build any cohesion between the character cast. Ultimately, this division of styles felt mismanaged to me. It's like the pacing was set for a 26 episode anime, as so many aspects feel quite underdeveloped after 13 episodes.

In summary: Suisei no Gargantia has an interesting story, changes its genre rapidly from slice-of-life to very serious and has ambiguous character development.

Art:

I'm not a good judge for art, so I won't put my opinion here.

Music:

The music had a nice track. The broad nature of the anime meant that it had the opportunity to show its versatility for a variety of situations, from frustrated tears of friendship, to epic battles, anguish over a sad past and embarking on an adventure. I felt its implementation was rather obtuse, namely in that it was a little over dramatic for whatever scene it was trying to portray. Still, building a scene is more than just music, so it's not fair to place all of the fault on the music for that. I felt the music by itself was enjoyable and appropriate.

Overall: 6

Suisei no Gargantia as some moments of highs that feel very good. It opens some interesting questions through its refreshing and unique plot. Besides this strong backstory, there's not a whole lot to talk about. Its presentation and pacing weren't very conducive to a 13-episode anime. It stops short of really exploring the potential for a meaningful message; at the same time, it also suffers from underdeveloped characters. It felt like the anime couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a meaningful, deep anime or if it wanted to go with slice-of-life, so it gave a half-job of both. If you like both styles of anime, then you may enjoy Suisei no Gargantia very much; otherwise, be prepared to find half of the episodes boring. From a more optimistic perspective, if you've got nothing better to do with your time, you are likely to find half of the episodes quite entertaining.

I think this is an anime that would stand to benefit very much from a second season, so it could have more time to explore the huge space for potential it has, which could go a long way to shoring up the all-too-brief development it's presented over 13 episodes.