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I don't understand how almost everyone thinks of this series so highly. I'm sorry, but I just don't agree. It's good at best, in my eyes. I'm going to break this review down into three sections: plot, art, and execution.

Firstly, plot: The basic premise is that it's a serious and horrific spin on the "kid pilot of a giant robot" subgenre of mecha. Very much grounded in realism, it attempts to show what "real" kids (of a variety of ages between 10 and 14, remember this for later) would do if given the power to pilot a giant destructive mecha in a battle to decide ... the fate of the Earth. There's one catch: win or lose, the pilot dies either way as the mecha uses up the life force of the pilot, which is why it needs about 15 pilots for the 15 battles against Evangelion-esque enemies it will take to save the Earth for good. The manga goes into detail to show each child's story leading up to their fight and sometimes the aftermath of their fight, but not often as each pilot chosen is our gateway into that part of the story. Not only do the children have to deal with their group getting smaller as the fights go on, but being thrust from innocence into a world where death is very real and the end of the world is a reality of failure. Each child has a different coping mechanism, and each has their own pre-story baggage when coming into the manga. This can be anything from a missing parent, not living life as fully as they liked, being too selfish, and being victim of a paedophile teacher. You read that correctly, and I'll expand on this is the execution section.

Secondly, artwork: The art is hit or miss for me and it's clear to see what the artist wished to draw and what they didn't. Some background are awash with white and little to no detail, while others are sprawling and intricate cityscapes with fine lines which define the smallest of detail. Equally impressive are the scenes where the mecha "Zearth" fires 50,000 lasers in a single picture. Less impressive are the blank character expressions on near every character to the point you cannot tell who is speaking in a scene because everyone has their mouths closed. I swear, there's even a panel where the main character is 80% covered by the speech bubble. On the subject of speech bubbles, I realise that this is a translation so not exact to the original, and also doesn't conform to Western standards. But you will have trouble working out who is speaking. The bubbles often do not connect to a character and character placement within a scene can be confusing in relation to the text.

Lately, execution: Sigh, I wanted to like this. That's why I sought it out. A story of horror involving a mecha was what I searched for and this sounded great. However, it seemed to fall flat in the execution. I did like that each pilot got their turn in the spotlight and that they acted as a window to their part of the tale. I don't think it managed to really capture what children would do in their situation, so much as it showed what an adult thinks a child would do in their situations. Children as young as 10 being resigned to the fact that they are going to die no matter what should no do so so calmly. Only one child truly reacts to the situation as a child would and is killed for it as the reality of what happens should they abandon the fight dawn upon the others. One of the other kids simply slits his throat without so much as an expression on her face. It all begins to feel gratuitous. The story has an element of adultification of children in it that left me feeling rather uncomfortable. It wasn't so much the sexual relationship between a child and teacher, which ends in her pregnancy, although that did leave me feeling ill. It was the non-plus rationalisation of the relationship that the teacher gives after the fact. It's the fact he's never really held accountable. It reminds me of the "Romeo and Juliet laws" in Transformers: Extinction. Like, my dude, why are you normalising sex with children in a story about giant robots?! This one scene aside, there is another where a kid is caught having sex with a grown man by Zearth. No one bats an eye. Everyone's reactions in the whole thing seem either muted or deadpan with rare moments of emotional outburst. It's hard for me to invest in characters who seem as robotic as the mecha.

In conclusion, more attention to the art, a little extra care when editing, and going back to look again at the emotions of characters and making sure that they fit the scene was badly needed and could have elevated this to a place where I agree with most folks giving it 9 or 10 ratings. But it doesn't and with the adultifcation of kids including the sexualisation of them being treated as normal, sorry, this one only gets a 7 from me and I'm even considering that too high and tempted to give it a 6.

So close to being perfect in my opinion. The plot is interesting and overarching, while remaining tight and tantalisingly just out of grasp. The artwork is some of the cleanest I've ever seen! Humour is interspersed alongside actual worldly knowledge and academic theory, which, while can take you out of the moment when a character suddenly starts theorising academia alongside an enemy, I found informative and enjoyable and part of the fun being that the mangaka and their editor are made characters in the story and interact with the main cast often. Even saving their lives.
But, some characters still felt like they are there ... to fulfil a purpose, and as such are more agents of advancing the plot rather than believable people. Maya (for example) starts off as a badass fem-fatale and undercover spy, but quickly devolves into a "damsel in distress", even going so far as cooking and cleaning for the "bad guys". This is after the male lead has sex with her, of course. Maya then goes from constant captive to being "fridged" in order to motivate our hero, Mikado, into his final form.
Males in this are almost always some variant of the "crouching moron, hidden badass" trope, with the hidden bad-ass usually some alpha male power fantasy, from modern samurai to literally turning men (and like three women) into animals (sort of). So not huge on sex equality, although it does have moments.
Why isn't this a 10? Aside from everything I've mentioned (both good and bad), right at the penultimate moment, there's a time skip to Tokyo from the Jungles of South America. It serves no purpose. The very next thing the protagonists do is grab the "bad guy" and take him back to South America to face Mikado in the fight they would have had before the time skip any way.

I honestly don't get the appeal. Take your standard magical girl show including a monster of the week, nude transformation and colour coded costumes and throw in some mild parody and self-awareness and you've got this show.

The plot is contained in three episodes- the very first and the last two. Literally every other episode is a monster of the week basic plot with goofy looking monster designs and equally goofy dialogue. Rest assured though, the heroes who I'm never completely sure are parodying their character type or just ARE their character type will show up and stock footage transform into The Battle Lovers and ultimately ... defeat the monsters with more stock footage.

I thought the designs interesting at first until realising they're literally just gender-swapped standard magical girl outfits. Even their codenames are rocks and gems to parody Sailor Moon. In fact, half-assed naming conventions are the core humour of this show.

The music and art are the saving graces of this otherwise painfully average show that seems to have gotten a high score as it's boys instead of magical girls. That's the premise, that's the joke and it barely ever goes beyond that.