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Sep 11, 2017
[no spoilers except general direction]
[not a show to watch for so-bad-it's-good, except the CG jitters]
Plot:
The main war involves two factions, Green Frontier vs Jesas in Japan. They aren't the only factions, but both are major nuclear waste disposal companies. Jesus operates independently of Japan & causes growing political tension. Due to global warming, land is scarce and their earth cities are mostly submerged.
Start of a few episodes like ep2 & 7 have a clearer recap of events & war politics. The awful tropes in ep1 between the main pilot pair quickly vanish by ep2, after a 1 week training timeskip. There's enough screentime of exploring
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both factions & it begins rather vague who is the actual 'villain' if there is one. It presents a more human take on war with growing technology & global warming as the setting.
Justice Force, UN & Japan are the other parties. The story, while taking a more unique pov, is unnecessarily complicated by extra parties that aren't well developed and connected. Fortunately they are largely irrelevant, and the conclusion gives closure to various characters, cowards & heroes alike. It's rare for 1-cours to spend such time with non-mc's, while having a real end, as this emphasizes humanity more than just hero fights.
Romance is lite with multiple ships.
There's demon, war, morality themes, but the obvious Christian theme is fairly light.
Art & animation:
CG is 2001 old. Mechs have safe designs, but move like small toys. The mc hero mechs move more naturally & have a bit of weight. CG humans take a lot to get used to, with jittering mocap, weird plastic/metal shading on cloth & hair, ugly mouth & occasional mesh intersections.
Buildings & mech designs don't give any low poly feel. Most have rounded edges with enough details.
But despite its age, it has some attention to detail, like biking in the rain has ripples & faint reflection on the road, or flowing sweat on faces. Eyes have minute motions that attempt at realism, and the soft smooth shadows on faces are much more palatable than the jaggy harsh shadows of cartoon CG like Berserk 2016. Trees in the many forest battles waver to mechs pushing through and strong wind.
Helmet designs blocking much of the face is unfortunate, and with hectic battle sfx, makes it difficult to know who's on screen talking to who. Also GP mechs have a blue-white pattern, while the Jesus pilot suits have a blue-white pattern, causing unneeded confusion.
Sound:
Video is quite old, but epic orchestral war themes still carry the drama through naturally. Some ambient osts & classy saxophone occasionally fill the politics.
Characters:
Jesus side:
Kazuto: A typical mc with growing AI powers (a rare prediction ability chosen pilots have), finding his own reasons for fighting & taking sides. He and two other male pilots like to travel on roadbikes. They're all normies which give usual romance some potential. Usually he fights terribly & gets injured often, but somehow (plot armor) powers thru. His dad is a mech engineer & there's a fair bit of parental relationship shown.
Kanna: A mostly nonviolent tsundere by ep2, able to talk sense into Kazuto. She is parentless & has an imouto, and travels by rollerblades at times.
GreenFrontier side:
Ken: interesting, logical antagonist. His dialogue is full of poetry, with artful flower bouquets behind him. A few gay comments are directed at Kazuto, and apparently liking mechs more than girls/Yu. He wants to develop Kazuto's full AI potential.
Yu: somewhat jealous at Ken's attraction to Kazuto, but she follows rules & is nice even to the enemy.
Side characters: The usual stormtrooper aim skills rain down harmless bullets. This makes many fights boring & frustrating to watch, like a one sided game. War atmosphere & pacing is intense, yet only mc's can hit anything. Many political heads & random characters did nothing for the plot.
Even if you dislike the art or plot, there's at least much (unintentional?) comedy to be found in how faction names are used and character relationships, and the Nana Mizuki song.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jan 7, 2017
"there's something wrong here" mercenary.
"Why are you floating?" Hiro.
Story/Character: Spectral Force hints at large world building of a generic fantasy multi racial war. Watch Nanatsu no Taizai for proper art & story, or Shingeki no Bahamut for epic multi racial battles. But this story isn't as terrible as the synopsis. Here demons aren't typical villains. Demon lord Janus wanted to sacrifice himself by sealing some op excalibur (called "this" by the purple hero) with his body. By removing the op sword he hoped the world becomes peaceful.
Hiro is the half daughter who hates humans but somehow has human mercenaries serving her. She's left with her
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father's mess. Somehow both demons & humans like to attack her.
Shirou/Harry Potter, a tiny mercenary becomes important to the plot. Everyone has natural or funny dubs, but his is the most hilarious. [spoiler] He later becomes a manslave for a noble cause.
Besides the dry war conflicts. Dialogue among mercenaries, Hiro & other races can be funny. And the strained family relations is somewhat interesting among Hiro, her oneesan, Janus, brother who was banished by Janus, which includes power struggle for the demon clan heir after Janus.
Art: ok. There's a few short combat shots with smooth animation.
Sound: ED & osts are fine, maybe the best part of this (dub the 2nd best). There's even some epic pipe organ.
You can watch Spectral Force Chronicle Divergence for more about the world with better art, but less animation. It seems a remake with similar scenes, but more boring plot cards, dry with no osts & no English subs now. If you'd like something blander, then Chronicle Divergence is the answer.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Nov 15, 2015
Story: As a game promo in the 90s, story is simple: save "ALITAAAA!!!!" with lots of name shouting. With 1 ep, it's concise & flows without many boring shots. There are many elements (probably from game world) that seem like plotholes. Dragon gives a vision, sudden multiple powerups, GATTAI!!?, huge misunderstandings since one can't speak, afterwards sudden telepathy ability now they can speak... Relationships are confusing: dragons don't like Empire ships, mc tries to save Empire survivors, Empire general gets "possesed"!? (he was sane before in the ship), mc thanks dragon, dragon more random power...
Art/Sound: animation above average for 90s, thanks to production IG. Combat
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has no lazy/reused motions. Dragons move naturally. Weird how many backgrounds are awful lowpoly CG. Good character designs (no huge bug eye), handsome males.
Sound: OP & ED 80s synthpop are good. English dub quite silly. JP va sounds ok (but no subs). ED 2nd song (only on English track) adagio vocal hymn was quite good (maybe Italian).
Overall: It's a short packed full of surprises. And considering the short time, the "romance" is better than many 1 cours.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 10, 2015
Show is awkwardly on the "so bad it's good" threshold. MCs are likeable with nice comedic moments. But overall it wasn't bad enough in a way to make the serious story unintentionally funny. I'm also left with an uncertainty whether I enjoyed it or not.
Story:
Main themes include human nature, pollution/environmental awareness, & feminism (only slightly about Guard of Rose). The story/message are simple, happy end, but presented in a convoluted, multi-party/betrayal/reconcilation way. Best watch it as a 90 minute film, to connect pieces from the rough & messy editing/directing. [MINOR SPOILER] For example, the MC team's crash land is interrupted by a long multi-scene flashback.
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After landing, a few random short cuts of different time & place appear before returning to the team. Exposition heavily relies on dates/text & may seem preachy. Many sudden character actions are confounding. What's their motive, why suddenly change their mind, why betray, etc? Some motives are explained by backstory, best being the main villain Tone, and others you can somewhat imply since characters aren't deep. Another villain explains conflict involving Columbia, Moscow, US & them that remains vague (possibly due bad translation). [MINOR SPOILER] For example, a grounded helicopter's being focus fired on in a large war, but the girls run back into the copter, still trying to fix broken internals, then 2 unarmed random bishounens stroll into the cockpit trying to flirt with them.
Characters:
Nothing deep, no mc backstories, all likeable. Unique/weird designs, interesting dual-colored hairs. You'll likely enjoy the ride with fun characters + a jolly robot bunny mascot, and hopefully forget the story mess.
Best MC: a jolly robot bunny mascot. He even parodies those preachy texts.
Villain's about the only one with backstory, & tied to the themes. He's not truly evil, but perhaps misguided. Again poor storytelling suggests all the world governments & the villain are all evil. And it gets unclear which government/party has what motive, who's betraying who, why etc.
Art:
For 2002, has nice art, but often inconsistent/lazy animation. They try, but with lots of budget corner cuts, and bad fight choreography. It deserved better viewing than my 240p streaming, which was too dark overall, crushing details. Scenery has good scifi feel, & explosions (perhaps too many & smoke everywhere) are well animated. Mechanical designs are thoughtful with details, and not over-the-top. CG helicopters look just a tad more cool. Humanoid mechas look standard but refined & strong. Mecha fighting is hand drawn. 2002 CG is bad, but detailed designs & chaotic war makes up for it.
Overall:
+ Not really evil villain with unique backstory, comedy, fun non-op/whinny characters, interesting art designs, hand drawn mechas, save the earth theme, random plot twists to keep from boredom.
- Good simple story mangled through poor execution, overcomplication, unclear motives & random events. Lazy animation, dated CG look.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 7, 2015
It's a mystery noir. With 50 minutes (+5 minute ED song), plot is clearly rushed, but connects all the characters. Kuki & Lamia get some character depth, & join/betrayal all jump through quickly, acceptable considering the shortness, but really could've benefited from longer development of the complex mystery. It's far from your usual vampire films, and more a mystery on a multi-country & grand scale.
I suggest English dub + English sub. Occasionally they are different, offset, or both. It gives nearly 2x the plot information, and quite funny seeing how much they diverge in meaning. After ~40min I laughed uncontrollably for the remainder. It brilliantly
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switches from dark noir to hilarity (not sure if intended). It's beautifully ended (with possible continuation), and allows the audience to question whether it truly was a good end or troll end.
Characters:
Kuki mc is refreshing to see compared to 201x tropes. He's quite handsome, strong but not OP, buff without acting gay, & determined. Sometimes too fast, but he literally drives the show forward. His English dub is good in moments, but often very flat. I may rewatch with JP voice later.
Lamia is not a damsel in distress, and crucial to the mystery. All females are adults & drawn attractively (not moe).
Mirucha is very interesting. Most about him is spoilerific.
Various gangs/gov/parties get confusing but they're mostly contextual.
Art/Sound:
Stylized dark, realistic, gritty as noir should be. Many great osts, 90's nostalgia with heavy energetic drums, slow blues, electric guitar, hippies style etc. There's enough combat/gunfight animation to keep interested besides the rushed confusing plot, and for 1990 it's surprisingly smooth without cutting corners. Even details like loading each bullet, agony after getting wounded etc is animated, with good fight choreography.
Overall:
Enjoyable short, rare noir anime. Lots of whut...!? moments over unique, nonsensical events. Over 10 minutes of funny. Great music. Realistic GAR man. Unusual vampire mystery. I picked this for a terrible rated Halloween B movie, but turned out an absolute underwatched gem.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 31, 2015
Story 4/10, Character 3/10
A large world story seems abridged into this montage OVA. 1st half is blue hair boy & a Pokemon, cringe comedy, flashback, & random timeskip. Lots of dragged on pacing. Euphemistically, it's a about coming of age, retirement, & farewell.
2nd half follows Roze oneesan, a typical tragic betrayal backstory, causing a change from salarywoman to knight. A loom working sequence seems accurate, but super long.
In both weird side characters tell mc a random aphorism.
Art 4/10
Ok for 2001, some wonky/lazy animation. Roze has some better drawn designs.
Sound 5/10
Some corny bad ost/effects. It's saved by a very soothing ED (Let's Look to the Sky
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by Mami Kingetsu). OP was fine too.
Overall 4/10
Messed up pacing & editing destroys the 2 slightly interesting character backstories. ED is its saving grace. Good Roze design. Somewhat funny mixed with cringe.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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