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Dec 19, 2024
The animation in this season is incredible. Incredibly bad. Like, it's actually impressive how bad it is. I can't believe that a show went to air in this condition. You've probably seen shows with bad animation before, but this is on another level. I don't remember the first season being especially well animated or anything, but it was nothing like this. This is like the show was given to people who tried to cover up the fact that they didn't even know HOW to animate.
I didn't notice it as much in the first couple episodes, but once you start to notice it, it's impossible to
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stop noticing. Shots will linger for 30 seconds or more on static shots of random things so they didn't have to worry about animating the characters. It happens VERY frequently. As a result, if you aren't very familiar with the voice actors, it's hard to tell who's even speaking sometimes. They often neglect establishing shots, so you won't even know who's in a scene until you hear them speak from somewhere out of frame. There are also a lot of very bizarre shot choices which all seem to be done strategically so that they won't have to animate anything, like only showing a character's head from their eyes up. Imagining what the storyboards looked like is depressing since all of their choices seem to have been based around doing as little animation as possible.
The artwork is terrible. Backgrounds look blurry and gross. Characters are often drawn off-model. Sometimes they look like they were drawn by people who don't know how to draw humans at all. It's weird.
The animation is at its "best" when they have performances with 3D models. You've definitely seen better 3D animation, so don't get me wrong. But at least the characters are moving. I can see how going full 3D could make production cheaper, since they wouldn't need to manually draw and color each frame. If that's the case, it makes me wish the entire season had been in 3D. Bang Dream switched from 2D to 3D and I don't think it suffered terribly for it.
It's hard to comment on the story because the animation is just that distracting. However, I can say that it feels like it has its eggs in too many baskets. One of its plots focuses on a virtual idol called Machina X. (It seems like it's supposed to be a synthesized voice like Hatsune Miku rather than a character voiced by a real singer, but that isn't made clear.) I think the show is trying to suggest that this virtual idol is a threat to the jobs of real idols. As someone who's been religiously keeping up with Hatsune Miku since 2008, I know that this wasn't true and especially wasn't a real concern in 2017 when this show came out, so it feels like this particular plot was written by someone who wasn't very familiar with virtual idols and/or saw them as an easy topic to fearmonger about.
I felt like the first season of Wake Up Girls was a hidden gem among idol anime. It was very, very good and deserved better than this. I'm shocked that anyone gave this higher than a 5/10 because it's THAT bad. I definitely wouldn't recommend this to people who liked the first season, but I might recommend it to anyone who wants to see just how amateurish a supposedly "finished anime" can look.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 20, 2024
I'm proud to be the first negative review for this show. Fam... It's bad. The 6.82 that the show currently has is being very generous. This is about as average as an anime can be. I have to assume that the people who rated it anything higher than a 5 just have nostalgia for it OR they really love Transformers and haven't seen enough anime to know how to spot a bad one.
First thing to know is that this show had an unusual production where it was written, produced, and animated in Japan, but it was released with English voices first. If you watch the
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English dub, you're literally watching the inferior version. A lot of animation errors were corrected for its Japanese dub release. For some reason, the English version renamed all of the characters. Some of the names feel totally incorrect for the character while others make more sense. For example, if you find yourself wondering why Red Alert doesn't seem like the Transformer named Red Alert that you're familiar with, that's because he's actually called "Ratchet" in the Japanese version of the show. But I personally don't think either name fits this character. So who is he supposed to be? I have no idea. It's a mess. I don't know what they were thinking. If you aren't familiar with ANY Transformers, you probably won't be bothered by this, but it WILL probably confuse you later when you try to engage with any other Transformers media.
I feel bad for the minicons in this show. They're treated like literal robots without personality. None of them speak and they're just used as weapons and accessories by both sides. They're one of the weakest parts of the show, which is extremely unfortunate because they're supposed to be the central focus of the story. I can appreciate what they were going for in THEORY, but the execution is just uninteresting and passionless, and it makes it feel kind of perplexing as a decision overall. It really feels like it must've been a "We don't have enough time, so we just have to go with whatever we come up with first and make it work" kind of situation. (Apparently production was being rushed by the network, so that feeling doesn't seem to be unfounded.) People complain about the Transformers cartoons feeling like toy commercials (because they are), but this is definitely one of the most blatant examples. This show exists as an excuse to flash robots on the screen to make you buy them. Quality be damned.
The human characters are what I expect from this era of low-effort anime for children - especially from the shows that were trying to make you buy something. Which is to say, they aren't interesting. There's the girl, the boy, and the other boy. They occupy more screentime than they deserve because they effectively do nothing. Their relationship with the Transformers is paper-thin. At best, they're in the way. At worst, they're annoying. I feel a little mean, but there's nothing substantial enough about these characters to make them worth defending.
Most of the episodes take place in a vague field or canyon where the two sides fight in boring, poorly animated battle sequences. Once you've seen one fight, you've seen them all. They don't get more interesting. I found myself zoning out through 70% of most episodes.
I've seen fans say that the designs of the Transformers is what they like most about Armada. As toys, they look too blocky and cluttered. In animation, they look stiff as hell. I don't know what possessed them to make designs that would be that difficult to animate.
You know it's dire when even the out-of-context compilations on YouTube can't make this show seem funny or interesting. It's just boring, and that's one of the worst things a show can be. If you're easily hypnotized by Optimus Prime, I guess this show is for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Aug 24, 2024
I feel like I'm uniquely qualified to write a review for this type of show, being somewhat of a connoisseur of "little sister shows." This came out at a time when people were likely getting sick of that type of show after the emergence and popularity of OreImo. (Glancing at the negative reviews gives me the feeling that this assumption is correct.) You could look at this as a show that was trying to capitalize on OreImo's popularity, but they're actually very different despite having similar titles. I feel like OreImo had considerably more meat and drama to its story, whereas this show is lighter
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and more gag-oriented. Its episodes focus on what wacky hijinks this bizarre group of characters will get up to next, and it never takes itself too seriously.
I was put off by the art style for many years, but I finally gave it a try and... Almost immediately, I stopped noticing it. If the art style turns you off at a glance like it did for me, you might be surprised by how normal it looks once you see it in motion.
The main guy is a pervert. This could very easily be annoying. I've dropped shows where a group of perfect waifus are all inexplicably in love with a gross guy. Fortunately, this show has a trick up its sleeve that saves it -- the girls who love the MC are ALSO freaks who welcome his lecherous gaze. In fact, there isn't a single normal person in this show. Maybe the MC's mom?? But even his dad is a lech. The show has a good sense of self-awareness. It KNOWS that the taboo topics it covers are taboo for a reason and it loves to have fun with that fact. However, I know that some people would never like a show about incest no matter how self-aware it is. To that, I say... Sorry about your bad taste.
The sister in this case isn't actually blood-related to the MC. She was adopted. That might be a turn-off for little sister show enthusiasts. Indeed, it's even a turn-off to the sister herself when she finds out that she and her brother AREN'T related by blood. However, that doesn't stop her. It just makes her crazier about her brother. And I love that for her. That was definitely the point where I realized that I was in for a treat.
If little sisters aren't your thing, there's also the childhood friend who the MC conveniently forgot about until she returns to stalk him like an obsessed psycho. A fujoshi who treats the MC like her errand boy. And a chuunibyou girl who believes she's an alien princess.
Normally, I'm all about characters, but the characters themselves weren't the highlight of this show for me. It was just the writing. It's a show made by sickos for sickos. They knew what they were going for and they nailed it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Apr 2, 2024
Are you a fan of shows like GaoGaiGar and Samurai Flamenco? Tiger & Bunny, perhaps? Then there's something here for you. This is a show about a 9m tall robot who is madly in love with his pilot. Which is amazing. Bravern revels in the absurdity of its own premise, taking full advantage of it at every opportunity. If there's anything to criticize about this show, it's the fact that it can feel cramped because the creators were (self-admittedly) trying to cram as much into 12 episodes as humanly possible. It's an easy flaw to forgive because it's just a sign of the passion that
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went into creating this masterpiece.
I think that some might be disappointed that this isn't strictly a show about giant robots. Don't be mistaken, it's definitely a show about giant robots. But it's also a story about a love that transcends time and space. You might be surprised, but it's impossible to make it through all 12 episodes without acknowledging that the fulcrum of the show is the explicitly romantic relationship between its two main male characters.
While their relationship is frequently a source of humor, the jokes never feel meanspirited even once. It's treated with sincerity from start to finish. It was a truly refreshing watch in that regard.
I think that it's best to go into Bravern without knowing anything. Its twists and turns are half of the fun. However, it definitely tries to fool you into thinking that it's JUST a serious military drama at first, which it isn't. Don't be fooled by the main keyart filled with beautiful women, either. They're in the show, but their screentime is miniscule compared to the male leads.
This is a great show to watch twice. Once you learn its major twist, the whole show can be viewed with different eyes. All I can do is applaud the writers for their attention to detail.
Who is this show for? I'm not sure. But it was definitely for me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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