Megaton-kyuu Musashi

Megaton-kyuu Musashi came out from a little dark corner in the Fall season. Fortunately, the series is on YouTube, though no official English subtitles exist. As a result, it's among the most obscure that aired. A shame, because it among the strongest of the season, and the mecha series I enjoyed the most. It stayed consistently good throughout it's 13 episodes for the first cour, seeing as though it will return in Fall of 2022. Level 5 put out all the works, decent animation, and played out a chaotic story of apocalyptic proportions while also making a large cast of characters; all developed and meaningfulin their own ways. It can play out emotionally driven scenes really well, and many times the opening and ending were skipped for more story. There is lots of great music and vocal tracks that play throughout. The hard effort and passion is definitely felt. One of the best parts of Megaton-kyuu Musashi is the protagonist Yamato. Unlike the majority of cowardly and bland protagonists that came out this season, he is very different from them. The story involves a war between humans and aliens. Yes, it can feel like a played out story, but at least it tries to push lots of character development and drama in between, and both sides have elements that desire coexistence. Hilariously but understandably, Yamato's solution to this is alien genocide, and he is very blunt and serious about it. He's hot headed but with good heart, an oblivious romantic, and among the best pilots for the humans. What makes him stand out in the battlefield is his improvised and unorthodox method of driving Megaton. Much of the focus is on him doing this while the staff panic for dear life out of how dangerous a situation he keeps putting everyone in. If he wants to use a move that might blow Megaton up, it makes him feel excited at the thrill of it all. Curiously enough, he is similar to Yabuki Joe, and his voice actor often sounds just like him. There is staff working on this that has worked on anime by the same author of Ashita no Joe, so it's not surprising. But he's not all hot steam in the head as he begins to see things clearer and develops as a character with the help of others. The alien race had their home planet destroyed, and the details about this have been kept vague and hidden. As a result, they had to venture out into space in order to survive. Earth happened to be the planet they ran into, and decided to take it over. On one hand, they need to take over the planet to survive, but in the other, they could have tried to coexist. The queen has no desire to break bread with humans and would rather have them destroyed. Her daughter Arshem the princess is conflicted about this, as she herself has been sent down to earth on a mission. The aliens want to learn about the secret of evolution about the humans. Thus, they don't destroy them, but keep them in check with infiltration, secret assassinations and little pushes here and there with their forces. The humans, after having their home planet ravaged, eventually moved out to live in secrecy. To keep the people happy, they have resorted to some somewhat disturbing methods to keep the moral up, but it's all crumbling apart as the series goes on. Their main focus is to expand their military might so as to survive and fight off the waves. The fights are brutal, chunky, chaotic, and done well. For being CGI it's impressive compared to a lot of the terrible CGI out there. It's tragic that where I am this feels nonexistent, but Megaton-kyuu Mushashi is definitely a highlight of the season.