Kyoukai Senki

To the folks over at Sunrise: We know, we know. The Gundam franchise that started way back in 1979, that was a massive success of a franchise that tied in all the anime, movies, Gunpla merchandise, video games, heck even the long-lasting relationship and sponsorship with Bandai, that spawned THE generation of what the mecha genre should be defined as. Years later, with the many iterations of Mobile Suit Gundam, and with the recent purchase and closure of defunct studio Xebec to turn that around as yet another subsidiary studio of yours by the name of Sunrise Beyond, the Gundam franchise continued from there with theinherently bad Gundam Build series that only serves as fodder for more of your advertisement for Bandai Gunpla merch. The problem right now is, with Kyoukai Senki a.k.a AMAIM: Warrior at the Borderline, while the attachment to Bandai Spirits is the only notable thing that connects it to the Gunpla merch world, who is your target audience exactly? And what is it that you want to achieve with creating yet another standalone product that has no connection to Gundam (other than the robots that's uniquely designed by the one and only Kanetake Ebikawa), even at the mere slightest? My reply to you: Kyoukai Senki is just yet another disappointment of anime looking to fill the ropes of a Gundam-esque spin-off, filled with too much overbearing political BS, that the story's concept and execution is even more pathetic than the worst that Code Geass has to offer. For someone that wants to get into the Gundam franchise but doesn't want to go through the intricacies of starting from scratch, please, just watch any good Gundam show (that literally has Gundam in the title) that holds up as its own source material. You'll spend your time better that way than to watch this bastardized uninspired boring mish-mash of a show. If you've haven't already caught my message, Kyoukai Senki is just a mess of a boredom show that's awaiting your attention, then beckoning you to fall asleep more quickly as soon as it starts going deep. The story of a futuristic post-war Japan that sees it divided into military regions like World War III is happening in the modern age to see which one stands supreme. To counter this Boundary War of sorts, the destruction mechs called AMAIM are once weapons to the cause, but not solutions to the oppression of ordinary Japanese citizens. And all it takes is for an orphaned boy, dawned with his sense of justice, coincidentally find an abandoned AMAIM with an autonomous AI embedded in it, to get it juiced up and fight for his own independence together with his friends and comrades ready to fight for a Japan that's liberated from military prowess. Thanks to the MAL Rewrite team for the synopsis to which I counter-wrote here for this review, because I could not be bothered to add more stuff from what the anime presented, so much that it hurts me deep inside. Kyoukai Senki (or AMAIM which I'll refer from here on out) is just plain bad. Mecha shows have a standard story formula to go by, and as much as the predictability can set in quick, it's the execution which defines the experience. And that experience is set by scriptwriter and series composer Noboru Kimura, which looking at the hit-and-miss work resume that he has, I'd fathom why he chooses to play mindgames with people about the shows that he's written for, especially originals (see Gundam Build Divers, Skate-Leading☆Stars). Not even acclaimed Xebec director Nobuyoshi Habara whom directed beloved series such as Soukyuu no Fafner: Dead Aggressor a.k.a Fafner of the Blue Sky and Broken Blade a.k.a Break Blade could ever be enough to save the horrific writing that Noboru Kimura has conceptualized for AMAIM. If the story wasn't enough to save the anime, then the characters will be the judge of that. And yep, just as you'd expect, all the characters are one-note mutes, only there to service the "huge" plot that covers the span of the entire post-war Japan and basically having less or even no character development at all. For the first "homecoming" of an MC, 16-year-old Amou Shiiba isn't the type of character to lead that calvary charge, as much as his character feels like the exact opposite of that: a teenager who's just beginning to grow up into the face of reality shoved in his face, being ignorant and disillusional of his surroundings when faced with injustice, only to then be forced to act when the going gets tough. This is not how you want to paint your character being a person that's clouded in his own claustrophobia, and unfortunately all the character development that Amou got feels very forced and intertwined to the central plot. Like come on, have some backbone, will ya? Inject some sense into your head! The other AMAIM pilots of of Gashin Tezuka and Shion Shishibe are only as good as side-by-side comrade complements will get in battle, and have the same or slightly better backbone than Amou himself. Weakness is not a bad thing, but meekness is not weakness, and this kind of behaviour just isn't excusable. The cast of characters are just far too much, most of the majority being a blip of cameo scenes when the show actually calls for it. From the best to the worst, the AI companions of Gai, Kai and Nayuta are good companions which both aid and power the AMAIM mechs for the respective pilots, and also serve as their stratagems when things are looking hot in heat. But Gai is just too talkative and loud to the point that it can get annoying at times. The branded terrorist group Yatagarasu, made up of people whom want to see the dream of a fully-liberated Japan, I do have some compassion for people fighting for independence, and most of them serve fairly to the plot in a good way. But when it comes to the various military groups (the Confederation of Oceania, the North America Coalition, the Asian Free Trade Entente, and the Eurasian military, like who is gonna remember each and every group), that is when the show banks hard into showcasing that the military is milking Japan for their own gain. And with that many groups, it tries too hard to exemplify that a war is ravaging, but why do you need THAT many people in the first place? Military is military, geddit? You're one entity, not segregated forces. The two complements that I can give to AMAIM is that "the old has gone, the new has come". Xebec died and rebirthed into Sunrise Beyond is by no means a consolation to expect that there'll be good production values, and AMAIM just comes of as being decent at best. At least this show has Gundam mech designer Kanetake Ebikawa, so the AMAIM mech designs look unique and sleek to give it the fresh appeal. The OST is near-bangin' good with the mysterious new band that is Blank Paper's debut with the OP "enemy", and newbie singer Yu-Na Fukinbara's ED "You're my perfect mirror" is a solemn, yet melancholic song that speaks deeply to the heart, and has undoubtedly risen to become one of my top favourite EDs of the season. If there's one thing that Sunrise can be good at, is nurturing new talent for the company's music department. But overall, even with decent animation, rather boring visuals and a good OST, art/animation and music aren't enough to save the clusterfish of a by-product that's looking to mime the success of the many iterations of Gundam, its settings and all that are sorely "founded" on the basis of Code Geass, and failing yet so spectacularly. Even yet another mecha show in the same season like Megaton-kyuu Musashi, I would definitely recommend that over this. But thankfully this is just Part 1, so Part 2 is coming soon in Spring next year to continue this as a split-cour. Just stop using anime to farm for more merch, Sunrise. Even as a business entity, you're more than this, and definitely can produce better IPs than something of a non-canon like AMAIM.