Next Senki Ehrgeiz

I want to start this off by saying I literally JUST watched this anime, I have no idea if it's an adaptation of something else or if it made someone's childhood. I'm just a regular viewer. PLOT. The plot is straightforward, but manages to hold your attention. Earth has successfully colonized space, but its colonies, known as Next, have gained independence and are now in a war with their home planet. On Earth, a faction called Terra is unhappy with the status quo, and that's about it. Unfortunately, the political tension never really takes priority and we're not shown much reason for as to WHY these factionsare actually in conflict. We're given a single conversation about the relationship between Earth and Terra (which felt more like a collection of throwaway lines than something important), and pretty much nothing about the tension between Next and Earth. Instead, the narrative focuses on a rogue alien mecha unrelated to the conflict, SAC (or S for short), causing chaos as everyone scrambles to capture it. What makes this passable are the characters and the way they interact with the shallow story. CHARACTERS. Unfortunately, an extremely common theme in the show is to simply not expand on important parts of it. A great example of this is Balzak - one of the members of the main cast. He's a war veteran, and everything about his character is connected to that war that happened some time in the past. His whole thing is making himself famous during the war, having PTSD due to the war, being depressed due to the war, and so on. And yet, this war we keep hearing about is literally never expanded upon. It seems to have kick-started the whole tension between factions thing I mentioned in the plot, but nothing special is revealed about it. This is made EXTREMELY weird when the entire main cast literally fucking took part in it. Basically, the entire backstory of MULTIPLE main characters is completely obscured from the viewer. With this in mind, the fact they still managed to make the characters feel special and likeable is kind of amazing. Jay isn't the best of main characters for the majority of the show, but, once he's actually given an opportunity to shine, he has some really cool lines. The war he took part in seems to have really shaped his personality, and his backstory is sometimes teased, egging the viewer on, yet ultimately doesn't go anywhere. He's a very "normal" main character, not groundbreaking whatsoever, so he's still reasonably fun to watch even if not overly deep. Balzak is easy to like, too, but his backstory is not just important for his character, but also for the story which makes it extra weird it's never divulged. Camel is one of those edgy characters whose job is to smoke, drink, look cool and be horny. However, he surprisingly ended up being my favourite character, not only because there actually is some depth to him, but also cause the way he interacts with other characters is by far the most fun out of all of them (he's a bit of an asshole). The rest of the gang is likable, though not really focused on. I liked how all of them had distinct personalities and skills, and the way their relationship develops. Like, it ain't Red Dead Redemption, but it might sneak up on you. Terra’s leader and his advisor went through the most character development, and were quite fun to watch. Captain Aoi adds a fun dynamic to the mix. I liked the characters overall, and I do like how we meet someone from each faction. NON-PLOT. There are scenes where the gang sort of just screws around, and these were pretty enjoyable and made me connect with the gang and see them as friends. Even if they seemingly seem silly and unimportant, there's a LOT of pay-off to these scenes afterwards. DIALOGUE. Lots of really good, memorable lines. Character interactions were always really fun to watch due to everyone having distinct personalities (and the dialogue reflecting that), which is why I can only lament there not being any focus on the politics of the world. The flow is great, and the way the scenes are paced (slowly) makes the dialogue really stand out. VISUALS and SOUND. The visuals are all over the place. There's a scene where 3 mechas descend down a shaft, so they have the animation of one mecha jumping down play three times. However, at other times there's scenes I genuinely LIKED, as in I found them extremely well-animated. Either way, even the more stiff animation felt like a lack of budget rather than bad animation. The direction and angles were great, and, as I said, there were definitely some highlights (a scene in episode 3 is actually really cool). The soundtrack is nothing short of phenomenal. I'm not even joking when I say it's honestly what makes the show work for me. The voice acting, while not extraordinary, gets the job done. Overall, it can feel a bit shallow at times, but it's good fun. The ending is super campy which some might find cute, and others will roll their eyes at. At the end of the day, it IS a story of "good VS evil" from the 90s, so, you know what you're getting into.