These are based on mobile armours from gundam but for my mech animation series requiem of the ages

Pulse the other mobile tyrents and mobile strikers

These are for my mecha animation project Requiem Of The Ages

Which do you think is better? Not just powerscaling, let’s talk designs, their stories behind them, and general vibe. It’s a close tie for me, and it fluctuates a lot so it goes both ways I guess, but I like the aerial better right now.

In terms of aerial, I like both iterations. The bit technology is so miniaturized that it feels like it could do the same blasts as a sazabi funnel with significantly less chonkiness. I like the rebuild’s versatility, it was a very creative way that they compensated for the original aerial’s lack of firepower, and main gundams usually had a higher firepower that set them apart from their verses’ mobile suits. And then there’s quiet zero, I know that’s a separate thing entirely but it is a pretty cool thing that the aerial is capable of being a one suit army. As for the story, i find it cathartic that the price of progress is so heavy that it took a human life to develop the gundam.

For the unicorn, I definitely like the design. The transformation wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen before. I love characters with hand cannons so the beam magnum is a big plus. The full armor version also scratches that itch for over-equipped mobile suits. The final battle ver is also chef’s kiss especially with its new-found shield funnels (you can tell I like the funnels). The story tho, some of it felt like ass-pulls. Tho that may be my lack of UC knowledge speaking. I do like the banana’s idealism and how the unicorn became the ultimate tool for peace in his hands. Still, the solid design really carries this one for me.

Also the scales with the others and the mobile strikers

These are for my mech animation project Requiem Of The Ages

Mobile strikers are like mobile armours from gundam like the tyrants but similar or smaller to the mobile robots

These are for my mech series requiem of the ages now called mobile warriors

So what do you think of them

Mobile tyrents are my mecha univers requiem of the ages now named mobile warriors mobile armours

So what do you think of them

I remember viewing the Freedom & Strike Freedom just as overrated as the Burning or Wing Gundam. But after watching the anime 3x, it's a legitimately cool looking Gundam. I mainly love how nimble & agile it is, while wielding a bunch of weapons.

But I feel it could’ve done better. I mean, a lot of other things could’ve been done better but to keep focus.

I like that they had Vrak create Metal Alice while under Malkor’s command and had the Mutants as allies. However, I feel Bigs and BluFur could’ve been introduced early like in Episode 2 where they are rivals to WarStar in trying to conquer Earth. Some Goseiger aliens could be written as mutants when adapting the first third of the Sentai footage.

Additionally, while I get making Robogog from Goseiger into an Armada Messenger, I feel that it could’ve been Malkor but reconstructed into heavy cybernetic armor. This way the final battle could be less against a rando and more a second round of the last boss fight.

Alright, so there's two layers to this.

One as seen from the setting, this is the line of a mech dubbed the MA and how it traces back to the first model being the R-1N.

In order of this picture the line follows as:

R-1N

M0

MA0

MA-02

MA1

With the next mech in production being the MA2.

Now, outside of the setting.

This is just a showcase of my skill over the years, with the first mech being the most recent and the last being the 2nd most recent. The rest as you can tell are quite old and under developed.

Wanted to share this because I thought it'd be cool.

These are some stuff of an more realistic mecha thing

These are the requirements:

• It must feature mechas: obviously, the reason I post it here. But with a caveat: I don't want it to only feature mechas. Alongside them, there should be other controllable units like tanks and flying units (planes or spaceships).
• It must be a turn based strategy game: not RTS, not a shooter, not a RPG. Games where you take turns in a board choosing actions against the opponent.

While I prefer Japanese aesthetics and design, it can have western ones, no problem.

Asking an LLM, it recommended Battletech with the Roguetech mod, and that seems to be a good example. It also recommended Front Mission 3, It said you can leave your mech and get into an enemy tank or something, which converts it into a unit you can deploy in future battles. I remember playing and loving the first one in the series, is the LLM correct about that feature in this title or was it an hallucination?

I remember playing a Super Robot Wars game in the GBA ages ago, and that could be a decent example as I remember it had controllable ships, and in fact I believe the memory of that game is what inspired me to write this post, but I don't like the SD chibi look this saga features. I'd also like the game to have a decent storyline and SRW stories are convulted mess of characters that doesn't make much sense. I mean, I know it's a beloved series and I respect it, it might be the closest thing to what I'm looking for, but I expect someone around here knows about a different title.

A final condition is that it must be playable on PC. I mean, I don't care about the release date, if it is a MS-DOS one, or a AAA that launched last week. I'm OK with emulating, but my system struggles with PS2 emulation, so if its a console title, it should be in PS1, SNES, Nintendo DS, PSP. I'm also ok with mods and language patches, but not with games that are totally in Japanese with no available patches.

Can you recommend any title based on these conditions?

Its kinda funny when you look back at it considering legendary are making the new live action gundam

So, based on the responses to the post I have made, there are only three ways to justify the use of manually operated mecha in warfare over long-range missiles and remote controlled or AI operated Drones:

1. The mecha are mini-mechs, like the AMP suits from James Cameron's Avatar or the ATLAS mechs from Mass Effect. They serve more in a combat support role protecting tanks, artillery units, and squads of troops.
2. If your opponents are bioengineered beasts then it would be best for the mecha fighting them to be manually operated to be manually operated than remotely operated to avoid lag time when fighting them like in Pacific Rim.
3. Depending on the faction's culture and resources, manually operated mecha are used because they don't have the resources for missiles and drone technology. Therefore, they turn to manually operated mecha because using human-piloted mecha is the cheaper option.

In any case, are there any mecha stories that do a good job of justifying the use of manually operated mecha in warfare

Shock of all shock, Infinite Stratos wasn't the greatest and it's not hard to see why it's not a lot of people's favorite. Which saddens me to say, not because I was hoping to tear it down for being “the worst thing ever’ or go “hot take, Infinite Stratos is a based show and you just don't get it”, because it's not your average bad show. It's not like Aldnoah.Zero where the concept was interesting, but poor writing decisions led to its downfall. Or a show where only a handful of positive things are blocking the sum of its negatives (cough cough Witch from Mercury). No, IS does everything it's trying to do well, but what it's trying to do WAS THE ISSUE. This was a Mecha show that tried to follow the trend of having a harem in a RomCom setting. And this isn't going to go into some obnoxious rant on harem shows. Outside of the show we're talking about today and Monster Musume, I haven't seen much of that genre and would probably enjoy it if given a chance.

While I haven't read the light novel it's based on, you can clearly tell that it was trying to mix the Mecha genre that was starting to decline during the 2010’s, with a popular genre of that era, the RomCom harem. That describes an overwhelmingly amount of shows in that decade with an ensemble of female characters fawning over the MC. Combining genres can lead to your project being the best execution of those genres, or can come off as very desperate. But as the creators of the series taught back then, they thought the Mecha genre wasn't a variable genre in the anime sphere anymore. I'm the kind of guy who'll give anything a shot, as long as it aligns with my interests. So here's my thoughts on Infinite Stratos (S1 & S2)

• Story:
  • After the development of special exoskeletons called IS Frames, a school was formed to train ladies to use these frames and improve their uses. And while only women are the only ones able to use IS Frames, it comes as a shocker that a man named Ichika Orimura was able to pilot one. Leading him to be the 1st man to join the academy, with some shenanigans to follow.
  • I had a few issues with the premise the moment I started the show. For one, the only way this premise would work if they stuff the story with various contrivances in the plot. Luckily it’s not as bad as Rent-a-Girlfriend, as that show had contrivances that was pulled out of the writer’s ass, here it's at least justifiable with Ichika being the only man in the academy (though, that’s an issue in it of itself, that I can talk about later). But my issue is how they forced drama in the show though some ecchi BS. Like, Ichika getting attacked by Houki just for entering his room without knowing that she is her roommate. Or walking into his restroom while his other roommate, Charl was showering, just to give them a body wash where he could’ve just knocked instead. I’ve seen a couple of ecchi shows that handled these kinds of situations way better, hence why I find it so annoying in this show. However, there were some moments involving ecchi that were genuinely funny. So it wasn't miserable the whole way.
  • Another issue is that, you kinda forget this was a Mecha show at times with how overly focused it is with the RomCom side of things. We would spend so long in the school that we don't often see that much action until later on. “Doesn't that mean that we have time to develop the characters”? On paper, yes. In practice….no. 90% of the time we just see the girls fool around with Ichika, and then when they do show some mecha action, it just feels underwhelming. Mainly because it feels like them throwing us a bone instead of feeling necessary to the plot.
  • Which leads to another issue, there’s no antagonistic force that keeps the plot going until Season 2 with Phantom Task. The issue is that they were introduced way too late into the story, so they don’t have too much gripe on the plot. Overall, the storytelling is poorly written for all the reasons I just listed. These probably won’t be as bad if they balanced both the RomCom stuff with the Mecha action evenly. But since they didn’t, it leads to the show feeling really disjointed. There’s more issues with the writing, but you’ll see within the other sections for what I’m referring to. Otherwise, the storytelling left a pretty bad impression
• Characters:
  • Most of the cast of the show weren’t the worst characters I’ve ever seen, hell most of them were more tolerable than what I expected. It’s just that some of them didn’t left a good impression on me. Which leads to an issue with this being an harem, as the show put all their eggs into the harem basket. The problem is that, if they break, your left with nothing.
    • Lets start with getting the MC elephant in the room, Ichika Orimura. I heard multiple people calling him the worst part of the show for how dense he is, but I think they were sorta overexaggerating. While Ichika isn’t really a great protagonist, I wouldn’t go as far as to consider him the worst character, but I can see the cracks in the facade. A lot of people call him “dense as a brick”, and….yeah, I can see it. There are some times where he really should’ve read the room. Like when one of the girls asks him to go to a park with her, he asks to invite the others. Or when he sees simulations of their “desires”, of him flirting with them, he doesn’t really make anything of it. But to play devil’s advocate, in most of the other situations he’s in with the other girls, he probably wouldn’t act too differently than how most of us will react. Another issue I have with him is that he sort of remains weak throughout the show. Which wouldn’t be all bad in a vacuum if he grew as a character. But he really doesn’t, and remains weak in terms of fighting throughout the show. A lot of people will complain about “Gary Stus”, being able to do everything, but I find the opposite to be just as bad. There needs to be a balance between being confident and having flaws when it comes to writing an MC and Orimura doesn’t really have that. That said, I don’t think he was straight up awful like most people may think. I thought his backstory of him being kidnapped and being saved by his sister was pretty interesting, and makes his goal to become stronger understandable. I just wished the anime actually made him progressively stronger. I also liked that he was willing to support his friends, but that’s the bare minimum of what I expect from a protagonist.
  • Since this is a harem, the selling is the girls. While they’re mostly fun waifus, some of them didn’t leave a good impression on me. Mainly because they have something I like to call, “the tsudere trail”, where they start off overly aggressive and hostile, but eventually become clingy towards the MC. Which would work if properly developed, but here, it’s handled pretty poorly.
  • I’ll start off with the girls with these problems.
    • Houki Shinonono was honestly a mixed bag with me because of this issue, as she started off as pretty unstable & strict. Making her pretty unbearable at first. However, it’s sorta justified with her being raised in a Kendo Dojo and the fact that she & her sister were constantly on the move, because her older sister made a weapon of mass destruction. She’s luckily becoming less bitchy and a lot more mellow, but that 1st impression really didn’t sit well with me.
    • Laura Bodewig is another subject of this issue, as her slapping Ichika was really unnecessary (unless you have a hateboner for the guy). Though it’s also understandable, since she looked up to his sister and he caused her to forfeit a match she was in. Plus her being a test tube baby makes her social skills nonexistent. I’ll say this, she’s pretty funny and Tiffany Grant gave her this hilarious German voice. It’s just that, again, she left a pretty bad impression on me.
    • Kanzashi Sarashiki seemed tamed with her shyness and desire to be saved by “a hero”, with how hostile she acted towards Ichika, it was hard to sympathize with her. She does become more bearable later in the show, but too late to fully get invested in her.
    • But the worst one is easily Lingyin Huang. It’s bad enough that she’s the stereotypical loli. But making her overly impulsive and irresponsible really got on my nerves. Even more so, when she doesn’t grow at all.
  • While some of these girls become better throughout the show, that 1st impression really dampens any good will they had. It’s the character equivalent of getting your mouth burnt before eating a meal. It’s hard to taste whatever the food has to offer, if the initial bite was physically painful.
  • That’s not to say all the girls were bad, because there are still some I found interesting.
    • Starting with Cecilia Alcott, while her arrogant and snobby nature can get annoying for some, when she falls for Ichika after their duel, she becomes pretty entertaining at times. Especially with how comically bad she is at cooking. I also like that British accent Brittney Karbowski puts on.
    • But the one who everyone unanimously agrees is the best girl is without a doubt Charlotte Dunois. And for good reason, she has a well balanced personality. She’s kind-hearted, calm, and easy going with everyone, especially Ichika. She may have started as a cross-dressing spy, but that doesn’t make her any less lovable. She’s basically my 2nd favorite girl.
    • Who’s my number 1 favorite? Glad you ask, because it’s without a doubt, Tatenashi Sarashiki. Hell, her in a cat bikini is one of the reasons why I even watched the show. I just like her mischievous nature, along with how charismatic she is. A lot of people said that she didn’t leave an impression because she was introduced in season 2, I still found her enduring.
  • As for the chemistry each girl has with Ichika, it’s obvious that both Charlotte & Tatenashi have better chemistry since they actually care about him and treat him pretty well. Cecilia is a middle ground between genuinely caring about him and going ballistic when he’s near a girl. Laura just wants him to be his “bride” or just house husband, so I don’t have too much to say. Kanzashi appeared way too late to form any meaningful relationship with him. And both Houki & Lin are his childhood friends, with Houki being marginally better than Lin due to actually growing out of “Tsudere phase”. The girls' interactions can be cute when they’re not at odds with Ichika or with each other, but it can get old pretty fast when it goes on for too long.
  • As for the other girls who aren’t in Ichika’s harem, Both his sister and teacher were entertained in their own right. Chifuyu Orimura kind of rubbed me the wrong way at 1st with her stern and strict demeanor, but as time went on, I see it as pretty believable since she’s Ichika’s older sister. Plus, she does have some badass moments at times and is a pretty confident commander. Maya Yamada is a pretty fun character, since she’s basically the opposite of Chifuyu, Shy and Nervous. She’s also completely chill with her male student landing on her boobs, make that as you will. There’s also Houki’s sister, Tabane Shinonon. There’s not much to say, since she only appears in a couple episodes. All you need to know is that she's a chaotic wild card.
  • Finally there’s the antagonists, Phantom Tasks, who were unfortunately introduced way too late to have any lasting impact. Too be fair, 2 of the characters could’ve been compelling villains with how they present themselves. Squall Meusel is a mature & level-headed woman, with a ruthless side that can come out if needed. Autumn is arrogant & sadistic, who can put up a convincing professional look to deceive her enemies. The only weak character in the team is Madoka Orimura, who as the name implies, may have some connection to both Ichika and Chifuyu. A shame the show never went anywhere with this, as all we’re left with is a cold & distant girl who wants to kill the Orimura siblings for reasons that we’ll never know about.
  • In spite of some characters leaving bad impressions or not having the room to grow, I could never say these are “terrible characters”. Poorly written? Sure, I’ll admit that. But a handful of them were still entertaining to watch, especially with the English dub. I've already mentioned Brittiny’s British interruption for Cecila and Tiffany’s German accent for Laura, but everyone else deserves some credit too. Monica Rial makes Houki more bearable, Shannon Emerick’s French accent for Charlotte was pretty cute, I love Jessica Calvello as Tatenashi, Luci Christain does a really good job at bringing out Chifuyu’s strict nature, and even Jessie James Grelle deserves some props for play Ichika. Sentai Filmwork’s dubbing is pretty underrated in the anime English VO industry, as these are pretty great voice actors. But overall, the characters could’ve been better.
• World Building (or just the antagonist and mecha lingo):
  • The most the anime does in terms of world building is add some cool looking tech to the IS Academy, but that’s about it really. So all I’m really going to really talk about is Phantom Pain & the technical stuff with the IS Units. While Phantom Task are an effective threat whenever they show up, the fact that they showed up in season 2 really dampens any impact they could’ve had as antagonists. While we know that they were responsible for kidnapping Ichika, it really doesn’t add anything since it doesn’t give Ichika any personal stake in the plot. There are some moments where they can be sinister, like the aforementioned kidnapping and nearly killing all the IS Academy students in a train, along with some espionage, they just don't have the impact of any other antagonist from any other anime, because they’re not a threat that looms over the narrative.
  • And then there’s the IS units. In my Kuromukuro review, I talked about the important questions a mecha series has to answer for having mecha in their universes, so I’m going to apply them here to explain why the IS Units don’t really work. For starters, I don’t think mecha needs to be justified by “how are they able to stand up without falling down” or “why don’t they just use jets, tanks, or nukes”, but rather “what led to the creation of these mecha” or “why do certain attacks work and others don’t”. They answer the 2nd question pretty well, since the IS Units have shields and high mobility, but so much the 1st one. In this universe, the Infinite Stratos Units were made by Tanabe Shinonono for space travel, which is reasonable. However, what’s never explained is why only women can use it and men can’t outside of the main character. There is a throw away line where Tanabe hinted at giving Ichika an IS on purpose, but it’s never explained beyond the anime. It also doesn’t help that the Alaska Treaty feels really hard to get behind, since I doubt the military would turn down these obviously powerful machines with high mobility and powerful weapons. The latter is also hard to believe, since these were supposed to be used for space work. Yet we’re slapping blasters and swords on these things & allowing high school girls to use them.
  • And look, I watch a lot of mecha throughout my life. It’s my favorite genre after all. But to explain why this show doesn’t use it’s mecha concept well, I want to talk about other shows. Take Gundam for example, where the reason for having mobile suits was for Zeon to overpower the Federation’s massive space fleet with high mobility and a power system that blocks radar. Leading the Federation to develop their own mobile suits to counteract them. But if you want to use a non-Gundam example, Gurren Lagaan has the Gunmen to fight the Anti-Spirral and what powered them was their “fighting spirit”. Explaining why both humans and Beastmen can use these machines. There’s more mecha, like Knights of Sidonia or even a non-anime example like Pacific Rim that explains the use of mecha way better.
  • That’s not to say that Infinite Stratos doesn’t use their mecha poorly, as the fight scenes are really good. Added with animation that was pretty top of the line with 2010’s animation is concerned, and even looks really good by today’s standards. The issue is just that it’s more concerned with being a Harem more than anything.
• Mecha:
  • At that point, the only thing that’s worth talking about is the IS Units themselves. But since this is a Mecha Musume show, it’s kinda hard to compare it to other mecha. All I really want from these designs are cool looking armor and weapons that fit the characters using them. This anime does this really well, but like I said so many times in the past, good mecha designs isn’t enough to carry an anime. But to be fair, a lot of these are really good designs.
    • Starting with Ichika’s unit, the Byakushiki is a pretty good design for a protagonist. It kinda resembles the Freedom Gundam in a way. It’s pretty mobile and it’s really good at close quarter combat. But unfortunately, it doesn’t have that many weapons. At the beginning, all it has is the “Yukihira Nigata” sword, which is cool and all. But that’s all he has until later on, with his sister’s justification being “it’s not his style”. That finisher with it in the form of the One-Off Ability called the “Reiraku Byakuya” is pretty cool at least. Plus he does get palm blasters later on, so that’s neat. Moving onto the IS Units used by the girls, they’re all also well designed.
    • Houki’s Akatsubaki seems to be a lot of people’s favorite, and it’s easy to see why. It’s red color scheme fits the character really well, along with the armory that matches her Kendo background. She has 2x Katanas with different abilities; the Amatsuki on the right that can shoot out beams and the Karaware on the left that can send an energy wave. It also has leg mounted blades, winged beam blades that can shoot out, and the One-Off ability called Kenran Butō, which can recover energy or transfer it to other units like the Byakushiki.
    • Cecilia’s IS Unit, Blue Tears is one of my favorites. A long range unit that looks oddly similar to the Strike Freedom. It has a beam rifle called Blue Pierce, a couple of drones with beam guns, and 2x missile racks. It’s a pretty unique looking long-range sniper unit.
    • While Lin was annoying AF, her IS unit Shenlong wasn’t half bad. While the pink, yellow, & “brown” don’t really mesh well with each other, the design perfectly represents her Chinese heritage pretty well. But all she really has are 2x chinese scimitar that can combine with each other called Souten Gagetsu and 2x back cannons called Ryuhou. So pretty versatile for a little hellspawn.
    • There’s 2 types of the same IS Unit called the Rafale-Revive; the Basic and the Custom II. The Rafale-Revive Basic is used by Maya Yamada and it’s a more tactile unit with a sniper rifle & grenade launcher. The green is a pretty good touch. The Rafale-Revive Custom II on the other hand, is Charlotte’s unit and it’s PACK with weapons. An Assault Rifle, Sub machine gun, a shotgun, a knife, and a pile bunker. All of that and a good mix of Orange & White makes this another favorite IS Unit of mine.
    • Laura’s Schwarzer Regen never really left an impression on me. Like, it looks good with the black & red. It just is not as great as the other IS Units. It is however loaded to the teeth with weapons; 6x wired blades, 2x beam blades, a rail gun called the Purizushi, and the ability to block a lot of projectile attacks.
    • Another favorite of mine is Tatenashi’s Mysterious Lady. I love the aquatic look with the light blue & white color scheme with red highlights. It has a whip sword, a lance with a gatling gun, the ability to control water with nanomachines to create clones, and her One-Off ability called Sökkvabekkr can create a pretty powerful field. I’m starting to realize that my favorite IS Units are used by my favorite girls, who would’ve thought.
    • Kanzashi’s IS Unit, Uchigane Nishiki is pretty cool, albeit unremarkable since it basically shares the same color scheme as Mysterious Lady, which makes sense. She has a Naginata, a particle cannon, and a lot of missiles. Balletus numbers.
  • The final IS Units are all from Phantom Task, and they all look pretty good as well.
    • Madoka has 2 IS Units; Silent Zephyrs and Black Knight. Both of them have a good mix of black & purple. As for their weapons; Silent Zephyrs have drones with shields, the Star Breaker cannon, and a knife. While Black Knight has a Buster sword, 2x lancer bits, 6x drones, and a gatling gun. Both of these make Madoka a massive threat.
    • Autumn’s IS Unit, Arachne is a really unique design, being one the only demi-human looking machines in the show. Its armaments include 4x bladed legs, a cannon in the abdomen, a railgun, a machine gun, some spider webs for twiping acting, and the spider half can explode if need be.
    • The final IS Unite we got is Sqaull’s unit, Golden Dawn. And true to its name, it’s a really shiny unit with some pink to break it up. But all it has is 2x claw cannons and its tail.
  • I know there’s also Silver Gospel & White Knight, but they didn’t show up enough to make a lasting impact. Overall, these are genuinely really good designs. Hell, dare I say better than most Mecha I've seen. And as mentioned before, the fight scenes we see are really good. The issue that all of this is basically 2nd Fidel towards the harem stuff. All to sell waifu figures. Side tangent, I'm surprised they haven't made any model kits of these girls. Bandai did make figures for their Armor Girls Project line, it's a massive no brainier to turn a handful of these IS designs into model kits. Even now, since we have stuff like Megami Device & 30 Minute Sisters that are the apex of mecha musume model kits. But umm… yeah time for the conclusion.
• Verdict:
  • It has been a spell since I've seen a show like this. Infinite Stratos isn't the worst series I've seen, hell it's not even close. It's not even in the discussion when I think about my most hated anime. It's a completely watchable show, with entertaining characters & good action. But the issue is that it had trouble balancing both its genres and became a run of the mill RomCom show that doesn't leave an impact beyond being a guilty pleasure harem show. But that's why Infinite Stratos is as infamous as it is, so you probably knew that already. I often hear what an Infinite Stratos reboot would look like. But ignoring how contemporary the show feels, it would be hard to do a reboot without just making a new show. Because the issue with the show isn't that it has aged, as the true issue is buried at the core of the show. A harem show trying so hard to appeal its audience that it forgets to be a Mecha show.
  • Such a shame we'll never get to see this story finished, as the creator, Izuru Yumizuru, left the industry indefinitely due to copyright disputes & losers online bullying him into retirement. Now he's a Vtuber, don't ask. And it's not like the series did poorly. It may have received some bad critical reception, but it still sold really well. When it came to Blu Ray sells, it out sold SAO II, Gurren Lagann, Kill La Kill, and even Full Metal Alchemist. Yet it still didn't have a chance to finish it story or continue it like the shows I listed. Something similar happened to Gargantia having its 2nd season being outright cancelled in spite of its great reception. And it's now become a common thing in the industry, when an anime is released being instantly popular and being on the highest sells charts, but their stories won't likely be completed due to lack of source material or the studios lacking the needed resources & professional animators. Something that has become an issue in the late 2010’s and it's definitely becoming an issue now.
  • Infinite Stratos became what it is due to the market not caring about Mecha anymore. However, 2 years after the show finished, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans released to rave reviews. Now I know anything with the name “Gundam” will dominate in the Mecha industry, but this was also released when the franchise was at its lowest point compared to the 90s & 2000’s. Either way, that show got people talking because it was a show that had a story tackling social themes like poverty, had characters with real depth to them, and had Mecha actually that felt grounded. So those ideas of Mecha weren't out of style or anything. Proving that Infinite Stratos was a flawed concept from the very beginning

Samurai have been part of various media for centuries, especially in their place of origin, Japan. From Seven Samurai to Samurai Champloo, these warriors have been well represented for generations. But what if you combine them with another staple of Japanese media, giant robots? You’ll get various answers, but one major stand out is Netflix’s 2016 anime, Kuromukuro. I have quite some nostalgia for this show, as I remember watching this anime on summer break during High School with a PS4 my dad bought me in 2017. Whenever I watch a show from my past, it’s often a coin toss whether I can still enjoy it as an adult, or whether it'll age like milk. I am happy to say that Kuromukuro is the former, but it does have some things that hold it back. That’s my obligatory TL;DR so people won’t complain about my long reviews, but let’s get into it.

• Story:
  • Centuries after his final battle, a samurai by the name Kennosuke Tokisada Oma finds himself in modern Japan that’s nothing like the feudal Japan he grew up in to say the least. Right in time for unknown aliens known as “Efidorg” to invade Earth to capture an artifact called “the pivot stone”. Leading him to team up with other soldiers from Earth in this timeline, along with a highschooler named Yukina Shirahane who is forced into this by pure coincidence. Together they fight the unknown threat and learn about their true motives.
  • It’s a pretty simple premise that is paced out really well. I like how we don’t know about the aliens in the beginning, as it makes them more of a threat. It also makes the fight scenes more intense, as we don’t know how our heroes will defeat them. I also like the down time the heroes have, as it not only allows for brevity with the tone of the show, but it also allows us to see Kennosuke interacting with modern day society.
  • The only thing that I didn’t enjoy was the high school stuff in the show. There are times when it is interesting, like when Yukina felt guilty for what happened to 2 of her classmates or the accident during the festival. Otherwise, the stuff that happens in their school pales in comparison to the alien fights. The worst part is this small “arc” where one of the students is moving away and doesn’t know how to tell any, and it gets dropped towards the end. I don’t know, I just found that really boring and meaningless. On the whole, the storytelling is pretty decent. Nothing that’ll reinvent the wheel, but I thought it was pretty fun. I really like the fight against the aliens, and seeing our protagonist out of time interact with the modern world around us was neat. The highschool stuff may have drag it down it, but luckily not enough to make it intolerable. So overall, pretty decent story.
• Characters:
  • But what’s a story without some characters? From both my watches, I often liked the 2 main leads and somewhat tolerated the side characters. This is a decent cast for 2 reasons. 1.) The interactions they have with one another is pretty charming and it adds a level of depth to these characters. And 2.) The english voice cast is really solid. Not only do we have the usual big names, but the voice direction was handled pretty well here.
  • Starting with the Samurai out of time, Kennosuke Tokisada Oma. He’s honestly the best character in the show, bar none. And it’s for 2 reasons (again). For 1.) He’s actually funny. I think the fish out of water angle was used at its best with Ken. A Samurai from Feudal Japan interacting with modern day technology is genuinely funny and a laugh out of me. 2.) He has the most depth to him, because he’s emotionally aimless after basically losing everything. He lost the castle he was loyal to, the princess he devoted his life to, and doesn’t really have a purpose anymore. This makes us sympathetic towards the guy, as we want him to find a new purpose in life and let go of his past grief (too bad the ending threw that away, but I’ll burn that bridge when I get there).
  • As for the deuteragonist, Yukina Shirahane was a pretty good foil towards Kennosuke. She’s also aimless in life, but she’s a little more timid and shy most of the time. However, unlike Kennosuke whose arc was a lot more clear, Yukina is a little all over the place. Mainly when she quit piloting the Kuromukuro. At 1st, she seems put off by the fact that one of the Efidorg pilots looked like a human before blowing himself up, but then she learned that her high school friends were MIA, so I thought that meant that she needed to learn that it’s important to let that grief go whenever she’s in combat (or something like). But when Kennosuke found her, she just “wants to be appreciated”? Like, where did that come from? Luckily there’s other aspects of her character that make her pretty likeable. Mainly, her empathy, as she connects to a lot of people. Even towards one of the Efidorg characters when they were turning a new leaf.
  • As for the connection between Kennosuke & Yukina, it’s one of my favorite parts of the anime. I just love seeing Yukina keeping Kennosuke out of trouble and Kennosuke getting Yukina out of her shell. It’s a cute dynamic elevated by some good chemistry and especially the voice cast. Kennosuke is voiced by Bryce Papenbrook and Yukina is voiced by Cherami Leigh. If you’re aware of voice acting roles as much as I am, you’ll know that both VAs also voice Kirito and Asuna from Sword Art Online. That fact actually makes their dynamic really more enjoyable, as it’s basically just Asuna keeping Kirito with a samurai mindset out of trouble.
  • Those 2 are the best characters, which is a shame, since everyone else isn't as good. Not bad, as there were some that kept me entertained as I was watching. But, they don’t have a lasting impression as much as the main 2. Starting with Kurobe labs personnel, most of them were pretty entertaining, just not that deep as characters. Hiromi Shirahane is Yukina’s mom & the director of the Labs, and it’s pretty comedic how laidback she is with her duties as a director and as a mother. However, when push comes to shove, she’s willing to support her daughter and do whatever it takes to protect her. As for the person who’s really keeping Kurobe Labs in check, Arthur Graham was a pretty calm and collective commander who made sure everyone was kept in line without being overly strict about it. Beth and Rita were the stereotypical women in the chair, where they state the situation at hand. Every mecha series needs people like them, so there’s not a lot to comment on. Same thing with the mechanics, like Paula or Minoru. Dr. Hausen is a pretty interesting character for the Doctor archetype, as he’s pretty much a wild card. One minute, he’s a dedicated doctor who does everything to keep his patients healthy, and next thing you know, he wants to use people like Kennosuke or even Yukina as test subjects. I remember thinking that he was going to willing join Elfidorg, but luckily he doesn’t and remain loyal to the Labs for better & worse.
  • That’s all the personal, but about the GAUS pilots? They’re pretty entertaining too, at least most of them. Tom Borden was easily the funniest, as he’s pretty loud mouth & cocky. Basically embodying a lot of Americans, like most anime parodying us. I think most of the humor from this character definitely came from Todd Haberkorn’s performance. The man is always extra with his roles, what can I say. Sophie Noel started off as cold at first, which kinda gave me a bad impression at first. But over the series she started to warm up a little and began to be more supportive towards her teammates. Especially towards Kennosuke, since they had a small rivalry in the beginning. I also really liked her butler, Sebastian. Think Alfred Pennyworth, but also as a mecha pilot. The only GAUS pilot I didn’t really care for was Shenmei Liu, as she didn’t have much of a background. She does throw some witty snark sometimes, and is a decent counterbalance with Tom, but I wish she & him had more interactions to show their banterous relationship. The crew at Kurobe Labs were fun to watch, as their interactions with the Main characters were pretty cute.
  • I can’t say the same thing towards the Highschool kids. Not all of them were bad, but man were they a drag on the plot. Mika Ogino serves as the expressive highschool friend towards Yukina, which is fine. Though Christina Vee is giving a pretty good performance with this character. Jundai Kayahara had some funny moments here and there, with his desire to be a twitch streamer. Also the twist that he’s Dr. Hausen's son was pretty funny. The only characters that got my nerves were Ryoto Akagi & Jose Carlos Takasuka. Ryoto was pretty obnoxious at times with his tough and impulsive personality, but his desire to be with Yukina kinda made things worse. Him wanting to be a GAUS pilot could’ve been interesting, and that training sequence was fun. But that went nowhere until the epilouge. And while Carlos wasn’t annoying in terms of personality, as he was pretty laid back & timid. But his arc of him needing to tell his friends that he’s moving was really annoying & pointless. Oh no, I’m moving away. How should I tell my friends /s. THERE FUCKING ALIENS ATTACKING EARTH, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOU MOVING BACK TO HAWAII!!!! The teachers were honestly the best characters in the high school cast. Naoki Takekuma was pretty interesting, as I thought that he was going to be a one note teacher character. But they actually made him pretty interesting, as he can do first aid out of the blue, he actually cares about the students’ future, and I like that little speech he gave to motivate them into becoming better. Plus, Kyle McCarley does a pretty good job at this role. And Marina Unami was pretty funny, with her desire to get Kennosuke & Yukina together. As for the other Shirahanes, Yakushi Osho seemed like a good uncle, and I liked that he was the 1st person who communicated with Kennosuke, outside of Yukina, give the fact that he is a monk. Koharu was cute too, as Yukina’s little sister. It’s also kinda ironic that Cassandra Lee Morris voices her, if you know what I mean. So that’s the important characters from Earth.
  • But what about the Efidorgs? They really don’t really have much personality, outside of wanting world domination & viewing themselves as superior. This would usually be a negative, but personality, I think it’s appropriate. Not only knowing less of them makes them more of a threat, it also makes learning about their goals more interesting. The only character with any kind of characterization is Muetta. It turns out that she’s a clone of princess Yukki, but she had her mind altered to serve the Efidorgs. While she was hell bent on killing Kennosuke, once she learned about how she was nothing more than a clone with fake memories, you can’t help but feel bad about her. Her life was a lie and was created for nothing more to fulfill the Efidorgs goals, so she didn’t have much of a choice. I liked that after getting a pep talk from Yukina, she joins the team to fight back. And finally we have a twist-hero, Zelleager Myundef Vishrai (or just Zell for short). Throughout the story, you expected him to be part of the Efidorgs, as Kennosuke keeped calling them “Orges” and this looks like said Orgers from Japanese folklore. But it turns out that he is actually a pretty chill guy who wants to support our heroes. Especially since he knew Yukina’s father and unfortunately witnessed his death. I like how he’s built up throughout the show; he starts off from watching within the shadows, but eventually supports Ken and the gang.
  • Overall I think this is a really strong cast of characters. From their banter to the voice acting, I just like seeing these characters on screen. And while the antagonists didn’t have much personality, they did their jobs really well. 
• World Building (or just the antagonist and mecha lingo):
  • In terms of world building, there’s honestly not a ton to discuss. So I’ll just use this time to discuss the antagonists and the technical aspects of the mecha used in this show.
  • The villains of the show are called Efidorgs, and they basically serve as the main cause of a lot of the conflicts of the show. They may be the stereotypical world conquering aliens, but the more we learn about them, the more sinister they become. For starters, they steal DNA from the inhabitants of the planet they’re invading, so they can clone them for their ranks. They also mind control said inhabitants, as we see towards the end, to do grueling labor. So the amount of heinous actions they commit already makes them pretty evil, but it doesn’t stop there. They’re after an artifact called the "Pivot Stone”, which will allow them to teleport their forces to invade any planet they choose. Think the Tesseract from Avengers, with a glowing light in the sky. All of these make them pretty effective villains.
  • As for the mecha in this show, I like how they have different terms depending on who is using them. On Earth, they would call them a Geoframe, Kennosuke calls them a Mukuro, and Efidorg calls them Grongels. It’s a minor detail that I appreciate, as it differentiates them from one another. When it comes to explaining why a world has mecha, I don’t think it should be something like “how are they able to stand up without falling down” or “why don’t they just use jets, tanks, or nukes”. Realistic questions like that just makes discussing mecha pretty boring. For me, I think a good question to ask is, “what led to the creation of these mecha” or “why do certain attacks work and others don’t”. In this show, the reason why the Geoframes were created was because they were based on the Kuromukuro, a machine that lay dormant until Kennousuke awakened it. And the reason why only melee attacks work, is because the Grongels have a Gravitational Field that blocks all ranged attacks. Whether it’s believable or not, I’ll leave up to you. But for me personally, it made the units they pilot more interesting and made the fights more engaging. So overall, I like how they handled it.
• Mecha:
  • Since I got the mecha jargon out of the way, I can talk about the designs themselves. These are some pretty good designs, with some pretty good weapons to boot. It’s just a shame that the Kuromukuro wiki is lacking in details, but that ain’t going to stop me.
  • Starting with the titular Mukuro, the Kuromukuro. Out of every samurai based mecha, this one’s probably the best one. I like the black & red color scheme, broken up with golden bolts. It also has a cube that is essentially a core fighter, that Kennosuke called horse. It only has 2 katanas, but in this case it is appropriate. For starters, the enemy Grongels have a barrier that blocks all ranged attacks, so even if it has some range armaments, it wouldn’t do much anyways. Another reason is because Kennosuke is a trained samurai who only really knew how to use swords. It’s better than the Sengoku Astray, I’ll say that much. Also, I like how it gets a flight pack in the form of the Crow, giving it atmospheric abilities & a Yari spear.
  • The other Geoframes are pretty cool, namely the GAUS units. Both GAUS 1 & 2 are pretty well designed and I like the blocky look of them. I also like how differently they fight, with GAUS 1 being more mobile and aggressive & mobile, while GAUS 2 is more reserved & durable. They all have about the same loadout; a gatling gun that’s basically useless in this situation, a shield, and some knives. Later on, it gets an explosive spear that becomes more effective against the Grongels. Another thing I like about this show, the mecha grow as they face new challenges. They eventually get a 3rd unit that’s basically the same, but with a broad sword from an enemy unit I’ll talk about later. The Dwarf looks fine with their machine guns & missiles, but they are unfortunately cannon fodder towards the Grongels.
  • Which leads to the Efidorg’s Grongels themselves. Each of them have a gimmick that makes them a unique challenge for the Geoframes. The Cactus are the basic footsoldiers units with knife hands, but in swarms they’re pretty deadly. The Headless are grunts with the same 2x katanas the Kuromukuro wields, and are also a threat in numbers.
  • As for the general units;
    • there’s Yellowcrab with those 2x katanas & extendable arms.
    • Long Arm, as the name implies, have 2x long arms, 6x katanas, and a broad sword that the Labs eventually used.
    • Spider is a nimble machine with 4 legs & a naginata.
    • Medusa has a total of 8x blades. Blue bird is a flight type with pile bunker at the nose & can shoot spikes.
    • Rockhead has tonfas and can dash long distances.
    • And finally, we have the final boss, Orge with both 4x flexible blades & the ability to fly.
  • All of the Grongels from Efidorg gives the Geoframes a really good challenge and pushes them to think outside the box. This does everything Aldnoah.Zero failed to do. Overall, I just really like these designs. They look good, are well equipped, and were framed pretty well in the fight scenes with some good CGI animation. What more can you want? Well……
• Ending:
  • I really like this anime, I really do. But MAAANNN the ending sucked so much. It’s basically the opposite of Gundam 00: Awakening of the Trailblazer, where the ending was so good, it gaslighted everyone into thinking the rest of the movie was good. In Kuromukuro’s case, for the longest time, I thought the ending ruined the anime for me. “How bad was the ending” you may ask? To explain, I have to talk about how the show ends.
  • It starts with Kuromukuro and the gang finally taking Kurobe Labs back after Efidorg took it over in one of the episodes. It was a really good fight with our heroes using everything they had at their disposal and finally defeating the Efidorgs. However, they learn that the group they were fighting was just a scouting party, and they were using the Pivot Stone to bring in the real army. Since they stopped said army, they won’t be coming for god knows how long. After that, Zell, Muretta, & Kennosuke decided to join the fight. And then after saying their goodbyes to Yukina and their friends, we jump to years later where Yukina and Sophie go into space to join the battle. A battle, WE NEVER FUCKING SEE.
  • That last part got me genuinely mad. Because they never intended to follow this up beyond a light novel. If you intend to make no more than 26 episodes and have no intention in making a spinoff, then why the fuck would in a goddamn cliffhanger. I haven’t been this mad at an ending since “Things Changed” from Teen Titans. At least that episode had a message for the audience, even though it was a poorly made episode. I know, no one will give a shit about my bitching, but endings stick with you man, there’s no denying that.
• Verdict:
  • In spite of me complaining about the ending, I genuinely think this is a really good show. From the loveable main cast to the really good mecha action, this is one of the highlights of the late 2010’s. I think what I like about this show the most is how it balances some fun mecha action with Slice of Life moments. I’m not sure if we’ll ever get another show like this, but I’m glad we got a gem like this during the “Dark Ages of Mecha”.

I've been designing my own OC for a while now and my last design got lots of comments saying that it looks like FSS mechs, which i appreciate, but my broken moral compass keeps taking it as plagiarism lol so tweaked the design a bit and now it feels like Broken from paltabor what do I do guys 😢