Anime: Gunparade March: Aratanaru Kougunka

Typically speaking, with people who didn't grow up watching anime and have some nostalgic feelings about it (non-fans of anime, so to speak), trying to get them to sit through and simply enjoy even a relatively short 12 episode series is something of a losing battle. But every now and then there are shows like this one, where with a little bit of easing them through the first few episodes, go from being mildly bored - to eagerly awaiting the next episode.

First off, don't expect the typical melodramatic "OMG! The aliens come! It's the end of the wooorld!!!" of this particular subset of the genre. This is a world that has spent 50 years in an on-again, off-again war against the invaders. As much as this is a series about a world at war against a dangerous and unpredictable invader, this is also a series about the people who've learned to adapt and continue to live in that very different world. To have an environment with some sense of normality, to find love and one's own reasons to fight and live on despite (or especially because of) everything that's happening around them, are the underlying morals of this series, and to miss that is to also miss the core of the story.

With a fair sized cast for an only 12 episode series, most of the characters never really get a chance to shine on their own, however each clearly have their own personalities and their own ways of showing concern for each other. In its own way, in this series the distance of the supporting characters actually serves to allow you to more easily empathize with them as a group, as they try to help Atsushi overcome his insecurities both on and off the battlefield, to encourage Mai to open up, then as they work together to encourage the two to reveal their feelings towards each other, to be exasperated and disappointed along with them when Atsushi blows it again.

If you come to this show expecting battles after battles, and epic conclusion with flashes and explosions everywhere, turn around and maybe come back when you've matured enough to appreciate a wider range of storytelling... If you think you might enjoy a story about the feelings and humanity of people in a world that is the same yet different from ours, there's a lot of enjoyment to be found in this series.

I pretty much agree with maceart. The story is actually really good with the only issue being that around the 5th episode it kinda switched the focus more into a love story between two of the characters. That being said, the love story aspect of the story was one of the more rewarding romances I've seen in an anime. It didn't feel cheap in any way, had more of an honest and earnest feeling attached with it.[br][br]It's only 12 episodes, and as maceart said, a great way to spend an afternoon, so there really is no reason not to watch it.[br]

The genre of this anime is listed as "Action-Mecha". What they should have listed was "Action-Mecha for the first 6 episodes, and School-life Romance for the last 6 episodes".

A very compelling warzone is set up in the first half of the series; it is a tragic time: 16-year olds are being drafted while still going through their schooling, 8-year old children are operating nuclear-like bombs in order to defeat the enemy, and Japan is one of the few unoccupied territories in the world.

However, for some reason the series completely abandons this plot and instead shifts its' focus onto a pathetic and cliche love story between two of the most unlikely characters you will ever find. Meanwhile, in between fighting for the survival of the human race (which apparently only takes a mission or two every week or so, with only 4 mecha piloted by a bunch of amateurs to take out the "brains" in about 5 minutes, which makes you wonder what the heck the rest of the world was doing if it is so easy to destroy these things) the "class" has time to put on plays, festivals, and the entire unit (including the commanding officers, adults) are reduced to match-makers attempting to hook up the main characters.

Other faults of the story include: the cliche of having kids in mecha fight bugs who have taken over the Earth (hi Blue Gender and Gundam!); the mystery of why, if the Earth has been completely taken over, Hayami is at one point studying English; the issue of how, if the Earth has been taken over, Japan still has the neccessary resources to build giant mecha, keep up maintenence on buildings, generate enough fabric to create dressed and clothes for everyone, support a seemingly-vibrant capitalist economy, and still have enough oil to keep gas-powered cars around for every day people.

Also, the story gives no background for the Ganju; we learn nothing about where they come from, how they breed, what they eat, why the rest of the world was taken over and not Japan, how Japan has held out so long on its' own, what the Japanese government is doing or researching in attempts to destroy the Ganju, how the PBE works, why children are neccessary to activate it, why battles are always fought with just 4 units, and why Ganju somtimes have helicopters fighting on their side.

Hayami, the male lead, is a truly pathetic being. He is weak, a push-over, clumsy, and makes many mistakes while piloting his mecha (the anime loves to portray Shibamura's ridicule of Hayami's weak piloting skills in a bad light; which I can't understand: it is supposed to be a matter of life-and-death in those mecha, why shouldn't Shibamura be upset if Hayami continually screws up?). Meanwhile, Shibamura starts off as an interesting, if a bit cliche, stoic character with an engaging past and background who is turned into a complete weakling just by coming into contact with Hayami apparently. We never find out why she hates her father either.

The side characters, while they are all cliche (the childish boy who loves battles, the "playboy-wannabe" who only thinks about girls, the clumsy-yet-nice harem-esque main character, the "traditional" girl, the older more "experienced" girl, etc) were poised to be at least semi-interesting; at least, they were before the series turned them into nothing but shallow supporting match-makers.

For that matter, the romance in this series is incredibly trite and contrived; I don't believe a second of it and it seems utterly unrealistic.

The battle animation is simply rehashed for every new scene; this is especially evident in the PBE scenes, the Brain scenes, and scenes in which the mecha move. For a series made this recently, the animation was truly dissapointing; especially its' lack of detail in the backgrounds, mecha, Ganju, and character models.

The soundtrack, like the story, is incredibly contradictory. During tragic death scenes or battle scenes, upbeat cheerful music will be playing in the background, and during school-scenes slow classical songs permeate the background noise. I say 'noise' because the music really detracts from the feel of the story. The fact that the music really stood out to me in various scenes as 'wrong' truly brought this area down for me. As for the voice actors, the characters they were trying to portray were so annoying that no matter how well they tried to act out the parts the dialogue and setting was so bad as to make me cringe during many scenes.

I wouldn't reccomend this; this series is completely random and has no direction. Gunparade March doesn't know whether it wants to be a Sweet School Romance or a Tragic Action anime, and so it loses itself. I enjoyed the first few episodes and had high hopes, but soon the series degenerated into a bad schoollife romance series and it became incredibly boring.

(NOTE TO READER: If you happen to read this review, whether in-full, or just a skim, please rate the review. I will appreciate the feedback, negative or positive, and will return the gesture if you have made your own review.)

First, I just have to say: At this point, I really have no idea what the hell I just saw.

Gunparade March has a tried and true idea, with a different twist on the chronology involved. The 'invasion' takes place in the World War II era, and continues up through our present day. You would think over the span of 50+ years this ruthless race of alien killers would have humanity beaten, or vice-versa.

Ah, who cares right? It's just the fate of humanity, it's already been this long, why don't we go on some dates, have some laughs? How about we put on a play? I wanna be the princess! Give me a break.

Animation:

So I'm watching this show, wondering what kind of references I'll be able to pick out to past shows of its kind. Most shows give discreit references, a head nod if you will, to their predecessors. Gunparade shamelessly rips the clothes off their backs.

To begin with, the military uniforms strongly resemble those used from the special forces unit of RahXephon. On top of this, our main character looks just like Akito. (more on this later) Plain-Jane artwork, but noticably better in the close-ups.

There is a huge amount of animation rehash in the combat sequences. When combat is used in anime, it is 'hit-or-miss' as far as whether or not it can be taken seriously. The ridiculous amount of animation recycling in the action scenes of this show make it seem dilatory and apathetic. If the animators don't care, than why should we?

Sound:

The Intro Shinjitsu no Tobira, by Yoko Ishida , feels overly upbeat for a show that has the serious undertones of war.

The Ending theme, Yami o Koete by Masumi Harada, felt like a perfect way to lead out of every episode.

The voice acting here was perfectly average. Although, Akira Ishida, did a great job of acting out his character, Hayami. Normally one to play a character with a strong personality, Hayami's indecisive and kind demeanor was a nice change of pace. Akemi Okamura's character, Mai Shibamura is fairly one dimensional for a very long time, but eventually begins to blossom a bit later on.

Just like its rehashed Animation, the sound effects, and background music are used over, and over...and over.

Story:

Alright guys, man up! It's time to go kick some Genjyu ass. Combat, tragedy, and a reason to fight. Awesome. I'm in. Oh wait, we're not going to do the war thing anymore? Now we're going to go ahead and completely forget about the foundation of the show, and switch the focus to a long-winded, overly complicated, and unrewarding love affair? Oh, OK.

Gunparade starts off slowly, but over the course of the first half, builds itself into a compelling war drama, with all the potential in the world to hit home as a memorable icon in its genre, which was supposed to be: Action-Mecha, right?

Right at about halfway, let's shift the direction. I would like nothing more than to laden this review with spoilers on what exactly this story did so wrong, but let's just say that this train derailed around the time it decided it would be a good idea to stray from its initial progress, in favor of: irrelevant episodes about unimportant characters (in a 12 part program, this is already a huge issue, anyway), and wasting time regurgitating the same scene of the main two characters fumbling over how to word their feelings to one another in every episode all the way up to the end.

Be prepared to have a huge, awkward, floating question mark above your head for a majority of the show, wondering when you're going to get back on track. Well, unfortunately, you never do. It seems the creators had banked on their Romance sufficiently stealing the limelight from the war. It failed.

Character:

Shinj-... I mean, Hayami, is weak and as calculable as a second grade math problem. If this guy were any more transparent, he'd have been a walking window. Even after the ample time he was given for development, he barely evolves at all. This is of course a big deal, considering that the creators opted to take a huge cast of characters, make them all irrelevant, and focus all their attention on two people, Hayami being one of them.

A positive note to add: His strength appears in the combat situations, when friends are in danger, and this gives him the feeling of at least being a capable player in this game of war.

Mai Shibamura is your typical strong, but silent type. She is fighting with an agenda, and has herself set up to be the main muscle in the show. Unfortunately, around the time the show decides to shift the story, a certain series of actions has her emasculated in the wake of Hayami, the same weak scrub of a main character afore mentioned. This makes her resolve and toughness vastly dillute. From then on, about the toughest thing she does, is keep herself from knocking out her sad choice of a love interest. In the very last portion of the show, her resolve resurfaces, and you see an evolution of her character.

Around about the mid point in the show, the entire supporting cast is reduced to a band of lackies for what seems like a bad reality television show. Every single characters sole mission in life appears to be hooking up our protagonists.

Last but not least, we have the Genjyu. Who in the world are these guys? How menacing can they be, having let humanity just kind of hang out for over fifty years? The answer, is not very menancing at all. To defeat them, it's a simple matter of sending in a couple of mechs, which have absolutely no resistance whatsoever getting to the 'brain' aliens, and using a weapon manned by an eight-year-old child to take care of business. Rinse, repeat. Other than a brief scene in the middle of the show, there is absolutely no feeling of danger at any point in this show. Last I knew, villains were supposed to produce a feeling of crisis.

I would have been able to enjoy Gunparade so much more, had they just kept on track. Even if they wanted to switch the focus of the show, at least make it a less awkward shift. Finally, when you make a shift like that, and give so much buildup to a single goal, make it worth the wait.

To say that I didn't enjoy the Romance between Hayami and Mai at least a little, would be a lie. However, I think the stronger part of this show was when things were tense, and tragedy struck. I generally felt like I was robbed of the buildup, by a lackluster Romance. The ending itself resolved what became the major issue in the show, but left me with alot of questions.

If you're a fan of Mecha and Action, wait for something more original. If you're a fan of Comedy and Romance, Gunparade is vastly unrewarding.

“Gunparade March”, from the very title, which contains the word “gun”, we can guess that it’s an action series; from the concept of “Mech pilots fight aliens to save the world” we can be pretty sure that it’s an action series; from the prologue which is relayed in WW2 and the first episode which introduces the show with an impressive battle scene we can be certain that it’s and action series… Well here’s the thing, it’s not! Despite all the obvious leads and guidelines, “Gunparade March” shocks the viewer by presenting something that is so far from being an action series that it can hardly be included in the action genre. Now, don’t get me wrong, just cause it ain’t about the action it doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s actually quite alright… as a romantic comedy, that is. What I’m trying to say is – if you want to see a casual, not too eventful high school story, then you’ve come to the right place, but if you expect a hardcore, action-packed mecha-combat extravaganza, then my advice to you is: “Turn around and don’t look back”.
What I’m trying to say in a nutshell is:
Is it funny? Yes!
Is it romantic? Definitely!
Is it dynamic? … not really.

Animation (6):
The animation is neat and colorful, it’s fun to look at without being tacky. The background and objects are very well done and the all around esthetics are quite high. As far as the characters go, however,… let’s just say that if the animators were aiming at realism and professionalism, they overshot their target by a pretty long distance. Despite that though, it was still pretty good.

Sound (6):
Pretty average, nothing to comment about. I didn’t like the characters’ voice acting very much but seeing as how I watched the English dubbed version, I can’t really criticize it.

Story (4):
To elaborate what I said in the introduction, the story is just unfocused. It wastes so much time putting up an action-full front, it doesn’t relay the plot properly. Also, the plot progresses so slowly it barely crawls, there’s just too much delay in-between major events.
Also, it takes the show some time to reorganize itself from the action of operation 1 and the start of operation 2 to the drama of the end of operation 2 and operation 3, that resulting shift-space leaves a time area in which the plot is just sort of dry and flow-less (although there do exist some highlights during that time).

Character (4):
If there is anything worth criticizing here, it’s the characters – I will not say the characters are badly designed, because it’s simply not true, but their rather flawed introduction into the story leaves a lot to be desired. The problem is this – the story is just too damn short, 12 episodes isn’t nearly enough time to develop so many characters! The attention towards the secondary characters is so scattered that it’s hard to really understand them individually until around the middle of the show. And trust me, the secondary characters are the life ring of the show, entertainment wise, seeing as how the main characters are completely emotionally repressed. To conclude, a 12-episode format simply doesn’t do Gunparade March justice, expanding it to 16 episodes (at least) would give it more time to develop the characters and focus on all the different aspects of the storyline.

Overall (5.5):
Gunparade March is a nice show, it’s pretty entertaining and quite romantic. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t manage to achieve anything more then banal mediocrity.

A couple quick notes: First off, many of the genres for this series are missing from the main page. They are: Drama, Mecha, Action, Romance, Comedy, School, Harem, Military, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Slice Of Life. Secondly, the synopsis on the main page is wrong as well. Hayami is portrayed as being no one special, militarily speaking. He is not a "trump card" at all.

(Writers note: If you read this review, RATE this review. Authors thrive on feedback, whether it is a simple happy face, or an in-depth critique.)

To steal a MMORPG term, Gunparade March is the druid of anime. It is a jack of all trades, tackling many different genres, yet not excelling in any of them. Couple that with poor animation, poor sound, one-dimensional characters, and a story that has no idea where it wants to go, and you’ve got a very sub-par anime on your hands.

The animation is attractively drawn and moderately detailed, though a bit cliché. Movement is rarely fluid, preferring panning shots of still frames, with occasional mouth movements only. The action scenes use a lot of repeated footage, with most of the battle footage being carried over into other episodes, resulting in the same fights seen over and over again. Since there isn’t a lot of fighting overall, this is a severe distraction. Only one piece of repeated footage was worth watching again, and that was the P.B.E detonation; a black hole weapon used to kill the brain Genjyu. Backgrounds are detailed, but uninspiring.

Music is another low point in Gunparade March. The opening and ending songs are cliché soft rock pieces. They’re pleasant, but easily skippable. Background music during the series suffers with the frequent repetition of cliché military songs. Romantic scene music is equally wishy-washy, either adding nothing to the romantic tension, or going so far as to deflate it. The seiyuu (voice actors) do a good job, though none of them really stand out. The sound effects are good, achieving what they want to achieve without drawing much attention.

Not only does Gunparade March tackle many different genres, but it also tackles many different characters, unfortunately with the same so-so result. Atsushi Hayami is your cliché spineless wimp and romantic bungler, his entire personality and emotional make-up copied and pasted from dozens of other animes, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ranma ½, Love Hina, Tenchi Muyo!, and every harem anime ever made. Only reference to his past (a.k.a. character development) is a dead friend that doesn’t seem to effect him as much as is implied. Hayami apologies almost as much as Chise from Saikano, which is no small feat!

Mai Shibamura is the cliché love interest. She’s cold and distant, with an icy glare and stand-offish demeanor. If only the right person could melt her cold exterior and show her the ways of blah blah blah. Besides Mai, for the women, we have the clumsy girl, the girl that seems way too young to be in the military, the mechanical girl, the lesbian, the eternal optimist, the rich girl, and the jealous girl. For the men, we have the “The military is all that matters” guy, the womanizer guy, the guy who rarely talks, and the “I love action!” guy.

All of the characters, including the main characters, are cliché and one-dimensional. One of the reasons I was able to finish this series was curiosity as to whether any of their personalities would be given some depth, though they never were.

Gunparade March’s tries to do too much with too little time. The first episode focuses entirely on action, and has nothing to do with the overall feel of the rest of the series. Following the first episode are three or four episodes of mostly character interaction. Unfortunately, the characters are one-dimensional clichés who have nothing interesting to say, and engage mainly in boring small talk and gossip while waiting for the next emergency to send them out into the battlefield. They are so entrenched in their own clichés, that when one of the characters dies, she is instantly forgotten by the next episode, as Gunparade March continues its routine of gossip, small talk, and light humor as if nothing had happened.

The underlying story is very simplistic: In 1945, bugs called Genjyu started fighting us. 50 or so years later, we’re still fighting them. Details on the Genjyu are basically non-existent. Replace “Genjyu” with “Aliens”, “Invading Country”, or “Nazi” and it would have no impact on the story. Anyway, the Genjyu are controlled by brain Genjyu, which are huge armored bugs that require a point-blank P.B.E (black hole) bomb shoved into their abdomen to kill them. Unfortunately, the scenes leading up to this event, from deployment to detonation, are almost entirely repeated footage, and so the 5 or 6 brain bugs killed during Gunparade March 12 episodes are eerily similar, not to mention boring.

For a world that’s almost completely overrun by Genjyu, the characters in Gunparade March are uncharacteristically chipper. “500 more 16 – 18yr old military guys and gals were killed today? Who cares? I wonder if Mai likes me…”
Aside from the poorly done mecha scenes, there are the poorly done and heavily cliché romance scenes. Long, arduous, torturous scenes where a character will struggle for minutes on end in a pathetic attempt to say “I love you”. To say that this has been done before would be a tremendous understatement. Sadly, Gunparade March never rises above the cliché, adding no nuances or twists to this tired old formula. We get the “overhearing romantic interest speaking ill me” scene, the “verbal misunderstanding” scene, the… but you get the idea.

Gunparade March has only a few individual scenes that work well, surrounded by a plethora of other scenes that don’t. Gunparade March is even worse when viewed as a whole, with multiple genres battling for screen time. Cut out the action scenes, and Gunparade March is a cliché romantic comedy. Cut out the romantic comedy, Gunparade March is a cliché action/extinction anime. Combine the two, and you have a mess of a series that doesn’t know what they want the audience to feel. Because of this constant messy back and forth, I was able to finish Gunparade March out of pure curiosity. When it’s over, however, don’t expect any cathartic awakenings, deep insights into the human condition, or anything other than déjà vu.