Anime: Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen

The mecha genre is separated into giant robots which are rule of cool and real robots which are more about the war drama. Argevollen belongs to neither type, since its action is not cool and the war is boring. The cast is bland archetypes, the robots are all CGI, and you are never given any reason to care about who wins or who dies. And by the way, nobody important dies, not even amongst the secondary ones. What kind of a war is this?

A pretty dull one, that’s the kind it is. It’s just done for natural resources with no political aspect to it. Why would the audience care about such a trivial thing? Super robot series would have some megalomaniac bad guy who wants to take over the world. It’s cheesy but it’s fun. Real robots would expand to religion or humanism or something other than “we need more oil guys, let’s have a war.” That’s boring. And it doesn’t even feel like a war because it plays out like a cheesy fighting shonen, where the lead gets power ups and loses control a few times before going back to his happy-go-lucky bland archetype.

Just compare Argevollen with the original Gundam. In both shows a rookie ends ups piloting the new overpowered robot and is sent to stop the invaders. The difference is, in Gundam you see civilians being under attack and the pilots rush to protect them, half of which get killed, with the other half freaking out from all the devastation. In Argevollen, you only see soldiers fighting in the front. They are just doing their job, and they are pretty peachy about it. Is this a war or a playground?

We don’t even get much of a conflict since the plot is mostly stand alone skirmishes with a few sluggish bulky enemy units. The rest of it is slice of nothing happens amongst characters we are given no reason to care about. And they are all laughing and having a good time as if fighting for their lives is a game. They barely have any psychological pressure. It gets somewhat more interesting when the enemy levels up their mecha but even then there is no memorable villain. The only one who does something is a jerk and even he is completely bland and forgettable.

Even the pretty colors are not pretty enough. The CGI is not rendered well, the explosions have no punch to them, and the characters look and talk in such generic ways you can confuse them with the cast from a hundred other series. There’s nothing special in the way the show presents itself.

Even if for some reason you manage to finish this sorry excuse of a series, you won’t get any closure. The war is not over, they just have a short truce. The good guys leave on vacation as if nothing of importance happened throughout the whole series. You know, trivial stuff like half of them dying and the other half being scarred, or having a different perspective in life after all the mayhem they witnessed? Nothing happens, they are the exact same people as in the first episode. And that includes the romance which is constantly teased yet nothing comes out of it.

Argevollen is a dud. It doesn’t excel at anything and despite that making it better than trainwrecks it fails to be remotely interesting at what it aimed for. You can’t even laugh with how ridiculous it is, therefore it’s not recommended, it’s a complete waste of time.

Shirogane no Ishi: Argevollen (Argevollen) is yet another mecha show from the japanese industry, this time brought by Xebec, a somewhat irregular studio that rarely does some great works but mostly does lazy and unispiring shounens. Argevellon, however, is a weird mix of quality and mediocricy that can catch many mecha fans off-guard if they endure the boring starting sequence. In the end it can be one of few interesting military mecha shows in these last few years, which is not exactly an outstanding feat considering the quality of the competition.

Art & Animation
Considering animation studios these days, Argevollen manages to do a terrible job in this department. While the mechas are great, done in CG and smoothly mixed with the painted settings, everything else is considerably lazy when comparing to contemporary shows. The art style is quite generic, yes, but what stands out most of this mess is how the character simply don't blend with the backgrounds. The merging work is terrible and the art quality itself also suffers a lot.

Fortunately, as the show progress you manage to cope with it and there is even a considerable increase in the sharpness of the character art. Not enough to bring it to higher standards, but at least it manages to match with the great mechas. Expression-wise the cast is severely lacking though, failing at many times to convey a decent feel of what they are facing onscreen.

Sound
Following the low production value of the animation, the sound direction of Argevollen is also quite dull. Openings and endings are fine, there is a decent sound track selection and the voice-actors generally do a great job, but there are many boring moments, especially in the earlier episodes, that could drastically benefit from some background music or better sound effects.

Story
After many years of war, the forces of Ingelmia finally manage to breach the Great Wall, a impregnable fortification protecting the border of the Kingdom of Arandas. This feat turns the war into a large-scale invasion and amidst the turmoil of it the 8th Indepented Unit of the Arandas army confiscates an unknown mecha prototype: Argevollen. The cadet Susumu Tokimune ends up as its pilot, and with it the tide of the war can start to change.

1. 
   What a Terrible Start
   First thing: Argevollen starts really bad. It is not about its war setting, which manages to do a fine work at establishing who is enemy, who is ally, and who has its own interests. The boredom is the problem. Argevollen is very dull in its first episodes, with a simple run from the enemy that rarely gives you any hint of complexity to the tale. The focus on the boring protagonist and the cute executive girl also contributes to makes thing worse. However...
   
   It does get a lot better
   As the tales moves on, the politics and scheming start to be on the spotlight. Argevollen's mysterious development becomes a major player in the plot, the fights can get a bit interesting, and most importantly, the remaining cast start to overshadow the protagonist more often. It goes from a boring copy of Argento Soma to a average copy of Gundam, which is a nice thing considering the start.
   
   An attempt as a True Military Mecha
   Another decent thing to point out is Argevollen's courage of remaining as realistic as possible for most of the time. Argevollen is not invincible, the protagonist doesn't magically become a god-like skilled pilot, even the technology its kinda grounded. Of course, as the show reaches its end governments start to mass produce elite mechas in seconds, remote control which was only barely possible with a few mechas becomes easy and doable with hundreds of them, and some other irregularities. This leads to an end that is somewhat disapointing, but in a bearable degree.
   

Character
Argevollen's major starting problem is its protagonist and heroine. The duo overflows with cliche'd behavior. Tokimune disobeys orders from a military commander and is rewarded, Jamie completely disonates with the situation at hand, and even the captain of this elite team is kinda boring and ridiculously stereotyped.

1. 
   But the Support Cast
   If there is something to salvage from Argevollen's tale or depth is its support cast. The people from the 8th Independent Unit can be left to the sidelines most of the time and even fall to some heavy stereotypes, but the show does a good job at making them charming, fun, and more human than the rest. The engineer girls, the cheap talk between them, the daily-life segments, and their more common warfare roles all contribute to enhance their charisma. They don't grow to be amazing, much less turn the show into a character-driven experience, but they are far above the quality of everything else in Argevollen.
   
   But they don't die!
   Considering this is a military mecha show and the recent trend is to kill characters at random, it surprised me to see a show that is, as old shounens, afraid of killing any of the good guys. There is some drama with them, initially dead characters do play a dramatic role in the context, but there is a huge lack of killing in this show. I can't say if its is good or bad, but perhaps it's interesting to see how this is now the "different" approach to things nowadays. If it were five years ago or so it would fall right in the middle of the "more of the same" pool.
   
   But the major point here
   Perhaps the most important thing from this cast is simply the fact the show avoid unfit lolis, stupid ecchiness, and armies led by teenagers... that alone is already a superb feat!
   

Value
A military mecha show. Lack of focus on drama. The annoying protagonist template. Gundam-inspired war progression. Nah. Argevollen doesn't contribute to anything remarkable. It IS just one more the lot. In fact, its production value, writing, shounen aspects, and many other things can make you think the show is half a decade old.

Enjoyment
Unfortunately, the first string of six episodes or so can be extremely boring. The show does get more interesting after and it has an interesting way of making you admire it "after" watching it instead of "while" watching it. The warfare is good, the twists and turns are good, but the ending only helps to make things a bit boring once again. A shame, but still enjoyable for someone looking for a decent military mecha.

Comments
Considering the scores Argevollen surprised me a lot. I was expecting just another Valvrave trash, but with the production values of the first episodes my hopes became dust. How could something so boring be salvaged? Well... while it didn't exactly became great, the cast void of stupid unfit stereotypes certainly contributed a lot into making the average plot bearable. The twists and turns in the middle and the Gundam 00-inspired turnovers by the end also helped to make it a decent attempt at a military mecha.

It did a good job to entertain me, but the boring parts are plenty and the protagonist is simply terrible. Not enough to satiate a hunger for a greta mecha show, but can be a decent time filler for fans of genre.