Anime: Gunparade Orchestra

Notice: This review will cover both season of the franchice; because they are so bad, they don’t deserve a second. And if you are not fond of nerdraeg, don’t bother reading it at all; it is basically me describing how BAAAD it is in not so civil means.

Gunparade is one hell of a troll show when it comes to its premise. It regards a war between humans and aliens through the use of mechas. One will of course expect to see some sort of Gundam or Macross variant and to his amazement he gets slice-of-life. And indeed, the whole alien invasion is nothing but a poorly inserted element, being there in an attempt to fool the mecha/action lovers into watching a more than typical school romance show.
…And boy, did it fail hard.

To put it simply, the mecha action in this show is damn boring and hardly matters compared to some cheesy romance amongst high school kids. What you get is the usual “Oh I like her; does she like me; how will I reveal my feelings for her” stuff we see in romances, and just for the heck of it they throw in some rushed and boring missions to go fight some aliens, as intermission before more cheesy romance. So in effect the action is COMPLETELY OUT OF PLACE!

Thus in effect we get two different genres that try to get along with the neighbors in the same apartment block, but only end up becoming despised by all the other denizens. The slice-of-life/school-romance lovers will dislike the out of place mecha action in the show, while the mecha action lovers will dislike the presence of slice-of-life/school-romance, as well as poorly executed battles. How could it possibly work?

What the hell were the makers of this thinking anyway? That it would be cool to have romance blooming in the battlefield? If so, WHERE IS THE GODDAMN BATTLEFIELD? All we see is aliens wasting life on Earth for half a century and the last hope for survival is in the hands of teenage mecha pilots, who almost uncaringly go to fight them before returning to school and the usual romantic stuff. I mean HELLO you guys are the last remnants of humanity and the last hope for survival. Why are you all acting like war ain’t even there? And if the aliens managed to kill most of humanity, why are such an easy pray to a bunch of kids? Where are the special ops middle aged ace pilots? Why are the aliens invading Earth? What is their backdrop? Why is everybody acting so uncaring about all that? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Well let me tell what is going on. Absolutely nothing; the scriptwriter had the mentality of a 5 year old while making this scenario and the developers didn’t even bother to think for 5 seconds how all this is total crap. It is all so autistic, you are simply not made to care or even tolerate the whole thing. It’s like you are living in a town overrun by zombies but you act like they are not there and keep going to work while they are chewing alive your neighbors. Complete and utter crap.

What is even more baffling is how this total tard actually got green light for a sequel. OH GODS OF HEAVEN AND HELL; THE PRODUCERS ARE RETARDS! No, they can’t be that GONZO-level stupid; they were probably bribed to go along with it. There is no other logical explanation… not that there is any logic at all in this show but whatever. So who are these idiots who did such a horrible thing anyway? Oh my, if it isn’t Brain’s Base; seems like they used as less brains as possible in this one.

Anyways, the second season would be a nice way to flesh out the setting and finally offer some answers that make sense. You know, like what do the aliens want or why is everybody so autistic about them. I don’t know if you can comprehend what I am about to say but they actually somehow found a way to take a crappy story and MAKE IT EVEN WORSE!!! They must be doing this on purpose, there is no other logical explanation, THEY WANT US TO HATE THEM!

So what is going on in this sequel of sorts that managed to do the unthinkable? Simply said, they offered even less context and went as far as going for unrelated stories, each time with different people, still trying to get a kiss from some girl while firing at the aliens. Not much of a story, no explanations, nothing worth to even bother remembering or at least NOT HATING! ARRGGHH!

This is one of the worst settings I ever got to watch (and I have watched a lot). Gunparade is what should be given to scriptwriters and producers as an example of what NOT TO DO!!! Seriously man, if you so much want to have a show about teenagers piloting robots AND include romance, at least try to make some excuses of how A connects with B instead of going all autistic about it. The average human being can suspend its disbelief only up to a point and not to the point it’s all looking like the Matrix.

… What? You want some info about the technicals like animation and soundtrack? SERIOUSLY? Why would you even care after all the stuff I have been writing so far? … Oh whatever, I will just tell you the very basics and be done with it. IT’S UNIMPRESSIVE, OK? The mecha action is boring, the mechas are average-looking, the cast is made up of generic school romance teenagers, and the music is completely forgettable. Yes, not even the exterior looks nice to give a good word about. IT IS TOTALLY MEDIOCRE! There, now let me wrap this up by simply saying DON’T WATCH THIS!!!

And now for some excused scorings.
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Though quite short at only 12 episodes, I found the original Gunparade March quite compelling in it's portrayal of a war against aliens who are almost totally incomprehensible in both nature and motives, how those who has to fight these aliens deal with life outside of battle, and came to an open but still satisfying end.

Gunparade Orchestra took many of the subtle elements that made GPM so enjoyable, the proceeds to randomly mix and reheat them until what’s left is a mess in 3 arcs, with plot holes large enough to cartwheel squads of HWT (Humanoid Walking Tanks, the name for mecha in the Gunparade universe) through.

Animation
In general, the animations for GPO was decent, though visuals tended to be a bit fuzzy though that may have just been the version I watched, and there was quite a lot of animation recycled with only changed backgrounds for different scenes.

Sound
The same OP song was used for the whole series, just with a few art swapped around to put emphasis on which arc the anime is on.

Mostly the VA for the large cast of characters did a reasonably good job and mostly sounded appropriate for the characters portrayed, though a few voice did grate on the nerves... I'd give a partial pass for this, since I'm not sure how much of that was intentional.

As for the BGM... It can be summed up in two words: Utterly unremarkable.

Story
As mentioned earlier, this anime is split into 3 arcs, each focusing on a different group. The first arc focus on a new commander fresh out of training trying to get group she has been assigned to into battle readiness, long after they've grown complacent by the lack of any battle. With the level of petty jealousy brought onto the battlefield, flagrant disobedience of orders and then blaming the subsequent clusterf**k on their new commander by a couple of the characters... That almost got me ready to dump the rest of the series half way through this arc. Fortunately, the story gave everyone a chance to pull together and form a real team, and thus ends episode 9 of 24.

The second arc focus on a special squad who were raised and trained to fight with Raidens (some sort of genetically modified dogs). Honestly, this arc poisoned my ability to suspend disbelief for the rest of the series, and also the primary reason for my remark about plot holes at the start. I mean, who the hell came up with the stupid idea of using glorified canines as weapons/steeds? And who the hell allows someone clumsy enough to consistently drop anything she is carrying (whether it be weapons & ammo, pots & pans, to valuable rations) onto the battlefield? And if there was enough time to plant high powered explosives all over the city, why wasn't any of it planted in the path of the enemy or even launched straight at the enemy? The entire second arc seems to be DOING all the DON'Ts of war.

The last arc focus on a group based on an island, on which there hasn't been any battles since 10 years, and the entire arc is just flat out uninteresting.

Character
Given that there's 3 different arcs, each having it's own cast of characters, there's simply not enough time for you to really get to know the cast.
In the first arc, as I noted above, a couple of the characters almost made me give up the entire series with all the petty jealousy and sniping at their new commander. Fortunately, they redeem themselves after understanding that there's more important things at stake. Besides those two, the characters are rather average: We have the rookie commander who doubts herself, the taciturn bishonen mecha pilot love interest, and the fairly stereotypical cast of mecha pilots and mechanics.

In the second arc, again we have characters that are utterly stereotypical of the genre. We have the hot-blooded idiot who leave his squad weakened to run off to do battle with the enemy, his rival the calm and thoughtful squad leader, the smug and arrogant commander who doesn't give a damn about anything other than his own reputation, the attractive but emotionless girl who was traumatised by some childhood tragedy, the clumsy girl, etc... Oh, and the character I hate most in the entire series, the genius mechanic boy who is also a freaking moron who decides to compare a terminally ill girl with a broken bath heater to her face, and then later in the arc declares that he will fight for the sake of the city, despite the fact that he would be a greater danger to his allies than enemies. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that there's also the typical cast of expendable Redshirts who appear for the sole reason of getting blow away.

In the last arc we have a stereotypically "oddball" cast. Unfortunately, none of them are really worth the effort of more detailed comments. Oh, and the mother of one of the characters (who only appeared in flashbacks/hallucinations) is a blatant rip-off of Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell.

Value
If you enjoyed the original GPM, you might want to give the first arc of GPO (aka the first 9 episodes) a watch. Otherwise, give the entire show a miss.

Enjoyment
Again, the first arc is decent, even enjoyable. But after episode 9... Well, let's just say that I would rather have those 6 hours of my life back so I get to watch GPM again instead.