Fafner 8/10

This show really took a long time for me to get into it but after 10 or so episodes it gets moving.

Fafner ran for 26 episodes back in 2004. The character designs are all to familiar since they were done by the same guy who did Gundam Seed, Gundam Seed Destiny, Infinite Ryvius and S-Cry-Ed. ENOUGH! I really started to get confused because all the characters look like characters from other shows and none of them are really distinctive. They all get pretty generic names to I had to make a list to keep track (of course that's only until a bunch of people get killed). This show really looks great though and it's funny to see mechs and mech battles that look better than those in the almighty Gundam series'. The music was OK but the OP bugged me. I really didn't like the style and the ED wasn't much better.

It's the future. Aliens have invaded Earth AGAIN. The only way to battle them is with mechs piloted by teenagers AGAIN! They have "issues" with piloting and of course they have to survive being killed by the aliens, being absorbed by them, and being genetically mutated and killed by the mechs they pilot. Seen Evangelion? Of course you have. This show is a lot like that but a little better in my opinion.

It starts off on an island in some tropical location. A big gold whozit shows up and the island must defend itself. The pilot girl gets killed on her way to her mech and so the main character, Kazuki, gets sent out to kill it instead. It turns out the people of the island all work for the organization that runs it and builds the mechs in secret from what's left of humanity in the rest of the world. The kids on the island are genetically modified in order to pilot the mechs and this has been going on for some time. The secret nature of the island is revealed to the kids selected to be the next batch of pilots and here come the aliens.

This was the hardest part of the show to get through. The first 10 or so episodes are all about aliens attacking one after another and various characters you barely know being killed. There is no comic releif here and all you hear is the bitching and moaning by all the characters about the lack of fulfillment in a career as a mech piloting and the futility of existence. Also, the writers don't really reveal anything about the reason for the island, the mechs, the secrecy, or the aliens. Frankly, it's unpleasant to watch.

THEN things get better. The death toll levels off for awhile, there's a LITTLE comedy and you get to see how the kids behave and interact outside of a mech battle. This makes them MUCH more likeable and I lost my indifference towards them and their situation that had built up over the first part of the series.

The show moves on with the usual amount of carnage and the climactic battle against the aliens is pretty good if a bit hokey with all the "we all go home or nobody goes home" spiel. Sgt. Slaughter did it better in the G.I.Joe movie. I'll easily recommend this but isn't as good the show I was watching at the same time as this that did a MUCH better job telling a story about aliens coming to Earth.