Jinki: Extend 7/10
A great 24-26 episode mech show crammed into 13 episodes.
Character designs: 7/10
OK but pretty generic. Everyone has freaky eyes, me no likey.
Backgrounds: 8/10
A lot of this show takes place in Tokyo so there are a lot of better looking Tokyo backgrounds out there. These ones look OK though. The part of the show set in Venezuela looks really great.
Art consistency: 6/10
No problems with the mechs but there are a few scenes where the characters look pretty crappy. Only a few though.
OP theme: 3/10
Not bad but i skipped it most of the time.
ED theme 1: 4/10
Skipped it most of the time.
Musical score: 7/10
A couple of cues stood out and none of them bugged me.
Voice acting (Japanese): 7/10
Good but not hard to cast since most of the characters are normal people. No one had a really memorable voice.
Story: 7/10
A girl named Aoba, who lives with her grandmother, is brought to Venezuela to live with her estranged mother after the grandmother dies. It turns out the mother works on a secret mech project whose mission is to battle mysterious mechs known as Jinki with Jinkis of their own. The mother is a bit of a bitch and the girl ends up as a pilot with "special" powers. The mom, it turns out, is a traitor and takes off with the bad guys.
Jump ahead 3 years and the Jinki have now arrived in Japan the threaten the general populace and a whole team of Jinkis piloted by young girls now battle it out over the skies and in the streets of Tokyo. It turns out there's a second girl with "special" powers, named Akao, is discovered and she and Aoba and up battling it out in the finale.
Verdict: 7/10
The worst thing about this show is the disjointed nature of the plot, crammed into too few episodes. The backstory of Akao is revealed as flashbacks during the first 5-6 episodes or so where Aoba is in the 1989 timeline. The flashbacks then stop as Aoba joins the the 1991 timeline. The flashbacks are uneven and sometimes confusing, it's almost jarring losing that plot device so abruptly. Then what's worse is that some things are never even explained. Why did the old man have Akao in his care in one of the flashbacks? When was Unit 1 hidden and why? Where did the Jinki REALLY come from? Why is the main villain so small and how did he create clones? What was Shiva exactly? Why was Akao's mom in Venezuela in the first place as a young girl? Why does the blond girl not button her top? There's a good story buried in there somewhere but it's tough to see through all the flashbacks.
posted by Zenith27 @ 11:37 PM
4 Comments:
The plot really bogged this anime down. So, much so I had to ask myself if I missed a couple of episodes.
I would give this a lower rating, but you pretty much got the issues of the show spot on. There is really too much jumping around between the "present" and the "past". The plot would be much more solid had the writers written this in a series of two arcs, one past, one present, and kept them completely separate with maybe an episode or two to bridge between them. The numerous numbers of unexplained stuff is also incredibly annoying. There is just too much for 13 episodes. The last issue is that there isn't really a main character. For awhile, it's Aoba, then Akao, but at the end, whose story is this?
-Js2756
I guess I liked the first half with the spunky Aoba piloting a mech. The second half left me bored. We never really get to know Akao, it's almost like Rui is the main character by the end.
i gave it a 9/10
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