STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!

Anime titles within this category used a nausea-inducing blurry animation techniques that pisses me off. It look like motion interpolation algorithm going SERIOUSLY BAD.

Review: Cardfight!! Vanguard – Asia Circuit Hen (カードファイト!! ヴァンガードアジアサーキット編)

Posted by ranpha on 5th February 2013

Posted in: anime review, sport genre standard, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Cardfight!! Vanguard – Asia Circuit Hen (カードファイト!! ヴァンガードアジアサーキット編), Cardfight!! Vanguard (series). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist!

The second review for the year of 2013 is for a 2012 title, titled Cardfight!! Vanguard – Asia Circuit Hen. This anime is the sequel of Cardfight!! Vanguard, reviewed in this blog some time last year. As a series aired in 2012, this anime is supposed to battle Another for this blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2012’ title, but the various handicaps this second season has inherited from its predecessor pretty much kills any chances of this anime of doing so. This second season has managed to improve in some parts when compared to the first season, but has regressed in one key element when doing so. To know what part this second season of Cardfight!! Vanguard has managed to screw-up, read the rest of this review. Oh BTW, because the last entry of this blog doesn’t have any pictures, this one instead will have a lot of them.

Rather than wasting precious real estate to casinos, Singapore is better off building Vanguard stadiums instead.

Story:-
After winning the national championship in the first season, the main male protagonist’s team has disbanded, and he spends the rest of his days moping at the fact that he has lost the love of his life (Kai). Suddenly, out of the blue, a mysterious kid appears, kicked the main male protagonist’s ass in a Vanguard game and stole his valued Vanguard deck, replacing it with a deck foreign to him. The mysterious kid then taunted the hero, saying that he has to win the Vanguard Asia Circuit tournament in order to get his old deck back, using the new deck given to him. Therefore, the main protagonist and his old teammates has to criss-cross the Asia-Pacific region in order to retrieve what has been stolen from him.

Let’s go straight to the major regression this second season of Cardfight Vanguard has, that its predecessor doesn’t. That would be the ‘save the world’ ending arc, which is a completely unexpected turn in plot, and absolutely out of step with the story themes of the first season, and most of the materials in the second. I can understand it if the main male protagonist have to save Planet Cray from devastation (that’s what he does in the first season too), but the ‘save the Earth’ plot in the ending is a step too far. There is nothing wrong, for example, with a final tournament in knock-out or round-robin formats, between the winners of all Vanguard Asia Circuit as the plot of the final arc, which blends seamlessly with prior events in the second season and also the first one.

This pretty much sums up what the game is all about despite what Animax tagline says.

The storyline for this second season, excluding the ending of course, has slightly decreased in quality. But this regression in quality is more than made up by the lack of forced drama scenes and misapplied flashback sequences that plagues the first season. The second season has two beach episodes though, which is still nowhere as good as the gold standard of all anime’s beach episodes. The decrease in quality may have to do with fewer episode count when compared to the first season, more emphasis on tournaments (which makes the ending arc so out of place) and the obviously intentionally-placed throttle on developments for characters that isn’t the main male protagonist.

One of those scenes where a player 'conveniently' get a suitable trigger card at the right moment and the right time.

One thing that the second season has improved upon the first is the gameplay of the Vanguard card game. Make no mistake here; this game still depends hugely on luck when drawing trigger cards to determine the result of a card duel (exactly the opposite). And just like the first season, the writer has used this fact to skillfully manipulates the direction of the storyline. But the addition of extra game modes in Vanguard circuits after the Singapore one makes the card duels in this sequel better than the ones in first season. The notable game mode I really like is the tag battle mode in Hong Kong leg of the circuit. These game modes gives more variety to the card battles, instead of the usual best-of-3 game mode seen exclusively in all tournaments in the first season. These variable game modes also helped this second season of Cardfight Vanguard become better than its predecessor, indirectly, when it comes to story presentation.

With the new game modes seen in the tournament circuits, the already excellent pacing in in-tournament battles in the first season has actually improved in the second season. This is a major surprise to me, because initially I don’t think there are any room for improvement for this anime in this department. This is achieved by getting rid of the usual 3-battles per-round game format with single-battle per-round format that drastically reduced the amount of episodes needed to cover all the 4 tournaments in the Vanguard Asia circuit. Adding to this fact, the pacing of the general storyline also increased, allowing less episodes to be used for them. This may explain how the second season can pack as much action and plot as the first season, in only 39 episodes. For comparison, the first season has 65 of them. The flow of the storyline has also be improved, especially by the lack of the misapplied flashback sequences I mentioned earlier above.

The game modes makes the second season card battles far more interesting though.

But when it comes to character development, I have a very deep feeling that the writer is actively trying to sabotage the character developments of certain characters, especially the main male protagonist’s teammates. The signature feature of the second season is the ‘Limit Break’ technique, where a Level 3 card gets specific stat bonuses, special abilities or other positive features if the player has at least 4 damage inflicted upon him/her. As expected, the main male protagonist gets to use Limit Break from the first leg of the circuit, but his two teammates are a little bit slow on mastering this Limit Break thing.

In the first leg of the circuit at Singapore, only the main male protagonist is able to use Limit Break, while his other two teammates doesn’t. Okay I said, this is only the first leg, surely the other two will follow suit and use Limit Break in the next tournament. Then the South Korea leg comes and goes, and only the main male protagonist is using the Limit Break technique while the other two doesn’t. Okay I said, after being schooled by opponents that uses Limit Break in Seoul, surely they will follow the lead of their group leader and then use Limit Break in the next tournament.

Then the Hong Kong leg comes and goes, and yet they still doesn’t use the Limit Break technique, although they are now capable of beating opponents that uses the technique, even without using it. It was here then I started to wonder what the hell the writer is thinking. In anime titles like this, especially in sports titles, characters in those titles usually learned from their mistakes and improved in the next tournament. This doesn’t happen here at all. In fact, if the character development strategies seen in the first season is used in this second season, all three members of Team Q4 should have been able to use Limit Break already by the time the Hong Kong leg plays out.

The second season could have been better with a more radical match-ups though. How about Aichi vs. Asaka and Misaki vs. Ren?

Then after the defeat in in the final at Hong Kong, all three members of the Team Q4 received a new card each, and then participates in the final leg of the circuit that is held in Japan. Okay I said, surely this time, with new cards for everyone, the main male protagonist’s sidekicks will be using Limit Break in the do-or-die tournament. You know what happened? Only one of them (the brat with spiky hair) actually used Limit Break, and the other one (surly white-haired girl) doesn’t, as Team Q4 finally wins the last leg of the circuit. Wooooah, I said, the last person’s Limit Break must have been saved for the final Royal Rumble free-for-all tournament with the winners of Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong legs of the circuit. Surely, that’s what will happen, right?

But no, the awful ‘save the world’ final arc comes after that, where the main male protagonist does most of the fighting while his teammates donned up some pom-poms cheering him at the sidelines. You will never see the Limit Break technique of his white-haired teammate even after the final episode stopped playing. What a messed up character development strategies this anime has, which is nearly up there with the abomination that is the ending arc.

A pivotal moment in the whole series: A love confession at the end of the cape!

But in the third season of Cardfight!! Vanguard, that is airing right now, I have glimpsed a few new exciting features that should make the third season better than its two predecessors. In the third season, the main male protagonist enrolls in the same high school as his white-haired teammate. Not only that, the blonde member of the crappiest idol group in anime history also transfers into his class. I never thought she and the main male protagonist are of the same age; that would explain the strange attraction of him by her throughout 104 episodes of the first and second season (in retrospect, she is extremely important plot device used by the writer to advance the main male protagonist’s character). In the new high school era for the main male protagonist, if the writer wants to write in romance elements, like for example, a love triangle between the main male protagonist, his classmate and his white-haired senior, all I want to say is: YES PLEASE!

And God no, please no more of ‘save the world’ plot again.

If this brat is of the same lineage as Lee Kuan Yew, then Singapore is doomed if you ask me.

Not only that, the third season completely do away with character development problem in the second season that I mentioned above. The third season’s signature feature is the ‘Break Ride’ technique, when you chain two Level 3 cards in the Vanguard position to obtain +10000 attack power, which can be made more devastating when combined with the Limit Break technique. In the third season, not only that the main male protagonist can already use it, but the new character in the third season that is new to the card game can actually use it too! Even only after a few episodes, the third season sure has lots of promise.

As long as there are no more ‘save the world’ plot

My commentary of the still running third season of Cardfight!! Vanguard is included in this review of the second season, because for the first time in years, I have decided to watch this anime on a weekly basis. I will not write anything more about the third season after today, until the last episode of the third season finished playing (hopefully it is sometime in 2013).

Quoted For Truth!

Character Design:-
My comment for this section in the first season’s review still applies.

Voice Acting:-
My comment for this section in the first season’s review still applies.

Music:-
While the OST is still as good as ever, just the way it is in the first season, the same thing cannot be said for this second season’s OP/ED themes. The second season only has one good themes, which is the 2nd ED theme. This is so unlike the first season that has many good OP/ED themes.

The second season still have their own share of freaky Vanguard teams.

Animation/Direction:-
Just like the first season, the blurry animation technique is being used, so one point will be docked from the final evaluation. The animation quality has improved from what I have seen in the first season; no more PowerPoint slideshows for character animations. General animations is still good; no improvements but no regressions either. The director can be credited with the tightening of pacing in in-game battles, but not for allowing the ending to be the way it is now.

Conclusion:-
5 out of 10. Still the same score as the first season. Hopefully, the third season can improve on this.

The overriding ambition of the main male protagonist, which ends up unfulfilled.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-B7

Review: Accel World (アクセル・ワールド)

Posted by ranpha on 3rd December 2012

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Accel World (アクセル・ワールド). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist, made from chrome.

A few months ago, the horror thriller anime Another wins the audition for this blog ‘Anime of the Year 2012’ title, and today its first challenge comes from a surprisingly good anime series, titled Accel World. Nevertheless, this anime failed to unseat Another from its title because of some very obvious problems with the storyline and at least one unanticipated issue that will really surprise you.

Story:-
4 years before the events in Little Battlers Experience, people in Japan has already stopped using their iPhones and Samsung Galaxies in favor of an augmented reality device called neuro linkers. This device allows their users to dive into Second Life-like virtual worlds, using custom avatars, doing things that the Residents has done many decades previously. The pudgy main male protagonist, a neuro linker user that used it primarily for MMORPGs, was introduced to a dodgy neuro linker app called ‘Brain Burst’ by a mysterious beautiful girl at his middle school. The ‘Brain Burst’ app then allows him to accelerate his biological brain functions, paving the way into the ‘Accelerated World’, a C-like alternate dimension where he has to fight for points, levels and of course, the woman. Unfortunately (for me), there are no signs of 12TB thumb drives in this anime.

If there is anything I can say about this anime’s plot, that would be that it (the story) has a vast amount of potential still left unexplored within it after the last episode, scratching only the surface of a potentially expansive storyline. You know, kinda like Legend of Legendary Heroes, Giant Killing and even Infinite Stratos. And definitely so unlike C, which potential has already been largely exhausted in its final episode. But from what I have watched so far in this anime, the quality of the plot is somewhat inferior to the first two anime titles I mentioned in the sentence preceding the one before this one. But personally I think the inferior plot quality is by design and intentional, mainly because of a reason I will explain below.

The reason why this anime’s plot is inferior to Legend of Legendary Heroes (shortened to ‘LOL Heroes’ from now on) and Giant Killing is because the writer for this anime focused much more on character developments and relationships while keeping the rate of the development of the storyline very low. In LOL Heroes, its writer managed to balance character and story developments better, while in Accel World, its writer focused more on the character developments aspects while somewhat neglecting the plot. And this is where my first complaint comes in: the execution of the writer’s strategy in this anime really can do with more polish.

Accel World: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.

While Accel World and LOL Heroes has different rate of plot developments, both of them has similar episode count. With the former focusing more on character developments than the latter, does that mean the former performs better when it comes to character developments strategies? The answer to this question is ‘only barely, if at all’. LOL Heroes already has good character developments, with higher regular character counts, and without sacrificing the story advancement too much. This anime, which has lower regular character counts (which automatically gives this anime an advantage) somewhat still cannot outperform LOL Heroes in this aspect, with a margin that matched the effort. Only the main male protagonist has the rate of character developments that commensurates the efforts put by the writer in this anime.

I think the main reason why the character developments in this anime isn’t really as good as it can be to match the efforts put in is because there are not much story to go around within the whole series. The amount of plot in this anime would have been common in a 12-episode series than in one double the length. A subtle time jump inserted somewhere in the middle of the series doesn’t help either, and frankly speaking, this anime needs more of the ‘bouncer episode’ that happens before the time jump. If this anime has a second season, more emphasis should be put on advancing the storyline, so that the balance seen in LOL Heroes is used in Accel World’s future iterations.

Moving to character developments, as mentioned above, this anime has done really well in this aspect as expected from how the story is written. In fact, just like the storyline, there are plenty of developments left in the tank for almost all of the recurring characters. The best character in this anime, for the time being is definitely the main male protagonist, followed by his two childhood friends. The main female protagonist was written out from the story for the whole second half of the series, has a vastly slower character developments than the others in the first half but still is a quite decent character with hidden potential character-wise and story-wise in the future. But I have a MAJOR technical complaint about her that will definitely affect this anime’s rating negatively, and I will elaborate about this later below.

This deus ex machina plot device is one of this anime's problems.

As I have written in the paragraphs above, as of now this anime has inferior storyline compared to what you can see in LOL Heroes and Giant Killing. For now, that can be forgiven as long as this anime has a second season (which as of writing, isn’t confirmed yet), but unfortunately this anime’s plots was plagued by three problems. The first ones would be plot holes (as opposed to loose ends). For example, I was very surprised when I found out that Scarlet Rain is a level 9 Burst Linker, a level she must have attained after the main female protagonist went into exile. But then again, the non-aggression treaty should have been in force, so how on earth did she get level 9? Did she spam the Unlimited Field?

The second problem this anime has is the numerous amount of forced melodramatic moments has, especially the ones that has to do with the main male protagonist and his relationships with his two childhood friends. The Kaiji-like amount of crying by the former doesn’t help things either. The third problem would be the usage of deus ex machina plot devices and moments like the incarnate system shown in the screenshot above. Would have been nice if the main male protagonist become stronger by just pure effort the way it is in Giant Killing.

The pacing of the storyline that is being told in this anime is quite decent and the flow is flawless. Would have been nice if this anime has a longer storyline that matched Giant Killing and LOL Heroes. As expected, the ending of this anime feels like a typical ending of a story arc, which mean there are still loose ends left in the storyline at the final episode. Therefore a second season will be needed (essential even), but will this anime follows LOL Heroes and Giant Killing in not having one? I sure hope not.

I think it was supposed to be the other way around right?

Character Design:-
Apart from the main male protagonist, the character designs for all the other characters are just typical for the shounen genre. I’ll even say I have the ‘hey I have seen this character design before in other titles’ feelings. Black hairs are not frequent, but actually prominent. Accel World avatars’ design suspiciously looks so much like the suits of the two main protagonists of Tiger and Bunny, but worse in quality and I don’t really like the monotonous designs at all. Virtual reality avatars designs are much better, especially for the main female protagonist’s.

Voice Acting:-
As mentioned above, the main female protagonist of this anime is a decent character even when she play a very minor role in the second half of this anime. But my biggest problem with her is her voice actress, which has done one of the most awful voice acting gigs for a major character in all the anime titles I have ever watched. She (the voice actress) is decent when her character is in kuu mode, but become extremely bad when her character is in dere mode. The awfulness is also evident in some scenes where main female protagonist is in her Accelerated World form, like when she pronounce the end of her self-imposed exile period after the main male protagonist acquire his wings.

Voice acting-wise, she is way worse than Kaidou Jin from Little Battlers Experience (he is the major character that has wooden voice acting I’m talking about in that anime’s review) and also the minor character in Giniro no Olynssis, amongst others. This anime lost one point because of this alone. If this anime gets a second season, her voice actress has to improve greatly by that time or else the director should just replace her with someone that can handle kuudere characters better.

Voice acting by the rest of the characters is patchy at best. The voice actor for the main male protagonist’s best male friend is also below average, but nowhere as bad as the main female protagonist’s. The main male protagonist and his female childhood friend has decent voice actors, but some other characters like Ash Roller and Dusk Taker has very good voice acting gigs.

That awesome life-like fire animation last seen in Yumekui Merry makes its return in this anime.

Music:-
This anime has very good and elaborate electronic OST, especially during battles. The first OP and ED themes are good too, but it is just unfortunate that the second set of the OP and ED themes are not as good as the first one.

Animation/Direction:-
This anime used the blurry animation technique in its battle scenes, therefore one point will be docked from this anime’s final rating. This is a shame because this anime has good choreography efforts that would look better without all the blurring going on. General animation quality is good and flawless, especially that fire animation seen in the screenshot above. The director has done nothing wrong in this anime, a feat considering how this anime was structured.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Yet another series that really need a second season. Whether we will get one or not is still up in the air though.

Even the second worst character when it comes to voice acting has a much better gig when compared to the main female protagonist.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-A4

Review: Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (機動戦士ガンダムAGE <エイジ>)

Posted by ranpha on 26th October 2012

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Gundam (series), Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (機動戦士ガンダムAGE ). 3 comments

The first arc's main protagonist.

After cancelling my plan to watch Steins;Gate as I waited for the Blu-ray version, my attention then switched to a high-priority anime title that just ended its run when I watched Endless Eight. Mobile Suit Gundam AGE is the second Gundam series reviewed here after Mobile Suit Gundam 00. There is a very important change made in this latest non-Universal Century (U.C.) Gundam installment, that set it apart from Gundam 00 and other non-U.C. titles like Gundam SEED and Gundam Wing, both I have watched before starting this blog. This change, which I can call very drastic, revolutionary even, caused this Gundam title to be vastly different in unexpected ways compared to its predecessors in the past. Want to know what the change is? You should continue reading then.

These lines right in the first episode clearly shows what this anime's target demographic is.

Story:-
A few years before the start of this series, our main male protagonist’s family were killed in an attack of their space colony by an unidentified space invaders. To fulfill his mother’s dying wish, he started to build a mobile suit under the mentoring of his foster father, and as the construction finished, those unidentified aliens conveniently shows up and try to destroy the colony he is living on. Seeing that, he then gets into the cockpit, straps on the seat-belt, fired up the mobile suit and went all-out gun blazing kicking alien’s ass. Oh a question: did mobile suit pilots in Gundam Wing, SEED and 00 wear seat belts?

The change I have mentioned above that makes this Gundam series to be different than its non-U.C. predecessors is the switch of target demographic. It only takes me two or three episodes to realize that whoever writes the storyline for this anime is targeting a more mainstream, and different, young viewership compared to Gundam 00 and co. If the likes of Gundam 00/SEED/Wing shared their audiences with U.C. Gundam titles, Gundam AGE instead shares its intended target demographic with, surprise, surprise, Cardfight!! Vanguard.

With the demographic switch, the storyline 4-arc anime series has a less-nuanced approach to the battle between good and evil, starker differences between black and white and more reliance on characters’ deaths as a plot device, which is the staple of many titles that targets the same demographic as this anime is. This is probably why this Gundam series is less talked-about compared to other non-U.C. titles out there in cyberspace. Is this a good thing? In theory, the answer is yes, after all, watching titles like Cardfight!! Vanguard is one of my guilty pleasures. But practically, problems with presentations and plot executions prevents this anime from reaching its absolute potential.

And lines like this later in the series reinforced that switch.

This 49-episode series is divided into 4 arcs, with the first three having a different main protagonist. The first arc is just your typical mecha action hero stuff common in titles subbed by TV-Nihon fansub group. You won’t see this kind of storyline in previous Gundam titles, whether U.C. or non-U.C. ones. Romantic subplots in this arc is good though, vastly better than the one in Gundam 00, and actually is very instrumental in shaping this arc main protagonist’s character in subsequent arcs. The second arc, featuring the son of the first arc’s main protagonist fathered with his second-choice childhood friend, is even better because he (the second arc’s main protagonist) is basically Shinn Asuka done right, with believable path to redemption to boot. The fact that he doesn’t have the X-Rounder powers helps his characterization greatly. Romance subplots in this arc isn’t really as good or has as much impact as the one in the previous arc though.

The third arc, featuring the son of the second arc’s main protagonist fathered with his first-choice high-school friend, is the worst arc in the whole series. The reason for this is that this arc repeats exactly the same mistakes done in the second season of Gundam 00; cliché-laden dialogues and predictable plot. Plus, the fact that this arc’s main protagonist is the weakest link in the family doesn’t help either. This arc has almost zero romantic subplots, which is probably a good thing. The fourth arc, featuring all three main protagonists of the past arcs, is better and is an improvement from the third arc, but not as good as the first and second arcs. I have a major complaint about the final arc, which will be explained later below.

What detracts from this Gundam’s unique storyline (when compared to other Gundam titles) is presentation. In the very first episode, I can already see haphazard scene transitions right from the start, which in turn also affect the flow of the story negatively. But this problem seems to be reduced in subsequent arcs, or maybe I just have gotten used to it? Another problem that this Gundam has that its non-U.C. predecessors doesn’t have is numerous forced drama scenes. For example, someone has to explain why that Riria kid goes to the surface of Fardain in her first attempt when the two Fardain factions started to shoot at each other.

As I mentioned before, this Gundam has pivoted its storyline to target a different demographic, the one that is the same as Cardfight!! Vanguard. If there is any issue you can have with this switch, that would the the writer’s failures to remove common clichés that is common in the genre out from the storyline. The most prominent of those clichés seen in this anime would be the abundance of moments of serendipity and convenience. An example of this can be seen in episode 9, when the 1st arc main protagonist meets the alien’s mobile suit far away from his Diva mothership, he can conveniently summon his Gundam to fight it as if the Diva is located right next to him. If this is Gundam SEED or 00, the main protagonist would have to fight the alien’s mobile suit using the Shadolls mobile suit that can be found at the workshop he is in.

This mobile suit transfer scene depicted above is the worst breaker of suspension of disbelief in the history of the anime industry.

Still talking about the example I mentioned above, that event has a scene that destroys suspension of disbelief, something I last seen in Gosick. The moment the main protagonist’s team mate says “You have 15 seconds to perform the mobile suit transfer” (or something to that effect), I instantly scream “That sir, is fucking bullshit”. There is no way a normal human being, that only wear normal clothes instead of a pilot or a spacesuit, can even survive one second in deep space vacuum. This is totally bad writing by whoever wrote this story. As I mentioned the last paragraph, this anime employs plenty of the ‘moments of convenience’ plot device; I can easily think of a couple of methods using the ‘moments of convenience’ thingy that will allow the main protagonist to switch mobile suits while still keeping suspension of disbelief intact.

Amongst all non-U.C. Gundam titles I have watched, Gundam AGE has the fastest pacing of them all. With only 49 episodes yet having 4 substantial arcs within it, this is pretty much inevitable. If this Gundam wants to have the similar excellent pacing seen in Gundam 00 for example, this anime will need at least 30 extra episodes at the minimum, and personally I think should have been done. The fast pacing this anime has is also definitely one of the factors that contribute to the haphazard flow of the storyline I mentioned before.

Character developments in this anime is mixed bag at best. The obvious best character in this anime is the main protagonist of the second arc, BUT only in that arc. Him in the third and fourth arc is just so-so. The first arc’s main protagonist is quite decent in his own arc, but become much better (and senile?) in the final arc, overshadowing both of his descendants in the process. The less said about his grandchild, the better. My biggest problem about characterization in this anime is how some secondary characters that appears in the second and third arc simply melted away into nothingness (read: written out of the storyline) without any explanation whatsoever.

Speaking about the ending, I have two main problems with it. The first beef I have with the ending would be the fact that it was crammed into merely two episodes or something, causing the pacing to go through the roof. My second problem with the ending is how it was written. If you expect epic mobile suit duels befitting for a finale scene, you will be disappointed. The two main antagonists in the anime loses their finale battles mainly because they are distracted, not because their opponents are superior to them. Definitely a letdown considering the build-up to the finale.

The third arc's main protagonist.

Character Design:-
If you can’t discern the demographic change just by looking at the storyline, the drastic change of character designs in Gundam AGE should slap you into reality. Again, the character designs in this anime is similar to ones in anime titles that are subbed by TV-Nihon fansub group. And the character designs in this anime is pretty much typical of anime titles that aims for that target demographic. Black hairs are rare, but then again this anime is set up in a futuristic age where humans live in space colonies, therefore I expect the humans of that time has evolved to ditch the black hairs and acquires dark green dreadlocks instead (plus X-Rounder powers as a bonus).

Only the mecha designs did not really change, although the Gundam designs in this anime resembles more of its counterparts in U.C. Gundam titles than in the past non-U.C. Gundam titles. To maximize the SKU that Bandai can sell, each Gundam version has the ability to ‘evolve’ into different shapes with different accessories and different power-ups. This actually helps the storyline a lot, not to mention the benefits for character developments and Bandai’s coffers.

The best thing that happened in the second arc, and possibly the whole series too.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is good in general, and better than the last one seen in Gundam 00. But even that, I do not think there is any outstanding voice acting gigs in this anime.

Music:-
If you are expecting any JAM Project OP/ED themes in this anime, then you will be for a disappointment. Between all 8 OP/ED themes in this anime, only the 2nd and 3rd ED themes are good. The OST itself are excellent, especially the one that plays in important events in the first arc.

Animation/Direction:-
This anime used the motion blurring animation technique in many of its action scenes, therefore a point will be docked from its final evaluation. Other than that issue, regretfully I have to report that the animation quality in this Gundam title has regressed when compared to what seen in Gundam 00. Choreography for action scenes are better though, except for important battles in the finale. The director hasn’t made any blunders character-wise too, unlike his counterpart in Gundam 00.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. I think Sunrise’s decision to pivot this anime’s storyline to target a more mainstream demographic is a good one, but the execution could do with more improvements. Sunrise should keep this demographic change for the next non–U.C. Gundam title (while keeping U.C. Gundam titles for Gundam’s more traditional fans) and then ask the Tiger & Bunny’s director and writer to make it happen. The prospect of a Gundam title that is as awesome as Tiger and Bunny is truly salivating.

This Westernized method of presentation has never been seen in a Gundam title before. Unfortunately, its usage is restricted to the first half of the series only.