Pastel colors in a scene for a mecha anime are rare. Enjoy while it lasts.
If sword-wielding half humans and blue-haired otaku failed to wrest the title of Best Anime of The Year 2007 from Nodame Cantabile, can a teenager who can transform into a robot do better? Read on to see whether Heroic Age has what it takes to do so.
Story:-
Age (name of the protagonist) was found by Princess Lacus Deianeira at the corner of the galaxy and she wasted no time using him as the weapon of mass destruction hailing him as the savior against the man-eating Silver Tribe who has conquered planet Earth. Eventually they succeeded to drive the Silver Tribe to another dimension and everything is all fine again.
The story is soppy and sloppy at times but has a decent ending (meaning: the storyline is basically average and not worth writing about). This means the character strength of the main characters takes center stage, the way Eat-man series does. The main character is pretty likeable, mildly retarded but most importantly NOT AN EMO and are able to make correct decisions decisively in key events (probably helped by the fact that he can somewhat sees the future). You can’t really say the same about the princess which resembles that certain annoying bitch in a certain famous mecha anime though.
The best part of this series is the continuous action scenes that is both intense and fast-paced. At best, there are only a couple of episodes where Nodos vs. Nodos battles or epic space battles (the way Legend of Galactic Heroes does it) is not at the forefront. This almost makes up the for forgettable story. The action scenes are also used to convey some parts of the story, but you will not care about that because you will be enamoured by the all those action scenes (if you like those things just like me). There is no romantic crap or fillers here, at least obviously, and that’s a huge win for the series.
Character Design:-
Originality is not a theme you can use here as XEBEC influence is clear throughout the anime. Well, it wasn’t really that bad, but nothing to write 1000 words about. Meanwhile the mecha/Nodos/spaceship designs are very well done.
Voice acting:-
Voice acting here is great, a positive aspect of the anime. While there are no stand outs, overall virtually all voice actors does their part well.
Music:-
Just like the mentioned Eat-man, this series has great OST but the themes are disappointing.
Animation/Direction:-
Another plus point of the anime, the animation here are top-notch. This anime obviously has a big budget because with all those very many action scenes, very minimal scenes are reused, probably less than 5 (and I essentially tried to look for them). It also did not suffer in high-paced scenes. The choreography of the action scenes are virtually perfect from start to end (and the reason why I follow the anime), a far cry compared to the the ones I see in the admittedly far older Yamamoto Yohko. The directing does not really have to deal with the story here as most of the air time are spent in battles, but in the few scenes where battles are not included, the directing does not seem to be comparable to the choreography.
Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. Average story and average music and the anime lost 2 points. Obviously, this series failed to capture the award from Nodame Cantabile. The next review will be Seirei no Moribito, which I heard good things about it.
To Your-Mom group – a QC is sorely needed for your future projects. This is a vast improvement from that travesty that is School Rumble ni Gakki though.
