Jinki: Extend

This is one of the most truly insane shows I have seen in my short anime watching career. I enjoyed the hell out of it in much the same way that one enjoys a low budget action movie from the 80s. Turn your brain off and strap in for the ride. Needless to say, this is not going to be a show for everyone, and it's flawed enough that I can't honestly recommend it, but if you go in with the expectation that you're watching something ridiculous rather than something aspiring to be high art, it'll be an entertaining experience. The pace ofthis show is relentless, there are 26 episodes worth of plot crammed into 12, and it throws some absolutely preposterous plot twists at you in short succession. It can be a very disorienting experience, in part because there is so much happening all the time that the show leaves little room to explain what is actually going on or the significance of various events. It requires close watching and even rewatching to fully understand what is happening at points, and the show is very light on exposition until the last 2 episodes, so it requires a fair amount of reading between the lines. For example, there is a 3 year time jump at one point in the story, and the show does not call attention to it in any way or let you know that is what's happening. It simply leaves you to wonder why the characters are so different and are all in different places until they start referring to previous events as having happened years earlier in conversation. A bit more audience handholding through a plot this loopy would have been greatly appreciated. Another issue creating a generally confusing atmosphere is poor character design. Characters often look very samey in this show, especially in the Tokyo arc when they're inside their mechs and the lighting makes every character's hair and eye color the same shade of blue. There are spoiler reasons why some characters look so samey, but that doesn't actually help the problem of being unable to tell some of them apart for significant stretches of the show. Most aggravatingly, there are 4 different characters with purple eyes and black hair worn in a similar style and the show essentially leaves it to you to figure out who is who the majority of the time. In general, the art for this show is dated and does not look great. The mechs actually look fine, it's the characters that don't always look good. The animation is occasionally a bit janky and the characters look fairly ugly. They have a tendency to look like they have the mumps when viewed in 3/4ths profile as well. The characters themselves are fairly weak. Aoba and her mom are almost alone among the cast in having complex personalities, and her mom plays generic villain early, not developing layers until the 2nd half of the show. Many are one note, like the cold and competitive Rui and her goofball surrogate mother Minami, but this doesn't necessarily mean they are bad, just lacking in complexity. An unfortunate number of other characters, most glaringly Akao, are simply generic Good Girl That Tries Really Hard characters. It can sound from all of this like I am very negative on the show, and I suppose I am in an objective sense, but I have to emphasize that this show can absolutely be a fun rollercoaster ride if you have the right mindset for it. The twists in this show are very stupid and very fun. If this sounds like something you can appreciate on its own terms, you'll be in for a treat. If you want to watch a legitimately high quality show, there are many better to choose from.

Mecha shows with female leads aren't really that common (the other one I've watched is Rinne no Lagrange. Not sure if Kannazuki no Miko counts considering the one who piloted most of the time was the guy character) so I decided to give Jinik: Extend a shot. That and it's OP is a reference to the OP of Mobile Suit Gundam. Really. View Jinki Extend's OP, then MSG's. You'll see. Jinki Extend would have worked better as a longer anime, or one with two seasons. there are two storylines- one starring Aoba, and the other one starring Akao. Chronologically, Aoba's arc occurs before Akao's, but theanime shows them both at the same time, making it quite confusing. To save you the trouble, if there's a flashy scene transition it's probably going to shift from one arc to the other. This showing of two arcs at the same time is not a good idea-the show gave us a lot of time in the first half with Aoba, then it suddenly shifts into focus into Akao in the latter part. However since you have not been given time to "bond" with this new cast, you may not care for them as much. The mecha design is okay-nothing stands out, really. Music is very good- it gets you pumped up for the battles. Especially in the Akao arc, with it's city setting. Expect lots of collateral damage. Overall however it's not too bad- I still enjoyed the series, especially near the end since both storylines merged and we get too see characters from both arcs fight together, which was great. This would have been better if it had two arcs-or at least, if it showed everything in chronological order. As it stands it's just an average anime-still enjoyable, but don't expect it to be really good.

I finally pulled this off "the Stack" about a week ago. I won't say how long I've had it but I've moved twice since 2015 and it made at least one of those trips. Yeah, it had some dust on the wrapper. But I finally watched it, so how was it? Well as mecha shows go it's no After Colony era Gundam, but I rank it slightly above Burst Angel. It did have a lot to cram into thirteen episodes, including characters, and if it were longer they had some other directions they could've run with. This could have helped toslow down the plot and not rush into it. That's really all I can hold against it, Jinki is a shorter series. Buuuut, it was entertaining enough to earn a second watch down the line. It focuses more on what the characters are up to than the mecha action, but these sequences are drawn and not the different styled CG like Burst was. I do find myself relating to Aoba who comes off as a fangirl that ends up living her dream in a way. Plus an evil Monica Rial is always entertaining. Theme music is still replaying in my head, that's always a good sign. A good rainy Saturday morning binge.