Frame Arms Girl

Frame arms girl is a wonderful, relaxing Anime, and made me smile! (hoping for season 2)!!!! Love everything about it, even though some fan service was kinda....yeah. This was just wonderful! 10/10 all! I love all the characters! Even though I usually just give 10/10 to anime that give me the feels, and makes me imagine myself in the Anime, I gave this an exception for an 10/10!I have no dislikes about this Anime! I recommend this Anime to anyone, no matter what your likes are, I guarantee you will like this. (Okay I am someone who like mostly like all genre's, so I watch basically any Anime, that is why I recommend this)!

TL;DR Section at the end of the review. This review may or may not contain minor spoilers. "I've come to realize that emotions aren't something you learn – they have to be experienced." —Gourai Frame Arms Girl (F.A. Girl) is a show that had potential to be something great, but unfortunately fell short. Ao Gennai receives a package from her father one day, which it's contents are revealed to be Gourai, a Frame Arms Girl. From here, their friendship grows as Ao teaches Gourai the variety of emotions humans feel. Along the way, they meet many friends and foes alike. This story and setting had vast potential to besomething so beautiful, but it ended up turning out poorly. Not only is writing fairly subpar, all the characters are really flat (in more ways than one). They each have the unique trait (Gourai is a hard worker, Jinrai is way too into ninjas, Base is childish, Materia twins are cunning and suggestive, etc etc) but it doesn't go any farther than that, with the exception of Ao and Gourai. The show is based around these two and their relationship, but it really feels like you're just watching a small robot learn to express emotion, which is pretty bland most of the time. F.A. Girl constantly switched between 2D and 3D aspects, along with showing a lot of 2.5D shots. This worked for and against it, with the majority being against, unfortunately. Every now and then, they'd have a well animated scene (some fight scenes, like Ao / Jinrai vs. the Materia twins), but then other times it just felt awkward and out-of-sync (the finale live show in the last episode). As for the soundtrack, there's nothing really going for or against it. Both the OP and ED aren't awful, but there are plenty of other better ones. TL;DR: F.A. Girl had the potential to be a great show, but didn't quite make it by a rather large margin. While there were some nice scenes and times where the show was enjoyable, you wouldn't miss out on anything should you choose not to watch.

Frame Arms Girl began as a standard snap fit model kit line made by Kotobukiya, featuring Armored Girl versions of their Frame Arms line. Now, despite being a little small for a figure line, Frame Arms Girl is one of the most popular model kit lines Kotobukiya has ever made, gaining a huge fanbase and a lot of buyers. So naturally due to it's success, they take pride and confidence in their creation. Now, of course, it's lowkey obvious that this line really appeals to otakus, with them being model kit girls and all, not to mention all the showing skin and fanservicey bits. Yet anythingcan become more popular with the right exposure, and what's a good way to increase the huge popularity to otakus? By making a TV show out of it of course. Story: 6 The story of FA Girl is both simple and non existent. We're introduced to our female protagonist Ao Gennai, who is pretty much your standard high school girl living alone in her apartment alone. One day, a strange little box arrives on her doorstep, and opening it, she finds a little figure of a girl sitting in there with runners. Accidentally activating the figure, we are introduced to Gourai, a brand new model of Frame Arms Girl. Soon, more different types of FA Girls start arriving and Ao's house, the reason being that Ao's Gourai is the only one running, and the company who makes FA Girls want to collect data on Gourai from her. To do this, they send other FA Girls to Ao's house so that they can battle Gourai to collect combat data, in turn, Ao gets paid for her "efforts" for that. Simple concept right? Well the anime actually doesn't always focus on this aspect. Each episode is divided into two sessions, with a story taking place in each. Only about a third of these sessions contain battles, and they aren't really exciting or time consuming either. Outcome is painfully predictable for almost every battle (hint: Gourai is the main character), and the rest of it is slice of life/random mayhem with FA Girls. It's not a very cohesive plot by any stretch, as it's mostly just that slice of life show where the characters have dumb fun with each other, and that's pretty much it. However one might be able to find some charm in these dumb misadventures that these characters take part in. There is also some bits of interesting areas for those that are fans of either model kits or FA Girls. Other than the blatant advertising of Kotobukiya and their products, the show has bits where they teach you the basics of building model kits, as well as how they are made, which can definitely add a unique sort of appeal to the model kit builders like me out there. Art: 7 The art is a little bit on the interesting side. One of the first things people will notice is the use of CGI animation for all the FA Girls. Now while I don't mind CGI animation if it isn't horrible (which it really isn't here in my opinion), I am aware that some people might not be fans of the CGI animation is used in the show. Now personally, I think it blends in quite decently into the 2D animation, and one positive I think the CGI has is that it gives the FA Girls make them look more like the plastic mechanical beings they are, instead of something that looks "human". Another unique trait with some of the CGI is that the 3D rendered battle environments actually look like a real 3D rendering, for better or for worse. Some areas of really good use of the CGI animation would be the "armor up" sequences of the FA Girls, which are both fun to watch, and have a lot of movement too. Now, while the CGI is used quite a bit, and actual animation is quite average in most areas, when the show tries to animate well, the animation can actually be quite impressive. Take for instance the second version of the OP, where they replaced the CGI animation with more standard 2D animation, and in all honesty, the result is almost astounding. Lots of minute details like shading is done surprisingly well, movement is also both really fluid and plentiful in a few areas. For a good example of what I mean, pay attention to the hair of FA girls in that OP, the animation is both clean and plentiful, everything moves and it's almost sakuga. So while overall animation is just passable or standard with CGI, when the studio does try to animate well, they can really make some magic. A bit of a shame that it wasn't the mainstay throughout the show, but despite this missed potential, i'm happy with what we got. Sound: 6 The sound does the job, but nothing really stands out to an extreme. Most sound effects and folley are well done, with bits reused here and there, but nothing really sounds bad. While some things like Gourai's tank treads sounds more like a toy car than a plastic tank rolling around, other sound effects like Stylet and Baselard's flying, and the effects in the armor up sequences do their job well. The OP and ED are both nice, both sounding happy and upbeat, matching the tone of the show. There isn't really a lot of "dramatic moments" in this series, it's mostly quite relaxed, and the OST matches these fun little moments with little tunes and jingles. However for the moments that do have some form of impact, they do have OST that fit the bill, and overall the sound is good for the show. Characters: 7 Now, the thing about most of the characters in this show is that asides from Ao and Gourai, each character follow a single one dimensional trope or personality type, and they embody it completely. We have some of the very common ones like Stylet the tsundere and Architect the robotic kuudere, but at the same time there are some of the more bizarre tropes in the mix, an example being Jinrai as the girl completely absorbed by feudal japan culture and style. Ao and the FA Girls pretty much make the entire cast alone, with only the minor exception of Bukiko as the recurring sidekick best friend. Otherwise there are barely any other characters or even people's faces seen. We don't even get to see the face of the Building Manager, who is not only best character, but is also a god with an infinite supply of love and happiness. Bless you building manager, bless you. Something interesting we do see in terms of characters is that we can see growth in Gourai as she learns more about human emotions. As her own love for her friends and Ao grow, she also grows as a character to shape her own personality and become a person of her own, and that was really nice to see from this show. It was honestly one of my favorite aspects in terms of the characters, and a breath of fresh air with the rest of the one dimensioned quirky cast of a slice of life anime, aside from our lord and saviour the Building Manager of course. Enjoyment: 7 While I didn't necessarily enjoy the show as much as I would've liked myself, I cannot bring myself to say that it wasn't an entertaining ride. It certainly was a bit of a nice little way to pass the time, and for fans of frame arms girls, you'll probably enjoy it. It's a dumb fun little slice of life show with geeky model kit humour and facts thrown into the mix. It'll certainly appeal to both those who enjoy slice of life shows and maybe to those who are fans of Frame Arms Girls. I'm personally not usually a fan of slice of life, and that played a role in my overall enjoyment. But despite this, seeing the characters interact with each other was amusing to watch despite my usual disinterest in the genre, so this might appeal to fans of the genre even more. Alas, this is my review and I have to review it how I see fit, and personally i'm not a huge fan of the whole slice of life thing. In the end, what kept me most interested were the Frame Arms Girls themselves who I personally really find charming. Overall: 7 Frame Arms Girl is overall is just a really average show in almost all aspects. It does not aim to exceed any expectations, and in the end it's just one huge advertisement for the Frame Arms Girls line, and in the end that's all it is. But does it stand up as a show on it's own overall? Honestly I think it does. Some will not like it, it's got no real sense of true plot, and it's really just slice of life misadventures and mayhem with the Frame Arms Girls, however personally I found this show to be uniquely entertaining in a way compared to other slice of life that i've seen. The characters, while mostly one dimensional and simple, are charming once you get used to them and hang around them more. They have unique charms and quirks to them, and it's entertaining to see them mess around with their misadventures and days together. The actual battles aren't very great, they are both too short and too uneventful to really extract true enjoyment out of it, but it's more about the dumb fun that these characters have, mixed with model kit know-how is what gives the show it's unique charm. This show will appeal to fans of FA Girls and to those of the slice of life genre. While it has it's issues like the CGI animation, mostly one dimensional cast, and lack of any truly exciting or even good battles, the show is still a nice watch and an entertaining way to pass the time, especially if you're a fan of model kits or FA Girls.

Frame Arms Girl for those who don't know is the model kit line produced by Kotobukiya and this line is essentially having mecha musume characters with armour and weapons for them to "fight"...so yeah this anime is a living advertisement for Frame Arms Girl.....with for at least expected results. Frame Arms Girl follows Ao Gennai voiced by Yoko Hikasa who gets a delivery and obtains Gourai voiced by Narumi Kaho and thus Ao dives into the world of Frame Arms Girl as she now is "willing" to give data to Factory Advance for data. Frame Arms Girl is a straight up slice of life anime involving theFrame Arms Girl with fighting in-between to this setup with the plot structure following suit until the last 2 episodes or so. Because of this, the character department is rather slim nonetheless. Ao Gennai is our audience surrogate and has a pension for getting money which Factory Advance is willing to give her unless she gets data, this becomes a running gag to say the least. LA really likes Ao, not only because she's an audience surrogate which helps as she's is in the same level as the audience but her bubbly personality and not the typical "genius" the anime is focused in helps us relate to Ao even further. Ao Gennai is easily LA's favorite character in the entire series. Gourai is our main heroine along with Ao and she.....for LA is rather bland of a character, being the archetype of "robot wanting to know what emotions are", which YES, she is tasked to do, but her personality is down by the numbers cept her undying loyalty to Ao which is probably her only identity about herself. Stylet voiced by Yuu Ayase is...the butt monkey of the cast but also a tsundere towards Gourai, along with Stylet is Baselard voiced by Rika Nagae is the trickster/genkiest character in the cast and because of this LA's favourite Frame Arms Girl would go to both Stylet and Baselard. Jinrai voiced by Minami Kabayama is the Edo-centric otaku character and is the resilient type. The Materia Sisters voiced both by Erii Yamazaki were LA's least favoruite characters in the cast however, what with their S&M schtick to almost the entire cast, there wasn't much to them besides that..well that and unnecessary fanservice by them. Architect voiced by Hibiku Yamamura is the typical kuudere without any of the dere and she is the typical exposition fairy because of it. Finally we have Hres- Hrus- Husqvarna *ahem* Hresvelgr voiced by Rika Abe being the only "villain" of the series though LA says the "villain" VERY loosely as she's more like Gourai's "true rival" and her arrival pretty much causes the anime's direction to unnecessary serious. The only other character in terms of support is Bukiko KOTOBUKI (LA see what you did there) voiced by Kanomi Izawa as the resident otaku for the Frame Arms Girl and helps Ao for new parts. LA really didn't mind Frame Arms Girl's direction of using slice of life to at least give us a decent laugh or so or make the Frame Arms Girl or Ao get into crazy hijinks as oddly enough LA expected this to happen quite early on, what was a weird tonal dissonance is as LA aforementioned is when Hresvelgr enters the scene and things get serious, look LA isn't saying that Frame Arms Girl CAN'T be serious or anything, it can be especially with the typical themes of friendship that Hresvelgr is opposed to compared to Ao and Gourai are for, but when the majority and bulk of the anime is nothing but Frame Arms Girl battling for fun or Frame Arms Girl goes into hijinks THEN gets serious of having Hresvelgr goes nuts LA just couldn't believe it to say it lightly as much as it's typical of "having the final serious battle for the ending" cliche. Hresvelgr is a good comparison and "rival" to Gourai, heck she even developed the bland Gourai for LA and that helped, what really gave LA that tonal dissonance is the final battle given and even with the stakes high LA couldn't take the final battle seriously as serious as it had gotten. On speaking of the final battle, the ending wasn't that bad besides the tonally off final battle itself, it send itself off as LA expected to say the least, yes even the idol-esque singing was appropriate for the ending with a stinger for a second season that HAS been announced as LA wrote this review, though LA really wouldn't know how a second season is possible with the ending it gave itself. The animation done by Zexcs and Studio A-CAT was decent to say the least and LA is saying this including the 3D CGI and even that made consistent sense to use it when it did. Well LA means by this is that the 3D incorporates the anime ALOT but it isn't abused like you'd think. The 3D is obviously used for the Frame Arms Girl both outside of fighting and off fighting as well yeah they ARE mecha figures why can't the 3D be used and LA means consistent as when the Frame Arms Girl get expressive they switch to 2D to really make the Frame Arms Girl to allow them to emote properly and they do it consistently, so Studio A-CAT in charge of the 3D had the sense of using their 3D well. Zexcs was decent overall with the character designs (mainly Ao's many costume changes) and background though the only thing LA will say about the animation besides it was decent overall and made use o fit's 3D is that the anime itself had unnecessary fanservice which is mostly awkward panty shots (yes even in battle they show it off), YUP it's Zexcs alright!...though the yuri undertones can stay (besides the Materia Sisters antics) The voice acting is typical to say the least and not much to say really as most of the character archetypes LA said were as expected. The only thing to note is Yoko Hikasa as Ao as LA's favourite voice actor with maybe Yuu Ayase and Rika Nagae along with her. Frame Arms Girl is what you really expected from the words "slice of life" and "advertisement" and LA means that in a good way and for a person who really doesn't like the model kit figurine line and rather buy the figurine fully done with little to no assembly, Frame Arms Girl intentionally taught LA a bit of model kit making in the process, though that really REALLY isn't saying much but nonetheless. Frame Arms Girl is mediocre but of the relaxing "ok" caliber, with a relatable main heroine with decent character chemistry through most of the cast, lax slice of life/comedic skit stories with a tonally off direction change near the ending but nonetheless with decently used animation with a typical voice cast, Frame Arms Girl did "ok" as much as it's an advertisement for Kotobukiya's mecha musume line and really it was what LA expected from this kind of premise in every way, not horrible, not great but juuuust mediocre and not in a bad way either.