Obsolete

Obsolete is an episodic, fully CG, western styled mecha anime about humanity trying to adjust to the arrival of alien technology that they don't understand but changes both the civilian workflow and military landscape drastically. It's by far the most realistic approach to a mecha anime I've seen yet, with not only clear references to real world weaponry in detail, but also consideration on the global political impact the Exosuits brought with them. Unfortunately, it ends very abruptly with no continuation in sight as far as I can tell, but still very enjoyable if you want a more realistic approach to the genre.

Initially I stumbled ... across this series on youtube and after looking it up, I was very much put off by the full CG animations and low review score. But after some consideration I still decided to give it a shot. The main gripe I have with CG animations is that they always feel like the cheap option that lacks detail and just kinda gets thrown in and ruins the immersion. This is absolutely not the case for Obsolete, arguably the exact opposite even.
The amount of detail that is put into this anime is pretty much unprecedented, at least when it comes to military weaponry. And even the Exosuits were designed with a very practical concept in mind which makes them seem much more in line with reality than most mecha.

Now, animations aside, the story is also quite interesting. While the focus is still on mecha fights and military warfare, a good chunk of the story is about the political side of things. This is both a positive and a negative in my opinion. I enjoyed that part, and especially the different ways that it was presented in, but it felt rather slow and will likely bore a majority of viewers and is next to the CG likely one of the main reasons why this show has such a low score. And even though it takes an episodic approach, there's still an overarching story line, so the abrupt ending without much explanation makes it feel like they wanted to produce another season but didn't get enough funding.

Overall I still enjoyed the anime for what it is and what it tried to achieve and can at the very least recommend it to any military nut out there that's tired of the typical moe military and wants something more life-like.

Exo suits? check.
Urobuchi? check.
Let's go.

Obsolete is your standard war story full of sarcasm and indifference.
What's different here however is the format. 6x12 minutes.
It doesn't leave you with much space to tell a grand story or express ideologies.
Anyone who's hoping for character depth or such will be let down.
The staff did everything in their power to make this a coherent piece of work but they were heavily restricted by the episode count and it shows.
Limestone? Aliens? It doesn't matter to us humans according to Mr. Urobuchi, and there's really no time to explain them anyway.
The core of this product seems to be "Give a man a ... fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he'll wage war on his fellow men with fishing rods"
What we get here are pieces of war history. How it started and... that's it. There's no end, or climax.
The individual episodes all follow key events of this futuristic war, the background of the fractions and some people involved in the conflict.
In each episode you will get new characters who drive the story and drop a few lines of lore. The rest is mindless action with dubstep. Oh right. Skrillex did the music.
While the sound engineering and effects were great, the music was offputting as hell. Jungle dnb or tribal would've been more fitting considering where it takes place.
They went overboard with screen effects such as smoke, but the shading was really lacking. The action itself looks well done, but with not enough contrast it looks bland.
The art is... fitting I'd say. silky smooth 4fps cgi we all hate, with a realistic touch. It's sad that this level of mechanic detail needs cg because all the decent animators are busy with gundam.
It gives the whole show a very cheap feel. Pair that with how short it is, and the 4th wall breaking "Just like in my japanese animes" and you're left wondering why they're doing this exactly?
So is Obsolete supposed to be above anime, some higher form of entertainment? Is this how they meant it? because I'm sad to say it's subpar. Or the opposite?
We tried to make something akin to anime, and almost succeeded at times! yes, that seems more correct, sadly.
Honestly this show could've made it as a toy commercial. I'm not sure how many people will it reach if it's on a paid.youtube.service.
Don't you want the largest possible audience for your product placement, instead of those 10 people who paid for youtube premium or whatever it is?
The exosuits look cool. The story seems interesting, the execution is so-so, the runtime is the downfall of this show really.

Moral of the story? War bad. Humanity bad. 12 minute format bad.

Do not watch the English dubbed version! The voice acting is just bad. The actor's cadence is just unnatural most of the time, with many weird gaps in sentences. I understand that one of the main goals is to match the lip flaps, but there were soooo many times where characters mouths weren't even visible and the cadence was still off. Even the inflections and sounds of the voice actors were bad. If it weren't for the fact that this started airing in 2019, I'd seriously think the voice acting was actually A.I. generated.

I think the other reviews have adequately addressed the plot, so ... I'll just say I'm disappointed in it. I think the core of the plot was really interesting, but after episode 8 the studio just gave up on it and decided to start telling short stories that were almost entirely disconnected from the core story-line.

The only positive for me is the visual design of the show. I actually like the CGI in this. It was clean and consistent throughout the show. I also really like the designs of the suits.