Reviews

Mar 9, 2016
War in the Pocket is ok. I'll try not to spoil anything beyond the first episode, but I will say that the first half is somewhat boring. The second half is really where this series takes off, so if you're unsure halfway, push past it.

I decided to write this review because most of them are glowing and rate this short series highly, and I don't feel like there was an outsider's view (by outsider, I mean that I have never seen anything Gundam related before; I've seen various other mecha shows, but Gundam isn't one I'm familiar with). That being said, I don't believe I needed to know the background, but I do feel that knowing the background beforehand might have improved my opinion of the show.

The story of War in the Pocket is one we see from time to time, but it's more rare than not: The child's perspective. Children in war are typically nothing more than observers, as they are too small or weak to fight and too inexperienced to help in most other ways, so stories such as these are usually stories of innocence lost, and this is no exception. The protagonist is 10 year old Al, child of a separated family on a neutral colony ship who enjoys the concept of war (as many kids do), the big army machines, badges, guns, explosions, and everything "fun" that comes with an idealized, remote view of war. Some small bit of combat is brought to his colony, and Al happens to meet and befriend an enemy pilot. The premise is promising and the characters are somewhat well written - which makes it so much more disappointing when the backdrop of realism this show pretends to have falls short.

Unfortunately, something just didn't quite click for me with War in the Pocket. In the first episode, there's a small battle, and Al happily chases after an injured mech, which lands in a park. The disconnect between what should happen and what does happen in this early episode is never resolved, and for me it cheapened the story: No one ever comes to collect the enemy mech. No recovery teams haul it away, no engineering team clears it from the city, no search teams are sent after the pilot, the area is not cordoned off - the people in charge of the colony and the military just leave a semi-damaged mech where the public can get to it. This problem extends to characters as well. Military machinery is fun to look at from afar, but when you get close (even if it's just idling) reality sets in very quickly, as military hardware is large, loud, tough, and intimidating if you aren't accustomed to being around it on a regular basis...but Al seems to be completely immune to it. If you take a child to the gun range it won't take long for things to set in: shockwaves of air from every round fired hit your body, the noises from each shot pierce your eardrums, and it goes from being a game to being very real very quickly. These are things that most other stories about children in war seem to get right, but for War in the Pocket, it's a big whiff. Al doesn't get the dose of shock and reality that should change things for him, so the story - now toothless - falls flat.

The art is dated, but not painfully so. The sound is poor to average at best, good ol 80s. The characters are fairly well written, but don't react to situations realistically when it matters (specifically Al). The story was ok, but wasn't thought out quite enough. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I was never drawn in and ended up kinda forcing myself to watch the rest with the excuse "it's pretty short, so I can knock it out."

If you're a fan of Gundam I'd recommend you watch this as it should provide a different view than what you're used to, but if you aren't involved in the Gundam franchise at all, skip it. This is nothing special.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice Nice0
Love it Love it0
Funny Funny0
Show all
It’s time to ditch the text file.
Keep track of your anime easily by creating your own list.
Sign Up Login