I actually found this show when it was recommended to me on Netflix. It looked interesting so I gave it a shot. Birdy had a pretty original premise and that was what initially got me hooked. It seemed like it was going to be mostly an action-based series with aliens thrown in, which is exactly what it is at times, but a lot of the fight scenes are pretty intense and fun to watch. The story didn't focus entirely on the intergalactic alien hunter aspect of the series though which was nice, call it a pleasant case of Multiple Personality Disorder. It added a little bit of comedy, mystery, and some romance from Tsutomu's part in the series. This worked out to be a nice balance as it gave enough to satisfy the cravings of those action junkies out there while providing general entertainment for those other viewers.
The show climaxed nicely with everything that had been building up and the ending was so bitter-sweet that it actually made me like the series more. However, the ending was far from conclusive for the Birdy franchise as a whole. The last episode left with more questions and mysteries left unsolved than when the season began, working as a nice setup for season 2. Unfortunately I will say that the show has a tendency to drag its heels at times, moving the pace to almost a crawl occasionally. And while no episode is truly filler as something important to the story always happens, there still were a lot of moments that served only to slow the series down.
I thought that the art for Birdy was pretty good, actually really good, which is most likely the result of it being a newer title. There was a pretty nice mix of CGI and animation which helped when combined with the overarcing theme of sci-fi and aliens. The fight scenes were always nice to watch and were nice and dark and gritty. On the flip side when the animators wanted to they came out with some really nice looking peaceful and artistic scenes and some nice everyday animation.
My only problem with the animation was that sometimes things looked TOO nice. It kind of reminded me of watching the special effects that you see from movies in the 70's or 80's in that things didn't look right with the rest of the scene. Sometimes the animation would be so intricate and detailed that the scene or one aspect of the scene would look clunky or awkward in regards to the rest and that took away from the overall experience at times.
All of the characters had extremely unique appearances so there was no possible way of confusing one character with another, I'll chalk that one up to a plus for the animators and animation. The development of these characters was not quite as refined however. Most of the character development in our main twosome is through Birdy by means of various flashbacks and references from other characters, but these are usually left untouched and are a part of the slew of mysteries that were left at the end of the series. Birdy's alter ego Shion Arita, while not making many appearances, served to add a dash of humor to the series at times too. Tsutomu was a pretty average male anime lead but he grew up a bit over the series, apparently dying does that to you, or maybe it's just puberty, I can't say for sure, and there were definitely times where he showed some balls throughout the series.
On a side note this reminds me of another point I wanted to make. Despite the fact that this show is about a teenage boy sharing a body with a hot alien girl, Tsutomu always remains a perfect gentleman and doesn't act weird when he's riding around in Birdy's body. The series refrained from using that plot point as an excuse for having weird ecchi moments with Tsutomu and Birdy for cheap kicks. This show was about as un-ecchi as you can get. Birdy takes like 20 baths over the course of the series but not once does Tsutomu try to say or do something weird or perverted with their body, which makes me give major props to the director of this show for not tailoring to those who only picked up the series because there was a hot alien girl as the main character.
Some of the background characters have important roles in regards to the main story. Others have absolutely no relevance to it at all. And still others appear to have some role but that role is unknown for now and the viewer won't know for sure until...you guessed it, season 2. As for the primary antagonists, they aren't really given a good amount of devlopment either but it doesn't particularly hurt the story in any way.
The opening theme "Sora" wasn't anything unique but it was still pretty good and I liked it while the ending theme "Let's Go Together" is just a fun and peppy "just don't give a fuck" kind of song that was always pretty enjoyable.
This was a pretty good action show. It was a pretty good sci-fi show. It was also a pretty good looking show with some good characters and a good plot. Basically what I'm saying here is that Birdy the Mighty: Decode is a solid show all around and if you don't mind it being a bit slow, I don't see why anyone wouldn't enjoy it. It's diverse in the genres that it throws at the viewer, it's a unique story, and it leaves you wanting more at the end. Overall I would highly recommend this series for action, sci-fi, and overall anime fans in general.
