When i heard about people raging over Gundam AGE, i said to myself "Hm, stupid weeaboos not being raised by Doraemon, Astro Boy and Ninja Boy". From the character design i can basically tell that it's not only for kids, but it's also for parents or those raised by traditional kids anime from the 80's and early 90's. And i understand that. This is not for the 00/SEED fan. And it pretty much says that in the artwork.
But seeing the first two episodes, i said to myself "Hey, this is not bad. Not a great start like 00 but still decent". It's okay.
The story is pretty much a rip-off of Nadesico where some kid named Flit Asuno (played by Toyonaga Toshiyuki from DRRR!!) lost his mom but got this AGE system which enables him to pilot Gundams. He has a cute female childhood friend named Emily and works with an Agasa lookalike scientist in the development of a new Gundam.
In this story the space colonies are under attack by unknown Alien-looking mechs called GAFRANs. The fact that they look different that the usual Gundam enemies makes me want to believe that the story is pretty much a rip-off of Nadesico. Dead parents, supernatural technology, space colonies and alien enemy mechs without an early backstory makes this story sound like Nadesico, and to me that's kind of a low point.
The characters are okay. Flit is a type of guy who wants to pilot a Gundam, since they look cool in oil paintings. Alot of them look very old-school, especially one military guy named Aynor who looks like he just came from a 1980's mecha anime-themed Japanese barbershop. And Haro's back. Hooray.
I'm really loving the art. It looks well-made and very polished. So far they are using the budget well and it's use of simplicity to create a very child-like character design is one thing i applaud Sunrise for. I love it when anime companies that do really big projects does an anime that is based on childlike art (like IG's Usagi Drop and Gainax's P&S), and Gundam AGE is one of them.
The sound is nothing to be judged. I'll wait for the next few episodes before making a judgement out of it. So far, Toyonaga makes an okay Flit and i love the AnoHana OP from galileo Galilei, and having them do the OP for AGE is pretty cool.
So far, it's an okay show. It has a chance to get better after the next few episodes provided Sunrise won't fuck this up in SEED Destiny levels. I'll keep my eyes on this.
