Bokura no

Due to the nature of this show, it's more or less impossible to talk about anything without spoilers, so I'll just have to put my cards on the table right now and say that I urge everyone reading this to go out and watch this show, because it's easily worth the time investment. As for my review, I'll have to be more vague than I would like, but such is the nature of the beast.

Bokurano has a story virtually unrivaled in the entire genre. Being a thorough deconstruction of the mech genre, the immediate comparison is Evangelion, perhaps the most beloved anime of all time. ... However, Bokurano goes a step further in ripping the audience into emotional pieces. After the initial shock to the nervous system that one gets with the first one or two battles and the associated facts about the ramifications of piloting the robot, the series decides that the audience haven't been in nearly enough pain, and so proceeds to hit said audience over the head with every metaphorical chair it can find. By the latter half of the series, you'll likely find it a challenge to continue from how hard the series hits you over and over again. And it doesn't get any easier from there. The second half of Bokurano is one of the most painful portions of anime to ever be created. The emotional beatings of the first half are completely crushed under the new onslaught of painful revelations, and by episode 20 I threw in the towel the first time. I came back 6 months later with more genre experience under my belt and pressed on, and thankfully the series does lighten up before the end. By the end of the series, Bokurano has finally unveiled a message, and a positive one at that. Going from the bleakest anime ever seen to a series that suggests a brighter future is a mighty accomplishment, and Bokurano pulls it off.

Despite the excellent story, Bokurano is the posterchild for why animation is important. Because the animation is really bad. Particularly noticeable is the fight animation, it's nothing short of dreadful. All the robots are done in really terrible 3D animation, their movements are unbearably slow and surprisingly choppy, and overall the fight animation, which is the place where animation quality is most important, ultimately falls flat.

The sound is good, though it doesn't stand out particularly well. The background music is hard to notice most of the time and is mostly unmemorable. However, the OP and second ED are fantastic, and shouldn't be skipped at any point. The voice acting is very good, with notably great performances where it counts the most.

I can't really talk about any of the pilots without spoiling the major elements of their backstories, though I can say the best characters in the roster are Daiichi, Anko, Kanji, and Jun. Overall, being vague enough to avoid spoilers, the roster of pilots is excellent, boasting memorable backstories and great personalities. Aside from them, the only character I can talk about is Koemushi, better known as Dung Beetle. He's perhaps the most unlikable and rage-inducing character in any form of media. Throughout the entire story, the viewer grows to despise this thing more and more, and his backstory doesn't help the viewer like him any more. Clearly the audience is supposed to hate him, and the show does an excellent job making him the most horribly unlikable character ever.

Overall, Bokurano is excellent. The great story and characterization make up for the poor animation, and earn the series a spot as one of the all time greats, and a must-watch for anyone with any experience in the mech genre.

Bokurano :Ours. A little-known sci-fi anime, yet undoubtedly one of the best and saddest I have yet come across.

Fifteen children are tasked to protect the planet by piloting in turn, a giant mecha and battling a series of mechas from parallel worlds in a inter-dimensional 'natural selection' process. Even one loss means the annihilation of their entire universe, while each victory still requires the life of the pilot sacrificed to fuel the mecha.

This fantastic premise merely serves as a backdrop however, against which each character is brought to life in wonderfully realistic complexity. The assigned pilot in each episode must come to terms with the ... inevitability of their imminent deaths, finding the strength to sacrifice themselves for the sake of family and friends.

While the animation and cgi effects may not be impressive to all viewers, Bokurano's strength lies in its characters as well as its story-telling. The intricate sci-fi plot is presented through the 24 episodes in bits and pieces, ultimately to form a coherent whole leaving behind no plot-holes and hardly any relevant unanswered questions.

This show is definitely not palatable for all viewers, particularly sensitive ones. The antagonists who organised the death-matches remain unpunished till the end of the show, which is an otherwise emotionally satisfying ending. Moreover viewers are warned that by the end of the show, nearly every single major character will be dead.

Score:8.5/10

Highly recommended.

Damn you plushies!!

Pros:

- Giant awesome mech fights are awesome
- There is weight to this anime, makes you feel they got something to lose . . . and by that i don't mean the weight
- Half the characters I really enjoy, especially Daiichi and I call dibs on him if they make a video game about this
- Tournament style stories make me all giddy
- Rules and limits makes this anime that more intense
- A lot of people die, it will make you sad it will make you happy but mostly it'll make you happy that it can make you sad
...

Cons:

- The other half you will hate and be annoyed by making you hit your head on the wall and screaming in frustration
- High school students always getting into deep shit yo
- The premise of the story doesn't make a whole lot of sense
- Bare bones character development, literally


Summary:

I found this to be a very enjoyable anime but I nearly gave up in the middle. Half of the characters made me so angry it gave me a tumor and that tis unforgivable. I feel that if we were to have more time with characters, cut out the bad ones and give us an even larger magnitude as too what there is too lose I could rate it higher. As it is right now I find it to be good but has the potential to be far better.

Long story short:

Having 15 characters as main cast is unique and hard to pull off right, but "Bokura no" did in my opinion.

OP is amazing, both the music and the lyrics, but ED is more forgettable than the lunch you had or didn't have yesterday.

Art is what you can expect from 2007 but it's still great, maybe that's a biased opinion though as someone who got into anime with the DB/DBZ franchise.

Some aspects of the story are slightly eh at times but mostly its good, and the characters decisions can frustrate you, but you just have to remember that they're kids around 13-14 whose worldview ... hasn't been completely built yet.

I've seen Bokura no 3 times now, and I still dislike the things I disliked the first time, maybe have even more things I dislike, but it's still a really great show that has a unique appeal that kept me from forgetting it and got me to re-watch it again.

I recommend this show to anyone who likes either Seinen or Mechas.

I'm gonna give you the TLDR-version of the review right off the bat: if you have read about the show's premise and it sounds like it would be up your alley: go ahead and watch it. The show is good. If you are on the fence or you set out to just plain dislike the series, the show will provide you with plenty of ammunition to shoot it down as well. I'll go through some of my personal gripes, while avoiding spoilers.

All the mecha parts are realized with the aid of some pretty dated 3D graphics. Even though the models themselves look rather rough, there ... is still some proper weight to their movement and the environmental destruction feels tangible, even if the action and fight choreography ain't spectacular. I think the studio did the best they could with the limited time and money given to them, but if mixing 2D and 3D animation is something you absolutely cannot stand, there's your fist reason to pass on this.

My first big gripe would be the soundtrack. I think they were going for something minimalistic and experimental, but it mostly just ends up sounding awkward and distracting. There are tracks that flow a little better, but they aren't anything memorable. Over all, a very mediocre soundtrack, which is a shame.

Bokurano is a torturous psychological drama and that is where the emphasis lies. If you are looking for giant robot action that gets your heart pumping, this is definitely not for you... But I think most people are able to figure that out just by reading the synopsis. Bokurano is ultimately a show about the end of innocense and childhood and about coming to terms with death. About how extreme situations can bring out the best qualities in some people or dredge up the worst qualities in others. I was afraid that the show would have some childish message along the lines of "everyone is shitty" and all these kids would turn out to be terrible people, but that is luckily not the case. There is a lot of variety in how the characters end up dealing with the awful, awful situation that they've wound up in. As the story progresses and the full gravity of what is going on dawns to these characters, I'd be willing to bet some good money that in any kind of realistic scenario, these kids would absolutely break down into a weeping, useless mess (I know I would)... But that wouldn't make for a very good story, so I can let that one go.

What bothered me more than some of the character reactions, was the way the government and the society were reacting to what was happening. A lot about the handling of a crisis of this scale just made me scratch my head in confusion. I did not feel like the adult world of the series functioned very logically or credibly. That being said, there is a pretty convenient story reason why the world of Bokurano doesn't necessarily operate along the same lines of logic as ours, so once again, I'm willing to overlook this aspect.

I have to admit that this show hit a very specific sweet spot for me. Once the merciless nature of the story started to fully dawn on me, I was hooked. I was simultaneously filled with dread and excitement with the reveal of every new pilot. Seeing the chair roulette land on a character you had really started to like - in the best way possible - felt like a punch to the gut. I haven't felt as giddy or anxious about anything in an anime in a long time. If you are willing to overlook some pretty big flaws, Bokurano is a wonderfully awful experience.

DROP:

Introduction:

Bokurano was an adaptation that was intended to be a masterpiece due to the large number of concepts, either due to the amount of pretentious genres, as well as some ideologies and a dark setting, but at the time of its execution it has not been the best of me . . perspective.


History:

First of all, let's start that since the construction of the world it is quite forgotten and there is not much work to give it a veracity like: where are the wicks created? Or why then did these protagonists have to be the pilots? Or even who really was the researcher who convinced ... them to create the contract? Rather than clarify all this, the show is placed in a very banal structure of simply doing it in an episodic way to show how children are being sacrificed as new enemies are placed and giving them a bit of pre-development to generate some empathy towards it. viewer. Perhaps the best part of this section ends up being a bit of showing how the state decides to face this new threat from a logical action and not turn a blind eye.


Art: / Sound:

The animation is ... quite normal for the time (2007), without major features to highlight, but if I want to mention the intention of generating a gloomy atmosphere that for a few moments it is possible to transmit to the viewer, while they are in other areas such as the most Featured I feel that leaves to be desired.
As for the Sound, I am very much left with the OP / ED who really know how to highlight and recreate what this show needs to the letter, in addition to the fact that, as I mentioned at the beginning of these sections, they accompany the darkness. Good at OST in pretty dramatic situations for our potential clients.


Characters:


Here's a bit of the double side of the coin, the cast of characters is certainly vast, but the reality is that you won't even remember a minority or even some of the character names because their "Death Flag" happens so quickly. . as their little introductions to their development, so it is difficult to generate any kind of true feeling towards them.
The idea of ​​showing the problems of adolescents is fine but it is such an abused resource for more than 2 decades that it is boring that they always resort to the same thing.


Enjoyment:

Well, as you can see, I decided to cancel this anime so clearly that I couldn't enjoy it at first, it was flashy and ostentatious, but once you catch up and realize that everything becomes a silly episode with the character on duty Destined. to die. and his existential problems of adolescence, the show becomes very bland. If they had opted for an approach of other types of characters, the experience would have been much more pleasant, in any case it does not seem like a bad job and I want to emphasize it, it is simply monotonous and full of stereotypes of the time.






------------ EN ESPAÑOL ------------------------------------


DROP:

Introducción:

Bokurano fue una adaptación que pretendía ser una obra maestra por la gran cantidad de conceptos, ya sea por la cantidad de géneros pretenciosos, así como por algunas ideologías y un escenario oscuro, pero al momento de su ejecución no ha sido el lo mejor de mí. . perspectiva.


Historia:

Antes que nada, comencemos que desde la construcción del mundo está bastante olvidado y no hay mucho trabajo para darle una veracidad como: ¿dónde se crean las mechas? ¿O por qué entonces estos protagonistas tenían que ser los pilotos? ¿O incluso quién fue realmente el investigador que los convenció de crear el contrato? Más que aclarar todo esto, el programa se coloca en una estructura muy banal de simplemente hacerlo de manera episódica para mostrar cómo se está sacrificando a los niños a medida que se colocan nuevos enemigos y dándoles un poco de desarrollo previo para generar cierta empatía hacia el espectador. Quizás lo mejor de esta sección termine siendo un poco mostrar cómo el estado decide enfrentar esta nueva amenaza desde una acción lógica y no hacer la vista gorda.


Arte: / Sonido:

La animación es ... bastante normal para la época (2007), sin grandes rasgos a destacar, pero si quiero mencionar la intención de generar una atmósfera lúgubre que por unos instantes es posible transmitir al espectador, mientras está en otras áreas como las más Destacadas siento que deja que desear.
En cuanto al Sonido, me quedo mucho con los OP / ED que realmente saben resaltar y recrear lo que este espectáculo necesita al pie de la letra, además de que, como comenté al inicio de estos apartados, acompañan la oscuridad. Bueno en OST en situaciones bastante dramáticas para nuestros clientes potenciales.


Caracteres:


Aquí hay un poco de la doble cara de la moneda, el elenco de personajes es ciertamente vasto, pero la realidad es que ni siquiera recordarás una minoría o incluso algunos de los nombres de los personajes porque su "Bandera de la Muerte" ocurre tan rápido. como sus pequeñas introducciones a su desarrollo, por lo que es difícil generar algún tipo de sentimiento verdadero hacia ellos.
La idea de mostrar los problemas de los adolescentes está bien pero es un recurso tan abusado durante más de 2 décadas que es aburrido que siempre recurran a lo mismo.


Disfrute:

Bueno, como pueden ver, decidí cancelar este anime tan claramente que no pude disfrutarlo al principio, era llamativo y ostentoso, pero una vez que se pone al día y se da cuenta de que todo se vuelve un episodio tonto con el personaje de turno Destinado a morir. y sus problemas existenciales de la adolescencia, el espectáculo se vuelve muy soso. Si hubieran optado por un acercamiento de otro tipo de personajes, la experiencia hubiera sido mucho más placentera, en cualquier caso no me parece un mal trabajo y quiero enfatizarlo, es simplemente monótono y lleno de estereotipos de la hora.

I'm going to preface this with two things. One I am known as a heartless viewer who crys infrequently and is very desensitized in general. I did not and will not cry watching Grave of the Fireflies. two, I watched Bokurano in July 2019 and it still carrys with me as one of the most emotionally impact pieces of media I have ever seen.
*Expect Spoilers*
Writing children in media is a touchy subject escpacually when confronting the sensitive topics Bokurano presents. While I cannot tell you the same or even remember every kids face I can almost certainly remember each story and each death. Which shows ... how fucking well done the writing is for a show where each kid does not stand out and they all look quite generic. Though the art does not help them too much, studio Gonzo's jank robots lmao. While I did not cry Bokurano still weighs heavy on my heart and if you are looking for a real "Please Angst me the whole way" show done well then welcome to the game. . .
Oh the opening is really good to like god that shit hits so hard still once you finish the series.

not many anime series have made me dribble into a puddle of sobbing, primordial slop following an episode - less series have made me do so over a string of 4 to 5 episodes, without room to breathe. right from jump, nothing feels -quite right- as if there's always an air of uncertainty looming within every interaction. even when you're flashbanged an entire cast within just a few minutes (some, who aren't even addressed by name right away) there's an eerie vibe that continues to not settle well. keep in mind, that that vibe gets worse and worse, as you progress through the plot and ... each twist the series throws at you.

triggering subject matter is found throughout, more than i can list off the top of my head so proceed with caution. its usage of cgi is very "of its time", but the key take away for me is that it's so "of its time" that it unironically achieves a certain uncanniness that, oddly in an aesthetic sense, benefits the genre as well as the type of subject matter the series spirals into - even more so enhancing the aforementioned "eerie" vibes. it's a very traumatic series with a hefty cast that you will most certainly feel for to varying extents. even if you aren't a wet piece of tissue paper such as myself and shed not nary a tear to this anime, i doubt you'll ever forget it - not because of the mecha fights, don't come here for that. come and sit and stay, to contemplate what life on this earth means and what (if anything at all) is worth protecting when you're up against all odds.

sidebar: it's one you'll wanna watch the OP for each episode (and not only because the song is probably one of the best in the history of this universe, but- watch for yourself, feel everything)

This isn't a Mecha anime...
This isn't an action anime...
This is a terrible attempt at combining EXTREME DRAMA into a slow Mecha

Story:
The Story is paper-thin after the first 2 episodes it gives you 1 episode for each character of the 14 total. After the first 2 episodes, everything goes down hill all the stories are about "troubled kids and their troubled pasts" and after a while they are just so obvious.

Art:
Even though this anime was made in 2007 the Art looks like it was straight out of the 1990's, enough said.

... Sound:
Everything about this show is quiet, even the fights are quiet. There is nothing memorable about any of the music except the opening is on the creepy side like Elfin Lied.

Characters:
Characters like I said before have 1 episode to learn about them and that's it only 2 or 3 exceptions. The list is far to large at the beginning and shrinks extremely fast.

Enjoyment:
After episode 8 I stopped watching the full episodes because they all follow the same pattern Kids Sad/Kids trying to resolve/Fight. that's it, rinse and repeat.

Overall:
Some people who get all sappy may get the feels as they say, but I hated this anime it was dreadfully slow and extremely boring.

in my opinion, this anime is somewhat different with others. because i think its kinda touch the deepest of my heart when i watch it. its about what will you do if you face the similar situation. will you run away ? or will you fight to the end.

it makes me think about what will i do if im in one of them. will i follow the order of that 'toy' said ? or should i listen to myself and do as i wanted ? if i follow the order, people will die, if i dont, people will still have to die. so, which way ... should i take ?

this anime is not about good people or bad people, at least i dont see it like that. its about you, yourself and nothing else. its all depend of your decision and your decision only. non will affect your decision.

although the graphic is somewhat old and the opening music is somewhat non-sense, but the storyline is somewhat educational for me.

Dont know if ive seen a show with such a large cast of characters where i enjoyed them all. Even the ones i didnt agree with or maybe didnt think they acted the right way they were still interesting and caught my attention. I find this to be a bit of a hidden gem. In my book it deserves more praise in the Mecha genre with more psychologic focus. I rated NGE higher but thats alot of nostalgia. Just in terms of how much i enjoyed it i think this one tops that show. But its close.

But yeah its a very characterdriven story. Theres ... not much plot. And the plot thats there never goes deeper or explains some of the more intriguing parts. It just kinda drops it. Some more world building and the show could have hit the 10.

Also the opening Uninstall is legendary.

A strong 9/10 from me.

Overall a really solid show. I do feel there's some bled potential here and there, but overall it's pretty good. The story is interesting and it the twists it presents are pretty good. I'd say this show could have the potential to be really, really good but it suffers a few drawbacks. Ultimately it still comes together quite nicely.

Since there's 15 main characters, plus a handful of recurring side characters, and only 24 episodes you can probably guess at the pacing. It's fast. Each character's personal story arc gets about one episode. One episode doesn't seem like enough to fully flesh out a character, but ... Bokurano does a pretty good job of it honestly. Each individual character's story feels like a complete little package. I am personally a bigger fan of a slow burn approach where characters develop and grow gradually over the course of the series, but the way Bokurano handles it's characters to introduce and explore so many characters in a short amount of timeworks quite well.

I think the biggest gripe that comes to mind is the action sequences. Granted shows like this are more about the characters, the plot, and the drama. It's not about the action. But you can have both and other shows have had both. That's not to say Bokurano's action sequences are entirely awful, but the mecha battles are done with CGI and don't have much interesting choreography to them. This isn't a huge deal breaker because the main draw to the show was never mecha action, but it would've been nice to see more interesting battles especially since I think some of the mecha designs in this show are actually really unique and interesting. This what I meant by bled potential, there are some very unique and interesting mecha designs but the battles are often very short and simple.

Ultimately I feel if action is a low priority for you and if you enjoy the sort of short story approach it has to introducing and exploring it's characters this show could easily be a 9/10. Personally I do like action a lot and the action felt too lacking for me. I also found it hard personally to get invested in the characters since I was given so little time to get to know them individually. Overall I still liked the plot and the twists it had were really interesting so it's still a solid 8/10 despite me having a few pretty significant issues with it.

Bokura no is an anime that should have been a masterpiece.

The first half of the series dedicates one or two episodes to the stories of the pilots of Zearth. Notable episodes such as Scars and Family really hit home on some heavy existential and emotional themes and are two of my favorite episodes. This chunk of the anime ends right around episode 13 with Earth. The episode wraps up Maki's story (which was one of my favorites) and reveals a lot about the reality of the children's situation as pilots of Zearth.

The second chunk of the series kind of loses me. The episodes ... that follow Earth are centered mostly around the political conflict occurring around Zearth. I often found myself more confused than I was before during lengthy dialogue scenes that really had no bearing on the main plot of the series. This chunk ends with episode 18, Reality, where one of the main characters is unceremoniously killed off.

The rest of the show is mostly very strong, but it still falls short. The last episode didn't feel very conclusive, and Kokopeli's backstory was very underwhelming.

As I said before, the show was slated to be a masterpiece IF it continued its formula. Instead, it got lost in the sauce and dicked around until the final episode. I still love this show overall but there are some noticeable flaws.

I think this anime although short was very interesting, it took me a while to finish it because I was busy with other things, but I just finished it a few minutes ago. I thought it was unique in the sense that it was made up of fifteen people, and they each had their own good qualities about each other. It's a tear jerker in some parts, but yeah, I actually enjoyed it, and the animation style of each character make up is something I noticed quite quickly. I thought the named they used to call it was sort of bad ass actually.

One Fight, One Life

Bokurano is a mecha tragedy, Where a normal mecha anime, it's about the journey to Adulthood, here It's the journey to death.

One of the things Bokurano does so will, Is it takes 15 Random kid Who are not fully adults yet, and forces them to tackle death.

And we see how every kid tackle it differently, some go into despair, other goes into nihilism, other just think about the people around them, They will leave behind.

Bokurano story wise is really willing to pull some emotional stomach punches, and some amazing plot turns, that makes it so interesting to watch because you cannot ... predict it.

The animation is not really anything special, but the robot designs are so creepy, look so pointy and weird and not humanoid. The character design is very normal, It looks like normal people, instead of the over the top anime designs with rainbow coloured hair and giant boobies.
They go for normal people designed to get the story to sting more.

You can't decide what fate you get, but you can decide what you're gonna fight for.

If you like emotional stomach punches, then Bokurano is for you.

Story

The premise of Bokurano is interesting at first. With a big cast, it is unlikely that all of their backstories are good and this show is no exception. Some are very good, some are okay, and some are so boring you completely forget about them. I liked the initial character back stories but somewhere past the half way point, I had more difficulty keeping up with the story and characters because I sorta stopped caring. First half is more character driven and the second half becomes slighty more plot driven while still focusing primarily on the characters.

Art

Its okay I guess. Most of the cast ... did not have a very definiing trait, so I often forgot who was who and who did what.

Sound

Opening and ending themes are decent. Not much else to write home about

Character

Probably one of the strongest points of this series. Some characters have great tragic backstories and others have back strories that seem tacked on. Not all of the characters are treated equally in this regard, some have more screentime than others. Past the half way mark, the stories become boring and harder to keep your interest. I was indifferent to the supporting cast.

Enjoyment

The series got my interest in the beginning, however as it went on it become more of a chore to watch. The cast is simply too large and bloated. Having such a large cast is more of a detriment than a strength especially since some stories are more akin to filler. I also feels the show goes out of its way sometimes to shoehorn the more tragic elements in.

Overall

I think this show is okay. Similar to Madoka Magica and Neon genesis evangelion, but those shows are more entertaining.

Bokurano is an anime series that follows a group of children as they pilot a robot named Zearth, fending of 15 alien invaders. The catch is though, is after they defeat the alien enemy, they child in control of Zearth dies. And if they lose thier fight, the Earth dies. There’s a lot more to it than that, but anything else I could say would be a spoiler.

I will say this though, it’s hard to pin down how I feel about this show.

Initially I saw similarities to Evangelion, but I quickly let those leave my mind. The plot held my interest the entire show. ... Bokurano has a nice and steady pace, the plot moves forward each episode and leaves you wanting to no more and more. Most everything gets answered and explained. The ending fits well with the rest of the series, there’s no sudden mood change or last second curve ball, it ends quite nicely. There was also this social commentary vibe I was getting about the “all for one” mind set Japan has. Bokurano spends a lot of time exploring the idea that individualism is just as important as a group mentality mind set.

The characters are the stars of the show, specifically the 15 kids that pilot Zearth. Each of the kids gets fleshed out nicely, but at sometimes the impacts of their deaths seemed cheap. The structure of show is easy to catch onto pretty fast, so it becomes obvious real fast when someone is going to die. The character development the kids get right before they pilot Zearth is great, but to me it seemed almost to convenient. The writers do a great job with everyone’s back stories however. They all are believable and unique. I didn’t get tired of hearing about the characters or think that the backstories were to repetitive. The characters come to life and get a reaction out of you. There wasn’t one main character I felt indifferent about.

The animation was nothing to out of the ordinary, very standard Gonzo anime production animation quality wise. Nothing that stopped me from enjoying the show though. The music was very plain which sometimes worked for the show, I was surprised by this because Bokurano is a very emotional show. There seemed to be very few pieces of music.

Bokurano does a great job at showing how even through adversity or even in the face of death, there is a reason to going forward and to keep fighting. Bokurano is an anime I see myself looking back on to think about and discuss with people. It is an anime I think will grow on me more with time, something I can definitively see myself re watching someday.

In a few words, Bokurano is about finding the value of life through the value of death.
The children in Bokurano are unlike soldiers on a battle field or cancer patients in hospital beds, but rather a combination of both. Life is no longer a matter of choice, but neither is death meaningless.
That's the setting of Bokurano.
Each character had his or her own past and future, but the setting stripped them of that luxury and allowed each to have only the present under control. The setting becomes an ideal breeding ground for all kinds of weaknesses and strengths.
Bokurano therefore is an anime ... with fast yet strong character development. That for me is the show's greatest merit.
I wouldn't call Bokurano depressing even though I did cry in a lot of episodes. It's rather enlightening, not in a philosophical way of course.
For me who thinks emotions lead to greater wisdom than knowledge itself can, I think bokurano depicts this truth (or folly) really well.

I don't generally care for Mecha, but this was outstanding.

You follow the mistakenly united characters in their lives and sympathize with them inside the behemoth. The psychological plot and unique twists create interest value. Sacrifice and courage are learned, while maturity is gained for the good of the people. The grim game of life and death is only half of the battle.

Expect to fall in love with the opening song, as well as cry. Allow yourself to grow attached to the characters in such a limited episode amount.

Bokurano is an anime I first heard of quite some time ago and I remember how intrigued I was when I read the synopsis. A mecha deconstruction with horror/psychological elements? Count me in.
But does the show hold up to its premise or is it one of these cases where the premise is great but the execution falls flat?

Let's start with the one aspect that started my interest in the series: the story.
While at first it seems rather clichéd, the story soon turned out to be one of my favourite aspects of the show. Every two or three episode the focus changes from one ... protagonist to another, which I think was very well done. The show keeps your interest by doing this and at the same time provides us with an continued storyline.
While I found the first half of the series to be marginally better than the second one because it contains most of the surprises and turning points it was overall very well done and wraps up nicely. One advise I can give is that you should try to not get spoiled, simply because that would take away the tension.
Story - 9/10

Let's be fair - Bokuranos animation is not great. The mecha fights are well choreographed, the mecha design is creative and this is one of the very few instances where the CGI does not stick out but apart from the fight scenes the animation is fairly average. The character designs are nice but nothing special and can get confusing at times and unfortunately are off-model very often. The backgrounds are rather beautiful and there are some instances where the animation shines like the scenes inside the robot which have a nice choice of color but these are few and far between. Overall the animation and art do the job but nothing more.
Animation/Art - 6

The music is equally uninteresting. It never works against the mood and usually compliments the anime rather nicely but it is nothing to write home about. The OP is great and fits the mood of the anime perfectly. The EDs are nice to listen to but not nearly as spectacular as the opening.
Music - 6 for the BGM, 9 for OPs and EDs

By far my most favourite aspect of Bokurano are the characters. Each of them gets there own little arc which usually do a better job then I expected. Not all characters are equally interesting and a few are pretty dull but overall I was immensely impressed how much I cared about characters I only got to know for two or three episodes. One thing I'd like to mention at this point is that while Bokurano is not very violent and sexual it contains some disturbing content that might put some viewers off.
Characters - 9

The most important aspect about anime is in my opinion the direction, and sadly this is one aspect I did not like so much about Bokurano especially at the beginning. My knowledge of cinematography is rather limited and I did not expect a work a la Miyazaki when I started this anime but it ended up bothering me more than I expected. In the first few episode everything seems to be shot in the same unexciting way that did not allow me to get a firm grasp of the surroundings. Maybe this was done intentionally - it creates a somewhat uneasy feeling after all - but I found it distracting.
Luckily the direction improves in episodes 6 and 24 which share the same director but in my opinion it could have been better.
Also this anime is heavily influences by Evangelion in case you could not already tell from the fact that it is classified as a psychological mecha deconstruction. This does not distract from the experience but I thought it was a bit much at times.

So is this a must-watch anime you should not miss or is it just another anime rip-off of a certain 90s mecha anime?
The answer to both these questions is 'no'.
But if you are a fan of psychological, more serious anime and like deconstructions as much as I do I recommend to check this one out. At the end of the day I found Bokurano to be a very enjoyable experience.
Overall - 8