Gunparade March: Arata Naru Kougunka

::QUICK REVIEW::
Story: 6 (Great action horrible drama)
Art: 7 (Most of the money went into the mech battles)
Sound: 4 (without the mecha, this would have been a zero)
Character: 3 (Never seen such a large group i could care less)
Enjoyment: 5 (it was both fun and agonizing at the same time)
Overall: 25/50 = 5.0 (watch this as one of your last resorts)


::FULL REVIEW::
Don't be fooled by the cool mecha action you get from episode one. Thats just there to draw you in to the story. As you keep watching, you will come to realize it's all a ploy. A ploy to lure you into a romantic comedy ... between two members of the military. It was a HUGE disappointment too. When the action was there it was just awesome. From the animation, to the monsters, to the action, and right down to the military chatter (dub of course) it was fast, fierce, and fantastic. Unfortunately those parts only took up of about 15% of the series. The romance and drama though was a bit iffy relying on the "will they ever confess" formula. If you enjoy that style of drama then give it a try. But people like me aren't real fans of that style. Don't get me wrong the drama wasn't horrible, but it was 'mediocre' (5/10) at best.

The production value was also a mixed bag as well. Considering its basically 2 different anime. On the warfare standpoint, I really appreciate all the detail and fluidity that they put into the mech battles. The sound effects were great in 5.1 and mix it in with some good old fashioned military chatter in proper English, I was on an action high when it ever came on. But on the drama/comedy/romance side of things it was just mediocre. They all wore the same outfits about 90% of the time. Of course they were all kids 18 or under so some loli tendencies were obvious. They tried to do some fanservice but it was really poor. And the voice acting was forgettable from both sides of ocean (English/Japanese dub). For the most part i just kept it in English during the battles and i kept it in Japanese during the drama.

The character themselves were pretty forgettable considering the voices were forgettable and their chemistry between each other really wasn't there. Even the two main characters didn't feel like they were playing their roles quite well. It's hard to explain but the only way I can say it is that tsundere didnt feel like a tsundere and the shy type felt more like a mumbling loser just repeating the same thing over through 12 episodes.

If you love mecha and you have absolutely no other mecha anime to watch I'd give this a try. Or if you like anime that sound like they're accomplishing one thing but in reality, its cover to tell a different less intriguing story give this a shot too. Other than that leave it alone.

Watched this, or at least most of it, several years ago, but didn't add it to the Stack until more recently. So I fire it up and...wait, where's the meccha stuff??

Yeah, that's what I was thinking the whole time. We get a little exposition at the beginning about this unknown creature invasion that took over most of the world back in World War II, and then...it becomes a background story. To a high school slice of life... Huh.

Maybe they planned to do something more with this, and the twelve episodes we have are just a wind up, but it never happened. ... So we have this untapped potential mecha show that instead focuses on a group of teen pilots, and a third grader for...reasons (?) but most of them have little to no substance or background. They're just there.

The art style is bright and polished, but there's not anything to show it off. The music has some nice tracks but not much play time when it's all said and done. Gunparade March isn't a bad show, it's just an incomplete show. So much goes unexplained. It needed to focus more on the combat sorties and this rampaging foreign species and flesh out the cast.

If you do fan fiction, give this a shot. It's basically a clean slate.

Gunparade March is a disjointed series, equal parts mecha show and high school comedy. Most people are going to be looking more for one or the other, and will be annoyed at this genre fusion. I found myself actually enjoying this blend, for the most part I felt like the two sides helped each other more than hurt, though I did find that the second half appeared to pick a side much more than the first.

This is an anime from 2003 so don’t expect much from the visuals, they were good enough but that’s about it. I liked all of the characters enough, with ... Mai as a high point and Hayami as the weak point. The world is also interesting and I hope to find Gunparade Orchestra does more with it. This is a nice 6/10 slice of life show with some character and a mecha twist. Avoid if you don’t do romance.