Armed Blue Gunvolt

Armored Blue Gunvolt or Azure Striker Gunvolt would be an awesome anime series. All of it the story, art, sound and characters match the game so well. After finding it and watching it I watched it at least ten times. When and if they make this into an anime I would rewatch again and again. All in all I give it a 10/10. For the record I am still rewatching it till this day.

Story=10 Reasons: It fits so well it make sense and its clear to understand
... the situation of what's going on. It also makes me
want to see what happens next.

Art=10 Reasons: Its so beautiful that it makes me want to cry and I just
love it.

Sound=10 Reasons: N/A (it's that good)

Character=10 Reasons: They are just awesome to look at.

Gunvolt, a game that I've watched the walk through for because I do not have the money to buy it on eshop. I don't even know how to put money on eshop. I absolutely loved the game and I was even more excited for the anime. But there are things that they should of done to improve it.

Story: 4

Compared to the game itself, it mostly showed the very beginning. This leads me to disappointment as I was expecting a lot more than just the beginning. If they were targeting people to go play the game, they did a good job. To gunvolt fans who waited ... forever hit the dust as it was just about the beginning. In a story, there is a beginning, middle and end. We have one thing but where is everything else!?!

Art: 8

I really liked the art style in this episode. It really gives that spark. Especially when the blue lighting kind of flashes. Sadly when it came to a long battle. The portals kind of confused me.

Sound: 6

It was pretty decent. It did give energy, especially to the ones who have played the game as the song is recognisable but it was mostly all lumen. I know there is more music then that. Especially during the fight. What could of made it better is some dramatic fight music!

Character: 4

Where the heck is the character build!?! Yes, I know that it's hard to do something like that in 21 minutes. I bet anyone that has watched this and is basically new are wondering what is QUILL's main objective, what is the sumeragi and how many are they, what is an adept? If they did a whole series. It would give them time to build up more character in not just the main character but the supporting also. I'm betting right now that first timers only remember 2 names and it's pretty obvious what those names are.

Enjoyment: 7

I really enjoyed it. What I never expected was Gunvolt wearing glasses and all that normal attire. It just gives fangirls a squeal. Like I said before, it was quite confusing with all the portals. Although I did really hate that it was only available on eshop. It would of reached far if the good quality was available for other devices.

Overall: 6

I enjoyed this one short episode. I believe it would of been better to have it as a series than a 21 minute video. There was so much left out just by doing one episode. Like Danganronpa. It started as a game. It had a 13 episode series which not only attracted people to play it but also to play the sequel and other games in the DanganRonpa franchise. Other than that, I liked it!

I hope you find this helpful

*THIS'LL BE A SHORT ONE*

Azure Striker Gunvolt is a beloved action platformer series that has spawned two games, with more probably on the way in the upcoming years. From the footage I've seen, it looks like a lot of fun. Since the franchise has been a success, it would pretty much be inevitable for someone to make an anime to either adapt or promote the games. I'm not sure how fans will react to this OVA, but I'm not impressed by it. Some of you might bemoan me for ripping on a glorified advertisement for a video game, but that didn't stop us last month ... when tearing up Fate/Grand Order: First Order, and it certainly didn't stop us from obliterating Mars of Destruction or Skelter+Heaven. Now, is it as bad as those few? Oh, hell no! It would be a sin to put this in the same ball park as the latter two abominations from yesteryear, and it's not as ridiculously bad as the former title either. Even still, when compared to other OVA promo prequels for beloved video games (like Megaman X's "Day of Sigma), this OVA falls flat. This is coming from the perspective of a newbie that is planning on getting into the series, so maybe fans of the games will have a better time with this one than I did. So, why didn't this electrify me in the slightest? Well, let's find out, shall we?

STORY: 3/10

Basically, this is the story of how an adept, named Gunvolt, saved an adept by the name of Joule, with the framing decide being that Joule remembers being saved 6 months prior (how did she remember the stuff she wasn't there for? Did Gunvolt tell her? Dunno.). It's all basically a search and destroy mission and a generic OVA. Gunvolt breaks in, gets caught, has a poorly placed and poorly excecuted flashback, kicks some ass, finds the "core" that he needs to destroy, goes AWOL because it's the hero way and because he can relate to his target, and kicks more ass before getting kicked out. There's not much too it really. If the story was written tightly around that, with no asspulls, deus ex machinas, or any of that, this would be perfectly fine. However, specifically involving Gunvolt's fight with an adept by the name of Marik, and even before that, that proves to not be the case.

In said fight, Gunvolt powers up out of nowhere, and he gets helped by an unknown sniper who isn't even seen by the end of this (unless there is context in the game to prove that it was someone we know), all in the middle of a generic and boring fight scene. This was clearly made for fans, as they make no attempt to explain much about anything here, leaving newbies, such as myself, in the dark. It all ends on a lazy advertisement of what's to come in the games, as was the case with the other glorified ad anime that came out recently. All of this may seem too benign for a 3, but, in 21 minutes, it stacks up really quickly, and with no flavor or anything to really mitigate the damage. Oh, we also see his rival, Copen, randomly because of course we have to shoehorn the rival character to advertise him. Maybe it was him who fired the shot? He hates adepts, so, why didn't he help kill the enemy adept? We'll never know. Well, let's move on.

CHARACTERS: 4/10

Another reason this OVA was boring was due to its characters. I understand that in 21 mintes, it's hard to really sell a cast of characters, especially when it's an adaptation of a video game, but shows like Steins;Gate have proven that to be possible, making us love the cast by the end of episode 1. Everyone feels stale and generic, but not stupid or excessively generic. It's a lukewarm cast with a lukewarm hero (Gunvolt, who I'm sure is more interesting in the games), damsel in distress (Joule), and Gunvolt's now ex-organization, QUILL, and Nova, the headmaster of the evil organization, The Sumeragi Group. There mainly there just for the sake of putting them in this scenario to advertise the game, and it shows since almost none of them have a personality that goes beyond the basic archetypes.

ART: 7/10

Gunvolt was animated by "LandQ studios", and they did an alrigt job, even with the borderline "generic LN" character designs. It really shines when they animate some concert scenes with Lumen, the pop idol who just so happens to be an extension of Joule. Everywhere else, it's merely ok; even by OVA standards, this isn't anything notably impressive. The combat is mediocre but not poor, and I'm glad they kept the mechanics from the game in check (unlike some adaptations out there). It's decently animated by a relatively unknown studio, and that's all we care about for this section.

SOUND: 4/10

There really isn't anything special about the background OST aside from the pretty decent Lumen songs. They make a good backdrop to whatever goes on, even if there is nothing else that has any real merit (like a sense of memorability). As for the dub, it's really bad. Given that it came out the same time as the sun, it makes some semblance of sense, but Space Dandy has the same scenario and, from what I've heard, it has a great dub, so what's Gunvolt's excuse? Everyone sounds like they're just reading their lines from a script instead of actually acting, and it really shows. For 2017 standards, that is unacceptable.

ENJOYMENT: 4/10

All in all, this was a very dull advertisement OVA. Nothing really tried to stand out, and it was all middling and lukewarm. The dialogue was also meh, as was the fighting. Nothing felt like it was really trilingual to entertain, and it's a shame. Still, at least it wasn't excruciatingly boring, but it was dull nonetheless. That's all there is too it, aside from one funny like about Marin complaining about Gunvolt's actions and lines sounding like a generic hero.

OVERALL: 4/10 RAW SCORE: 42/100

There's not much left to say here. It's a boring OVA that, while meant to make us interested in the franchise, probably succeeds better at giving a small treat to existing fans than drawing new ones in. It doesn't do anything interesting or play it's events up in a way that is fun, but at least it's not as bad as some of its earlier contemporaries. Still, it's not one of the better ones if it's kind out there. Well, with all that said, I bid you adieu.