Megaton-kyuu Musashi

Megaton-kyuu Musashi came out from a little dark corner in the Fall season. Fortunately, the series is on YouTube, though no official English subtitles exist. As a result, it's among the most obscure that aired. A shame, because it among the strongest of the season, and the mecha series I enjoyed the most. It stayed consistently good throughout it's 13 episodes for the first cour, seeing as though it will return in Fall of 2022. Level 5 put out all the works, decent animation, and played out a chaotic story of apocalyptic proportions while also making a large cast of characters; all developed and meaningful ... in their own ways. It can play out emotionally driven scenes really well, and many times the opening and ending were skipped for more story. There is lots of great music and vocal tracks that play throughout. The hard effort and passion is definitely felt.

One of the best parts of Megaton-kyuu Musashi is the protagonist Yamato. Unlike the majority of cowardly and bland protagonists that came out this season, he is very different from them. The story involves a war between humans and aliens. Yes, it can feel like a played out story, but at least it tries to push lots of character development and drama in between, and both sides have elements that desire coexistence. Hilariously but understandably, Yamato's solution to this is alien genocide, and he is very blunt and serious about it. He's hot headed but with good heart, an oblivious romantic, and among the best pilots for the humans. What makes him stand out in the battlefield is his improvised and unorthodox method of driving Megaton. Much of the focus is on him doing this while the staff panic for dear life out of how dangerous a situation he keeps putting everyone in. If he wants to use a move that might blow Megaton up, it makes him feel excited at the thrill of it all. Curiously enough, he is similar to Yabuki Joe, and his voice actor often sounds just like him. There is staff working on this that has worked on anime by the same author of Ashita no Joe, so it's not surprising. But he's not all hot steam in the head as he begins to see things clearer and develops as a character with the help of others.

The alien race had their home planet destroyed, and the details about this have been kept vague and hidden. As a result, they had to venture out into space in order to survive. Earth happened to be the planet they ran into, and decided to take it over. On one hand, they need to take over the planet to survive, but in the other, they could have tried to coexist. The queen has no desire to break bread with humans and would rather have them destroyed. Her daughter Arshem the princess is conflicted about this, as she herself has been sent down to earth on a mission. The aliens want to learn about the secret of evolution about the humans. Thus, they don't destroy them, but keep them in check with infiltration, secret assassinations and little pushes here and there with their forces.

The humans, after having their home planet ravaged, eventually moved out to live in secrecy. To keep the people happy, they have resorted to some somewhat disturbing methods to keep the moral up, but it's all crumbling apart as the series goes on. Their main focus is to expand their military might so as to survive and fight off the waves.

The fights are brutal, chunky, chaotic, and done well. For being CGI it's impressive compared to a lot of the terrible CGI out there.

It's tragic that where I am this feels nonexistent, but Megaton-kyuu Mushashi is definitely a highlight of the season.

Aight, I'm only making this review, cuz I'm not allowed to let this show go overlooked cuz of a couple of reviews. Megaton is sick, and easily one of the best mecha shows this season. Story is fairly predictable so far, but it doesn't matter cuz this show has such a good style to it. Like it's nothing crazy, but it makes you interested in seeing how things will go. Characters so far don't have too much development, but I sense some great potential here. Both 2D art and 3D cgi is pretty consistently great, and I adore the thicker black outlines and shadows used ... for the char designs. The mecha action is epic, sick, and pure fun. Music is very hype and catchy so far, and I like the voice performances. I can't really say a ton cuz there's only 4 eps atm, but Megaton is a great show so far. Don't be fooled by the MAL score, this is a show def worth trying. At least give it 2-3 eps before considering dropping it.

The story is as you see it in the description,jumps straight to the plot and moves at a pretty fast pace but not fast to the point you cannot keep up and even has small moments of breathing in between so don't you get too overwhelmed by the pacing.

The characters that the show focus on are developed enough to care but some side characters end up suffering a little due to the fast pace i mentioned.

The animation,music and voice acting are above average and while CGI exists its pretty well done and mixes very well with the animaton.

Overall i believe most things this show attempts ... to do,it does manage to accomplish most of them of whats its trying to do.

If you like mecha thats on the fast side of pacing,then this show should be for you.

The show gets crazier in the fourth episode, then it kinda gets a bit stupid in the fifth and sixth episode. It's starting to feel like the fights are detached from the rest of the show, like they're mostly just shoved in for the sake of it. It's vey cookie cutter, fight generic enemies, they combine and get big, use big weapon thing in slightly unorthodox way, do it again next time.

The shit with the school gangs is getting a bit tiring, and feels a bit stupid, the characters in general aren't very interesting so far, as far as the writing and the design goes.

Personally ... I think the CGI with the robots is fine, it makes them look metallic and bulky, the camera isn't abused, and the humans are never CGI so far, so it's consistent and fitting.

It's not great so far but it's not terrible, hopefully it gets better as it goes on. Right now it kind of feels like a janky version of gurren lagann mixed with kamen rider toy placements.

Megaton-kyuu Musashi (2021)

At first, I considered since it was based on a game that it may not be great and the mechs look sort of stupid plus the Darling in the Franxx shelter on a wasteland situation. I didn't have high hopes and even dropped it halfway through to then finish it off out of pride. I have to say the start is dull and over the top but it actually isn't too bad a show as it goes on.

The art used is not bad, I hate the mecha design I think it looks stupid. The enemy is very Ace Combat styled with the ... airships. The character design is very much from my childhood, many characters look like they came straight out of Digimon. Not bad overall just not my style.

The sound is basic very basic, the OP is over the top and the ED is okay. The general sounds have no depth whatsoever. Voices are okay.

Characters are basic and easy to get along with but at the same time pretty boring. They do develop towards the end just in a very rushed way.

I actually liked how the MC was very let's take the enemy down and get our world back but as you expect he suddenly gets a hot looking alien girl in his life and suddenly is a different person suffering depression from her not being with him 24/7.

The overall show is average since it has cool combat and a good enough storyline. I only came back since it got renewed whilst airing so it must be good right? With how it ended otherwise, you could easily just leave it there. Perhaps pride got the best of me.

5/10. Can improve and perhaps it will.

Megaton-Megaflop.

Megaton-kyuu Musashi is a very unspectacular giant robots vs aliens show. Set in a world where 99.9% of humans have been wiped out leaving the remaining survivors to live hiding in a false, peaceful town, certain people get chosen to learn the truth and man giant robots called Rouges to beat back the alien forces and stop them from terraforming the earth.
Granted the premise is interesting. The fact that all of the citizens have had their memories wiped gave the show a suspenseful and tense start which I enjoyed, but after the big reveal the show gets more and more predictable and less and ... less interesting to watch.

The animation holds back it's mediocre story. The CGI robot/alien fights are okay, but feel somewhat out of place next to the hand drawn animation which is a bit too clumsy and unnatural to watch. The character designs are very 90's cartoon-like which I enjoyed, but as characters theres not really a lot going on to keep me invested in them. Yamamoto started off as an interesting delinquent with an interesting back story, but after his backstory is revealed he becomes a bland mc with a chip on his shoulder.

I think it's a shame that I don't like this show. Despite my negative review I did enjoy it for a bit and I think theres a good skeleton for a show here. However there are much better mech v monsters shows that came before and are currently coming this season so Megaton-kyuu Musashi just falls short of being mediocre enough to be background noise.

4/10 Disappointment.

The story isn't half bad but is also isn't very original and becomes pretty dull and repetitive after several episodes. Basically it revolves around a segment of finding some new character to help find and then a fight proceeding directly after that. Overall I can't give it more than like a 6 for story and character development but it would still be watchable if that was all that was wrong with it.

Unfortunately, the major issue with this show is the combat animation and alien character designs. The animation used in every fight is about as basic and terrible as can be and is reminiscence of ... some low quality cartoon meant for children. The art style for the mech is also similar appalling.