Moonrise

"We got some advanced tech right here, can shape shift into every weapon."

Oh and it requires magazines and bullets, for every shape I guess, unless they all use same mag and bullet-type, which is kinda pointless.

Anyway, this show is bad. This studio has a knack for making shows that look and sound the same, with same generic fighting style of guys jumping around like monkey's, but they have cloaks you see, so that makes them cooool. The editing is all over the place as well.

Script is written with crayons, is how I can explain why most of the shit these people do doesn't make sense. ... There's a war between two worlds? Well, time to parteh, chill, hang around. There's no urgency, nothing (I think they took like one year to train). Let's not mention how random generic people from earth are suddenly a super fighting force ready to throw their lives away cause.. well, um.. yeah.

MC is the blandest mofo I've seen since this studio's last anime. Not only he uses the default face model of "Generic white hero" like all gaming companies do, or this studio does, but his personality, his backstory, his mere existence is "generic". At one point I was confused who was who, after someone was hilariously killed, cause the characters looked way too similar. Only when they flash-backed I would tell the difference.

Rest of his personality is walking around playing a fucking Pokemon-GO ripoff (as if you couldn't hate him any more) while casually just walking away. I cannot stress this enough, these people DO NOT act like they are A) In a fucking war and B) Sent on a suicide mission.

They are casually playing games, chatting, talking about relationships, eating and drinking at bar (?). This feels like a vacation with friends with pointless action thrown in. The rest of the cast is somehow blander than the MC. There's token loud girl, pink hair, token large guy who is all serious-like, a love interest.. I think.. could be his sister cause that's what their relationship feels like (Wincest?).

It's like the writer wanted to write a slice-of-life, started writing it, then got hit on the head by a blow-up doll he married, leading to drastic script changes half-way through. And since whoever is in charge of this studio doesn't give a shit about good script, as long as the characters can wear fucking cloaks, the anime was made.

"A-Actually this is based on Manga and this studio made Attack on Tits so this can't suck."

I'd rather watch a shitty isekai than this turd.

A few hours ago, I was browsing r/anime when I stumbled across the announcement that this anime was batch released on Netflix. Of course, I did the sensible thing and proceeded to watch all of it, even though it's mediocre at best.

It really needed more episodes to fully explore the emotions it was trying to evoke. If it had been released weekly, it wouldn't have been as bad, but several time skips in a show that isn't told chronologically aren't ideal when binge-watching.
Give us a training arc instead of one episode and some direct aftermath of episode 13, damn it. That at least would give ... us some good character interaction and help the characters feel less like cardboard cutouts.
The animation is solid, the character designs are by the FMA mangaka, and the dub is decent. I guess you could consider it just another Netflix addition. Fine for background, but not something worth paying full attention to.

Hours of buildup for an ending that would have been better if we took some time to explore the characters. The scaffolding is there but it's not enough to get a good series.

Resume review: 8/10
Excellent anime really enjoyable if you are patient, something people are not much nowadays.
STORY is really good all questions ARE AWNSERED by the end of the anime.
The ART is top with AOT art in some surroundings and obvious character design from FMA , the animation is fluid and pleasing to watch.
SOUNDTRACK is incredible as well, Opening leaves an hint of mystery in your ear.

Let's go by topics on why this anime is worth watching imo

ART, the animation is so fluid, no "PowerPoint" animation here like some animes we saw recently in 2025/24, its elegant, its fluid. It is obvious this anime ... has great animation even before you watch it, if you go see the animators list, this is packed with artists from AOT and other great animes. The character design Hiromu Arakawa was the character designer for Full metal Alchemist and it shows in some characters and its great. Also AOT background design is implemented in some areas during the series and the obvious fighting while in the air and capes. AOT used wires to leap into the air, these guys use technology to get a boost mid air (on the moon so low gravity)

STORY! The first episodes are pain, great set up with the 1st episode, amazing, but the first 4/5 episodes are pain, you are sort of thrown into something new out of nowhere. You get to experience some time skips yes but everything is explained, just be patient, don't give up after 4/5/6 episodes where you might think "did i skip something? why are we here?" don't worry, its going to be explained, its just to create mystery and suspense, its a play with time itself where you get to know things before they are explained or introduced properly. There is a lot of fighting, there is a lot of plotting behind the scenes that you will discover the why after some episodes, a lot of goofiness and fun moments, also some sad moments. Its a good story in the end i was talking to the characters like "NO PLEASE DON'T DO IT" and things like that because i payed attention and i got attached some characters. The end is … weird, There is an end! But there is something there a bit confusing, wont spoil. Basically don't get confused when some Time skip happens out of nowhere and you don't know where it is or when it happened. IT ALL HAS A MEANING and it will be explained!

SOUNDTRACK / MUSIC.... amazing. Loved the opening there is no voice in it but it gives a suspense and mystery vibe. It gives you the idea of mystery, turmoil, hope, sadness, joy. Loved the choice. And the ending is also really good! Its written and performed by one character from the show the artist is called AiNA THE END and i loved her voice during the anime, its different and unique!

CHARACTERS, no spoilers, The MC reminds me of the mc from ID: Invaded, but way more energetic, there is probably a better reference to this MC but, to me its what came to mind. Fun fact the MC and his childhood friend are the voices from Vinlad Saga Askeladd and Thorfinn. MC best friend is Sasha from AOT. Basically this is stacked, go watch the list of Voice Actors! I grew attached to some but didn't have time to grow attached to all, it is a small anime even tho its 18 episodes and people nowadays get tired after 5 episodes in a 12 ep anime... There are a lot of personalities in this anime and its fun to see them interact. My favourite was Mary!

After all that i would recommend watching this anime, good story and great characters even tho i would like to have more time with it, AMAZING animation, flawless. Beautiful soundtrack great opening and ending songs.

Animation: 9.5
Characters: 8
Sound/music: 8.5
Story:7
Overall: 8

This show is extremely annoying because it constantly invokes the trope of characters not communicating key information to create conflict. In fact they constantly withhold information from the audience, and only the audience, when all the characters involved know what's going on.
I kept on watching because I wanna know what's going on but guess what, they simply don't tell you all way till the end. The more I watched the more questions I had, and then the show was over, leaving me frustrated and wishing I never watched. I liked the characters and wanted to know how they would react to information not communicated to ... them but guess what, they never found out either, or at least not on-screen.

I love to scrutinize si-fi settings and this show seems like it wants to be somewhat hard si-fi but utterly fails at it. As other reviews have pointed out for example, they have programmable matter that can transform into weapons but they mostly just transform into normal guns that shoot normal bullets, so why even bother with this setting, it doesn't seem to serve any purpose in the story compared to a normal gun holster, but it's more stupid than that. For they specifically mention in the show that mass is conserved when it comes to this programmable matter, ok so I guess bullets cost them this ultra high-tech material which is dumb enough but wait till you hear this, THEY DISCARD SPENT MAGAZINES! Yep, it's empty so might as well toss it on the ground.

Ok first of all, if you have programmable matter why does the gun even use magazines in the first place? Surely bullets can be supplied without a magazine or any external ports because it's programmable matter!? Secondly why not you know, keep the fucking magazine so you can turn its mass into more bullets?

They even get a space ship that's supposedly entirely made of this programmable matter and can transform into other vehicles at will, which sounds really cool and has amazing potential for some action scenes right? Guess what for basically the entire show it's just a normal armored bus that drives the cast around. What even is the point of this si-fi super material gimmick?

Speaking of vehicles, this show has some of the worst looking space ship designs ever put to anime, they don't even look like they belong in the show because the 2D animation is good, even great at times but we get these.... extremely amateurish 3D models of what are supposed to be space ships, it's just awful.

Believe it or not the actual story is not predictable at all, not in any detail, because nobody would predict things like two characters with a serious misunderstanding, who have hours and days together, but somehow they don't communicate what their misunderstanding is, so the problem does not get resolved, and they keep fighting the next time they meet. You might then think ok maybe the broad strokes are more predictable then? Well no because one of the biggest threats in the story showing up half way into the show, is never explained in any way. The show is over and I'm still not sure what's that about. The only predictable thing about this story, is you can easily tell who's actually the bad guy all along just by reading the synopsis, because other things that happen in the show are either out right unexplained, or because two characters won't communicate key information for no reason at all, causing a misunderstanding.

Production quality is excellent, it truly is. This show is filled to the brim with both great still frames and action sequences.
Writing quality, unfortunately, doesn't remotely matches the visuals.
The plot is confused and leaves you with impression that things were shifted around, added and removed on the fly, so it falls short of a decent action oriented story they could fit in 18 episodes. The narrative keeps jumping around to flashbacks and flashforwards for no good reason, though this gets better after the first few episodes. Basically nothing in terms of character arcs.
Overall, Moonrise is a story that dips its toes into interplanetary ... conflict, colony revolting against the metropole, ethics of AI governance, evolution of mankind, conflict between long separated friends going different paths, love triangles and succeeds at nothing. Give it a watch if you want some eye candy, but otherwise it's not worth it.

If Moonrise's visuals could carry the score alone, it would be a 10/10. It is gorgeous, stunning and a true benchmark at what modern CGI in anime can look like. But that's it. It starts off strong with an interesting premise and setting, yet it bites off way more than it can chew. It wants to do a hundred different things, but only has time to flesh out 10 of those. Cuts and large jumps occur often, leaving confusing in its wake.

The cast, while interesting, either doesn't get fleshed out or is kind of forgotten about; the most interesting characters are the ones with ... the least screen time. Speaking of that, the main characters are so hard to like. You care about them as much as they care about important plot points - very little. To them, consequences don't mean anything (except for that one incident which very much felt forced).

The ending was not worth sticking around to watch. The coolest part had about 1 minute of screentime dedicated to it, the rest felt so insignificant. The only reason why I would watch a second season would be for the world and setting, because it's genuinly cool and interesting. It's really not a bad show, but the untapped potential and the increasingly infuriating story really makes you wish it was better.

6.5/10 ~ Choppy and confusing, but beautiful?

Moonrise was a rough watch to say the least, it was like watching Gundam without the mechs where the piolets fight like hunters from Destiny and their enemies are either King Bradley from FMA, Ultron or the virus from Digimon Tamers (D-Reaper)... hell its even called "L-Zone" which... idk seems similar enough, seriously go look at imagines from the end of tamers where D-Reaper floods the real world and compare it to Ep 18 of moon rise, some scenes could be swapped with one another lol.

But Moonrise had some amazing visuals, and overall amazing production value between all ... the gorgeous scenery, decent music, good character designs and interesting tech / combat. The writing/over all storyboarding of it all was so so choppy, It felt like this show should have been between 40-50 episodes to tell the story it did, probably cut up between multiple seasons. Instead we got a 18 ep show that would time skip months or years within the same ep and this was a frequent thing that just kept happening. Not to mention the show would present it self randomly out of order at some parts adding to the confusion and making myself ask the question "so how did we get here?" almost once an episode -_-

I felt that nearly every episode had cut content, its almost like there was atleast 10min of full "filler" / "Fluff" in each episode that the director decided was unnecessary and slimmed down the show as much as possible to fit it within this random and arbitrary number of 18 episodes. I never really got use to it, so it was jarring from episode 1 to 18. I couldnt even imagine not binging this one, watching this 1-2 episodes at a time seems absolutely horrendous and I would recommend watching it atleast 6 ep at a time to keep yourself from feeling like you just forgot or missed anything between sessions.

This show could have been so much more, and that does make me sad. But none the less I did enjoy my time with Moonrise, so it kinda puts me in a weird spot of rating / recommending this one. I get the feeling alot of people will have pretty mixed opinions on this one, the show was interesting and flashy enough where you can just turn your brain off and enjoy the show, but its just deep enough to keep you engaged. It you like Gundam, Tamers, or any Scifi where AI takes over the world you may like this one, or if you just liked the action sequences from FMA as its very similar feeling (and made by the same people). But sitting at 6.5/10 marker for me I will be very selective of anyone I recommend this one.

If there is a 2nd season, which it was left open ended, then ill give that a try as well.

Honest review.


This anime is good and enjoyable.
If I had to explain this anime, id say wait till you finish the whole thing because this isn't the type of anime where you understand everything from the get-go.

By the time you finish watching the whole anime you will understand everything and all your questions will be answered.

The rating of this anime is extremely harsh, since it is coming from AOT fans who expected AOT story level since its by WIT studio.

... though anime like solo leveling gets so much attention and love, so why not give this as much attention and love?

If anything this deserves it more than 2/10 series. I'm still at disbelief that that series has such high ratings, I have even read the manwha because many solo leveling fans said it gets better later but nope, if anything it just gets worse. I seriously believe we have lost media literacy and only care about cool looking mc whos a edgy bitch, and hype/aura.

Moonrise IMO is a 7/10 series but it is getting very harsh rating and reviews that only belong to solo levelling, but somehow SL doesn't get any of that... I mean look at the ratings of it compare to this anime.

Sound/ost: 9/10
Animation:9.5/10
Character:7/10
Background:9.5/10
Story:7/10

Do yourself a favor and don't watch this show. Don't get tricked by the appealing animation & soundtrack. Cuz that's all there is to it. You won't find anything beyond that. No story. No character. No emotion. No meaning.

Out of the 180 completed animes this show managed to land among my bottom 3. Despite struggling to stay awake through many of the episodes, I did finish it - so that you won't have to! Honestly, I had a bit of hope until (almost) the very end, that i might get pleasantly surprised. I wasn't.

This show is bland and empty. Nothing to be found here. Move ... along.

It's great. Watch first four episodes and decide for yourselves.

I'm not a fan of cybernetic or sci-fi anime, but this anime is amazing, the action sequences keep getting better.

There are few places where they could've skipped it, but other than that it's an amazing series.

They have put a lot of work into the landscapes, character animation, action sequences and more.

Yes there are some flaws, but at this quality of art, it's fine.

... And they have used different music at different scenarios, it suits well and great.

There are very few annoying or skippable scenes, worth it, please watch it.

Very good animation wasted on an underdeveloped plot line. In the first few episodes several new characters are introduced every episode with zero development or significance. Why are they even there? Even the main characters are extremely one-dimensional. None of them are particularly annoying but also not really engaging enough where you want to root for them. The storyline is extremely choppy -- huge time skips here and there with no explanation about what happened along the way. The narrative also skips between a past timeline and a present -- I felt the flashbacks were provided in a weird way where the characters' stories were ... always not fully explained. At no point I really understood why A lead to B then to C. Really a shame because I can see there is serious effort invested into making this show but it's just not good.

My honest take with Moonrise is that it starts off strong, had me pulled in with the first episode after that it falls apart.

The writing and story are so annoying it feels like you’re pulling your hair out while watching. My biggest gripe is that by episode 7 or 8 you can read the context clues and find out why this all started but then they just keep using the trope of no one communicating with each other so plot point a happens. If that happens a couple times cool but that’s essentially one of the biggest things they use to push the plot ... forward.

Pacing is shit and why tease the romance between Jack and Rhys when nothing ever happens. It’s a waste of time to watch. Best part about it is the visuals and soundtrack but it’s not worth watching 18 episodes for just that. I feel like I need to shower after finishing it because I feel dirty 😂 it’s a really cool concept but just executed poorly.

Incredibly disappointing. The sci-fi story isn't fleshed out at all. The actions scenes, while looking impressive, are actually quite boring since they have no stakes or urgency. Attacking random outpost A for unknown reasons doesn't make for compelling action at all. It suffers heavily from the "everyone is misunderstood" problem. The main villain is misunderstood. All the bad guys are misunderstood. All the good guys are misunderstood. The nonstop "friendship drama" completely ruins the pacing of the show. I mean is this a planetary war or a romcom? Overall, I can't recommend this show except for the colorful animation and smooth fight scenes.

I think this was a missed opportunity - As others have said, this show had good animation, intriguing plot premise, character designs were typical but enjoyable. The pacing wasn't horrible and the story kept you wanting more. The ending was a bit rushed. So all in all ... decent. But unfortunately it could have been so much better. If the writers had only given more time and attention to various threads and not forced the "miscommunications" it would have flowed better and given a more fulfilling viewing experience. ...

Definitely worth a watch, It's a complete story, but I think you'll feel a little let down after it's all over, not because the story isn't satisfying or incomplete but that you didn't get just a bit more.

Let me first start with the positives— the animation is beautiful, the sci-fi theme & setting was very unique and intriguing, and most of the character designs were really cool.

Unfortunately, these things were not enough to compensate for the plot which was hard to follow with many holes.

At around the halfway point of the show, I started getting upset at each episode for skipping around too much. Lots of questions unanswered, characters randomly introduced with no context or backstory, and random time skips with little to no explanation about why they happened or what occurred during them. Like what the hell were Jacob, Mary, and ... the rest of the rebel army characters doing for a whole year after Jacob left Rhys and their group?

I felt I was being too harsh and needed to let the show explain things, however, these issues only got worse as the show progressed. I really wanted to like the show which is why I kept pushing to the end but was only left more disappointed than I was at the halfway point.

If you enjoy high quality sci-if animation with action packed scenes and don’t care much for a thorough plot, this show is for you. If not, save yourself the time— there are other titles in this same lane that will deliver the same experience with a much stronger story.

Space Battleship Yamato
Code Geass
Cowboy Bebop
Pluto

Quite the fun anime to watch as background
Story telling i must say is terrible, sometimes I found myself double checking the episode I'm currently watching because it doesn't make sense from the Pov of previous episode
I was getting very excited to watch the show in the last 3 episodes only to be disappointed how the show delivered the ending
the story build up was 8.2/10 is good but once we arrive at last episodes all those buildups just fell like cardboard lol they collapse as if they're nothing, I'm not even mad cause i enjoyed my watch while it last

Moonrise is definitely not an anime for everyone. Why? Quite simply because its storytelling style won't suit everyone. It's the kind of storytelling you have to be patient with; you won't get all the answers in one go. But as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait, so this is the perfect anime for the patient type of people.

While watching, you'll be asking yourself a lot of questions and making a lot of theories. You could say that watching this anime makes your brain melt (brainrot, it makes your brain rot).

It's important to pay attention to what's going on, to the ... characters and to the details, because the anime will include a lot of flashbacks, the narrative is not linear. For a good understanding, you need to be able to concentrate and give the episode your undivided attention.

If this kind of storytelling is a style you like, and if you find yourself in what I've just explained, it's probably worth giving Moonrise a try. In any case, I think it must be very interesting to revisit the anime once you have all the cards in your hand and a clear vision/knowledge of the various characters.

That said, I had to check a few things on the internet to make sure I understand everything, which is why I gave it an 8/10 and not a perfect score. All in all, I really enjoyed the universe, the way the story was told, and how complex it was.

I stopped after episode 9 and went to Reddit to see if anyone else thought the same. I really wanted to like it, because it's WIT Studio and FMA's writer got involved in the character design, but something in the story just doesn't click, I already don't like flashbacks but this one had heaps, and even have 'timeskips' without really any indication of it being one.

I feel like the story is torn between trying to be a serious, sci-fi, action anime, and I would have liked it that way (similar to the vibes I had with Eureka Seven when I was young), but it tried ... to be funny at times with the people making faces and suddenly cutting serious conversations. I think this is the first time that I watched an anime and everything is awesome - music, animation, drawing, character design, but once you tried to understand the story and relate with the characters, you see yourself grasping at straws.

This piece just wasn't enjoyable. The story is honestly cliché and felt like something I’ve seen many times before. The action scenes were worth watching, but honestly, aside from those, there was nothing else good about it. There were so many unnecessary scenes and way too many flashbacks. The romance elements that disrupted the flow from time to time were also disappointing. I couldn’t understand the characters’ behavior or emotions — especially the main character; their actions were just insane. I don’t think it’s okay to just move on as if nothing happened after everything that occurred. Overall, it wasn’t all that good. Is it ... really okay to consider a piece good just because it has well-done action scenes? I wouldn’t recommend this piece.

The world moonrise created is quite interesting and unique. The world building is quite engaging. The animation, the action is actually very top tier. However, the story line is confusing. Forgettable and unlikeable main character. He makes so many questionable and unrealistic choices throughout the series. Too many unlikeable actions with little thought into it from the MC. He could not even communicate with his teammates in every actions.
Overall it is a good experience watching this anime but it is hard for me to invest any emotion into it. The protagonist and the story line are very sub par for me. Everything else is good.