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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

TL;DR: Wonderful art, animation and fight choreography, but terrible plot execution and structure. (4/10)

When it comes to its art, it is truly stellar. Environments are detailed and highlighted, brimming with colour and life. Animations are clean with a consistent flow of motion, fluidity and diversity in fight choreography or movement. In some scenes, cgi is used for instance when representing crowds, vehicles and enemies. Its use however is not unappealing towards the eyes and does not really make the show less enjoyable. Meaning, that its use though questionable is acceptable.

When it comes to its story... Just bad. Don't watch it. The show is plagued ... with an inconsistent story structure, tonal shifts, dissonance in visual musical story-telling, plot holes and discontinued plot lines, confusing characters and motivations, unexplained or if poorly explained conclusions, etc. It takes eight to ten episodes for the plot to properly catch steam, offering the viewer an actually interesting plot development. Only for it to drop the ball on the fourteenth episode, continuing its aforementioned problems all the way to the end.

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.

60-SECOND REVIEWS

I had high hopes for this show, made by WIT and the talented industry vet who directed several of the Attack on Titan seasons (and is set to direct The One Piece remake/re-whatever). The scale looked grand and the action scenes looked to give me a similar visceral reaction that the Attack on Titan fights always managed to do.

In the end, the world is fairly creative and the fights are kinetic and consistently fantastic, but the story never justifies its slowness and tediousness.

There are a handful of good ideas and a whole lot you’ve seen before, paired with your standard bland characters ... you will forget about the moment they are off screen.

Shades of slow burns like Gundam or Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but without any of the thoughtfulness in the writing. So in the end, all I can really recommend this show for is its fight scenes. I hesitate to call any part of it bad, simply mediocre.

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.

What a disappointment. What looked to me to be a passion project that was a victim of lack of advertising is nothing more than a shallow product with style over substance that tries to do way too much.

I’ll give it points for good animation and an ATTEMPT at trying to write a story political drama centered around class divide but in the end it’s just a rip off of Trigun except way worse. The whole conflict between the lunar colonists and the earth government is shallow. In the span of 8 episodes ive watched the struggle of the lunar people is never made clear even ... by the rebels themselves. Why do they expect for me to care about a conflict when i don't even know why it exists in the first place??

The cast are some of the most shallow, one note characters I’ve ever seen. Jack is insufferable and is such a boring character, let alone protagonist. I did not care what happens to him or the rest of the group and frankly i wont be able to name half of them nor name anything remarkable about them. I did nit care for Jack relationship with the main villain as the villain is just as shallow is he is. Mary was introduced way too late for me to care, but its not like i really care about any of them. Characters die and i just do not care. it’s laughably bad. The voice acting is just as appalling.

The structure of the story is one of the worst ive seen. Episodes start at unrelated points which create absolutely zero sense of urgency and incentive to care. ffs there are TWO whole time-skips in a span of 18 episodes. Characters die at random points and then they take you to an unrelated one. I even had to check if i was in the right episode.

Overall this is one of the most disappointing dumpster fires ive had the displeasure of watching. I really cannot in good faith recommend it as the action just does not compensate for the shit story that we are served.

I really wanted to like it; I was eagerly awaiting it because of how interesting its story and the names behind it could be.
The script ended up being uninteresting, and over the episodes, it gets increasingly diluted into unresolved subplots with superficial characters; not even the protagonists are spared. The antagonists are terrible at writing.
I recognize the boldness of an unconventional chronology; however, the execution is somewhat questionable. The events feel forced for the sake of shock value, so much so that the conflict ceases to matter.
At least the animation looks pretty, but Arakawa is capable of better character designs. The BGM is fine.
That said, ... a project like this, which takes risks, is preferable to all the carbon-copy anime that premiere each season. And it's not even long enough to be considered a waste of time.
I can't quite decide whether to give it a 4/10 or maybe a 5/10.

Sooo... the art is good at least. It's not anything especially unique for the studio, but the animation is fluid and the sections that are 3D renders blend in well enough (mainly spacecraft in this case). The music is stands out as being more minimal in many scenes, which I can appreciate given the "cinematic" limited-dialogue sequences that are sprinkled throughout the episodes.

None of that matters because the writing is generic and doesn't seem to have anything to say. The characters are never given much room to grow and feel like they're each just there to fill their tiny role in the plot. Dialogue is ... consistently flat and uninformative, both due to poor writing and voice acting (sub and dub). Where's the drama???

Final Score: 5.5/10

Moonrise begins with a compelling premise: a rebellion from the Moon against a technologically managed Earth ruled by an all-powerful AI. Backed by impressive visuals and a cinematic soundtrack, it promises to be a standout sci-fi anime.

But beneath its beautiful animation lies a narrative in disarray. The series stumbles with erratic pacing, underdeveloped characters, and a reliance on unexplained plot devices. Flashbacks and time jumps fragment the story. What could have been a nuanced tale of oppression and autonomy quickly devolves into spectacle. Moonrise attempts to say too much and ends up delivering very little with emotional weight or thematic clarity.

Story – 4/10

The ... series introduces heavy themes: social exile, artificial governance, and rebellion. Yet these ideas remain mostly unexplored. Core plot points—such as the AI’s ideology, the purpose of the SEED units, and the origins of certain key phenomena—are left vague or rushed. The narrative structure suffers from jarring time skips and poor scene transitions, reducing tension and clarity. Emotional stakes are diluted, and the plot’s center of gravity shifts too frequently to allow any lasting impact.

Characters – 3/10

Character writing is the weakest element. Protagonists are defined more by their roles in the conflict than by personality or growth. Secondary characters are introduced with hints of depth, only to vanish or act inconsistently. Interpersonal dynamics—especially between allies and former friends—are handled superficially. Attempts at emotional development are often drowned out by chaotic plot progression and underwritten dialogue.

Animation – 9/10

Visually, Moonrise excels. Wit Studio delivers high-quality action, dynamic lunar battles, and stunning scenery. Lighting, camera movement, and CGI are executed with precision. The consistency across 18 episodes is commendable, especially in sequences with complex choreography or environmental effects. Episode 10 is a standout showcase of direction and visual storytelling.

Sound – 8/10

The soundtrack reinforces the sci-fi tone effectively. Atmospheric synths and ambient motifs enhance combat and suspense scenes. While the opening and ending themes are serviceable, it’s the in-episode music and audio mixing that elevate the immersion. Voice acting is solid, though sometimes constrained by flat dialogue.

Enjoyment – 5/10

Despite flashes of brilliance, Moonrise is a frustrating watch. Each promising idea is undermined by poor execution. Pacing issues, lack of clarity, and shallow character arcs create distance rather than emotional connection. Viewers are left with more questions than meaningful takeaways. The series had the visual and thematic foundation to succeed, but it never truly commits to telling a coherent, resonant story.

Overall – 5.5/10

A visually stunning anime weighed down by narrative inconsistency and unfocused writing. Moonrise is full of ambition but never reaches orbit.

Moonrise was an attempt by Netflix and Wit Studio to bring old space operas like Star Wars and Space Battleship Yamato to modern audiences. The result was an original title with decent production values ​​and a terrible plot.

The visuals and animation aren’t really great. It looks like a flashy modern anime with a direction that’s slightly similar to Attack on Titan. However, they still look fine in general and are the best part of the series.

The first 6 episodes were decent. They introduced the main conflict, cast, mysteries, and delivered the first twist. It has a Gundam-esque conflict and the story progress like Fullmetal Alchemist ... (FMA). The Earth is portrayed as an utopia, while the Moon has become a dystopia, with the help of an AI called Sapientia. Then, one person started a revolution seeking independence for the Moon. While the story and the conflict are reminiscent of Gundam and others space operas, the structure, characters, comedy and other elements are reminiscent of FMA. The designs were also done by the creator of FMA, which probably explains the style, similarities, and parallels. So, this first part was tolerable.

As the series progressed, the plot became convoluted. Many events were presented in non-linear order, with excessive flashbacks and time skips, causing unnecessary confusion. In the second act (episodes 7-15), new elements and questions were introduced, but the previous ones were not developed. Some episodes completely ignored previous events. The conflict and the world were not explored. Other core elements were poorly explained, such as the Earth Council, the Human Seeds and the terraforming bacteria thing. The last few episodes seemed to be running out of ideas to develop anything, resulting in a "everyone vs the final boss" conclusion. At the end, there were more questions than answers and it felt like there was something missing. In short, it started decent, but became confusing and underdeveloped.

There is not much to comment about the characters. The story does not bother to develop them. Most part of the time, they were busy with love triangles, playing mobile video game, cooking or doing trivial activities in the middle of the war. They act and do what the story needs to progress without any reasoning. None of them seem to have organic development, impact on the story or even presence. The cast is large and the only memorable thing about them are their designs. Basically, forgettable characters.

In conclusion, Moonrise had an interesting start and decent production values, but ended up confusing, poorly developed and disappointing. It's a forgettable series, with almost nothing really worthy of praise.

TL;DR: It’s bad. Really bad. The first six or seven episodes are a complete narrative mess. They're only watchable thanks to the visuals, atmosphere, and action sequences, but under normal circumstances, this would be the point where you'd drop the show. After that, it briefly seems to find its footing, and for about four episodes it actually works... until it crashes and burns even harder than before.

Let’s break it down: Visually, it’s stunning. The character designs are excellent (obviously, considering who’s in charge of that part), the animation is top-notch, and the overall art style is impressive. Personally, I prefer the visual identity of more ... classic anime — this one feels too clean, too polished, too "4K" — but that’s just personal taste. The setting is genuinely fascinating, full of Mass Effect-style sci-fi vibes. And that just makes it even more frustrating that the end result is so utterly disappointing.

The main issue here is the atrocious narrative. The show is terribly told. You don’t understand what’s happening, not because it’s clever or mysterious and will later come together, but because there’s no logic, no continuity, and no real storytelling intention. They choose to present things in ways that make absolutely no sense. To exaggerate a bit for effect: you’ll see the MC eating cereal. Then you cut to him buying cereal, not the same ones, but a completely different brand, two years earlier. Then a scene suggests he ran out of cereal, or maybe not, because that moment happens three years after and isn't even connected to the first breakfast. Then, after a random space battle (set who-knows-when), he remembers that his family hated cereal and so did his childhood friend. Then Samus Aran appears and tells him “cereal is cool.” Was there any need to tell that event that way? No. Why is Samus here? Well, we'll (maybe) get to that... nine episodes later. Or not.

You’re thrown into fights you don’t care about with characters you don’t know, for reasons you don’t understand. Then, two scenes later, those same characters are chatting with their enemies like they’re old friends. Characters infiltrate high-security military bases with laughable ease (no alarms, no guards, no resistance) as if warzones were just abandoned warehouses. People desert their factions with zero consequences; nobody questions them, nobody hunts them down, and somehow, everyone’s cool with it when they show up again episodes later.

New characters appear with no introduction or motivation, blindly loyal to people they just met (or maybe always knew? Who knows, the show never tells you). Others disappear mid-arc and are never mentioned again. There are constant, ridiculous coincidences and plot devices that feel like literal teleportation. Characters will be on a distant planet, and two minutes later, poof! they're in the middle of a key confrontation light-years away, with no setup or travel logic. It’s not narrative flow; it’s lazy writing.

Within a single episode, the timeline jumps back and forth without warning, no visual cue, no “3 years earlier”, nothing. Then it leaps far into the future, jumps back before the earlier flashback… You only realize the timeline has shifted because suddenly nothing makes sense anymore. And that’s just bad writing, plain and simple.

Around episode 7 or so, the storytelling seems to stabilize. Scenes play in order, and when they don’t, the show actually uses banners like “3 years earlier” to guide you... ironically, in those cases, the banners aren’t even necessary because it's obvious (characters appear as kids, etc.). The plot seems to focus, and it starts to feel like maybe, just maybe, this could be salvaged.

But nope. After a short stretch of relative coherence, the script starts falling apart again. New plot holes show up just to patch up previous nonsense. Characters experience literal time jumps like “four years later,” but have zero development. Two characters do change a little, but for no reason, and honestly, just being more serious or tired doesn’t count as meaningful growth. Eventually, they revert to who they were anyway. No one learns anything, no one grows, and by the end, you're left wondering why you spent so much time following people who remain exactly the same or worse.

The story wants to be serious and heavy, but it’s told like a bad joke. You’ll get a brutal civilian massacre followed by the MC casually playing Pokémon on his phone saying, “It is what it is.”
His behavior is consistently absurd and tone-deaf. He makes one idiotic decision after another. Deserting, siding with the “bad guys,” then showing up years later and greeting his former friends like nothing happened. No one calls him out. No one asks tough questions. Hundreds may have died due to his choices, but hey vibes.

One of the main characters executes someone in cold blood with no emotional build-up or real justification behind her sudden change in personality. But then later, when she actually should pull the trigger, she can’t do it because the plot said so. The internal logic is all over the place. There's no real emotional throughline, no consequences, no thematic consistency, just empty monologues and narrative convenience.

Honestly, I could keep going, but it’s exhausting. The show is a mess. Beneath the pretty visuals and the promising setting, there’s nothing but broken writing, nonsense character arcs, and wasted potential. It’s one of those rare cases where a series actively makes you angry for sticking with it not because it challenges you, but because it disrespects your time.

I was only able to watch the first episode. I could tell right away the English voice acting was directed terribly, and although the Japanese directing was a bit better I don't feel a single reason why I should care about any of these characters, not a single interesting trait was picked up during the episode. Fight at the start was a little interesting but then the cut to showing some larger then life rich people is just so uninteresting. You'd think someone who worked on Attack on Titan would have done a better job directing but I guess not :(

This is a disappointing mess.
Everything about this is uninspired and forgettable. You have heard the dialogue before, its all very superficial with plenty of humour sprinkled throughout that falls flat. You have also seen these characters before but with different names and different coloured hair. The story is that of a standard Gundam series, space people want independence from earth soooo................ war I guess? Two and a half hours in and still have no idea why they want independence from earth, every narrative aspect of this series is rushed out the door faster than a dog with its leg up.
Constantly jumping from one scene ... to the next, with no worldbuilding or character development outside the protagonist. The side characters sole purpose so far has been purely to push the story forward, with personalities that can be summed up in a single word. Then there's the story structure wtf were they thinking, it hops back only to provide information we as the audience are missing that could have easily been presented earlier to ensure the story flows, instead it has zig-zag. But hey, it has a nice intro, with pretty good animations and backgrounds.
Watch it, don't watch it idgaf.