Kyoukai Senki (AMAIM Warrior at the Borderline)

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Japanese: 境界戦機

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 13

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 5, 2021 to Dec 28, 2021

Premiered: Fall 2021

Broadcast: Tuesdays at 01:30 (JST)

Producers: Bandai Spirits

Licensors: Funimation

Studios: Sunrise Beyond

Source: Original

Genres: Action, Sci-Fi

Theme: Mecha

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 6.31¹ (scored by 9,920 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #7349²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3738

Members: 30,943

Favorites: 129

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@kyoukai_senki

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6.31

Ranked #7349Popularity #3738Members 30,943

Fall 2021TVSunrise Beyond

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Episodes: /13

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Synopsis

Futuristic post-war Japan is divided into four military regions, each led by conflicting nations trying to gain complete control over the country. While the Boundary War—fought with the help of humanoid mecha weapons called AMAIM—has long been over, the rivalry between these factions is still ongoing, and, as a result, the Japanese are heavily oppressed.

Amou Shiiba, a 16-year-old orphan boy who is secretly rebuilding an abandoned AMAIM named Kenbu, stumbles upon Gai, an autonomous AI in need of battery power. By choosing to help one another, Amou and Gai find themselves at the center of a disaster, and Amou is labeled a terrorist and cast out of society. Even so, Amou refuses to remain idle in the face of injustice, and he embarks on a long journey rife with struggle and companionship. His aim transitions from leading a peaceful life to liberating the Japanese people.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Sequel:

Kyoukai Senki Part 2

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Characters & Voice Actors

Shiiba, Amou

Main

Satou, Gen
Japanese

Tezuka, Gashin

Main

Uemura, Yuuto
Japanese

Shishibe, Shion

Main

Ichinose, Kana
Japanese

Gai

Main

Fujiwara, Natsumi
Japanese

Kei

Main

Ishikawa, Yui
Japanese

Nayuta

Main

Murata, Taishi
Japanese

Watt, Brad

Supporting

Ono, Yuuki
Japanese

Gobert, German

Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun
Japanese

Ho, Guan

Supporting

Mizunaka, Masaaki
Japanese

Spears, Joe

Supporting

Nakano, Yutaka
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Tasaki, Katsuya

Producer

Habara, Nobuyoshi

Director

Abe, Masashi

Episode Director, Storyboard

Kamitsubo, Ryouki

Episode Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

"enemy" by Blank Paper

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Ending Theme

"You're my perfect mirror" by Yuuna Fukinbara (富金原佑菜)

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Reviews

Dec 27, 2021

KANLen09

Not Recommended

To the folks over at Sunrise:
We know, we know. The Gundam franchise that started way back in 1979, that was a massive success of a franchise that tied in all the anime, movies, Gunpla merchandise, video games, heck even the long-lasting relationship and sponsorship with Bandai, that spawned THE generation of what the mecha genre should be defined as. Years later, with the many iterations of Mobile Suit Gundam, and with the recent purchase and closure of defunct studio Xebec to turn that around as yet another subsidiary studio of yours by the name of Sunrise Beyond, the Gundam franchise continued from there with the ... inherently bad Gundam Build series that only serves as fodder for more of your advertisement for Bandai Gunpla merch.

The problem right now is, with Kyoukai Senki a.k.a AMAIM: Warrior at the Borderline, while the attachment to Bandai Spirits is the only notable thing that connects it to the Gunpla merch world, who is your target audience exactly? And what is it that you want to achieve with creating yet another standalone product that has no connection to Gundam (other than the robots that's uniquely designed by the one and only Kanetake Ebikawa), even at the mere slightest?

My reply to you:
Kyoukai Senki is just yet another disappointment of anime looking to fill the ropes of a Gundam-esque spin-off, filled with too much overbearing political BS, that the story's concept and execution is even more pathetic than the worst that Code Geass has to offer. For someone that wants to get into the Gundam franchise but doesn't want to go through the intricacies of starting from scratch, please, just watch any good Gundam show (that literally has Gundam in the title) that holds up as its own source material. You'll spend your time better that way than to watch this bastardized uninspired boring mish-mash of a show.

If you've haven't already caught my message, Kyoukai Senki is just a mess of a boredom show that's awaiting your attention, then beckoning you to fall asleep more quickly as soon as it starts going deep. The story of a futuristic post-war Japan that sees it divided into military regions like World War III is happening in the modern age to see which one stands supreme. To counter this Boundary War of sorts, the destruction mechs called AMAIM are once weapons to the cause, but not solutions to the oppression of ordinary Japanese citizens. And all it takes is for an orphaned boy, dawned with his sense of justice, coincidentally find an abandoned AMAIM with an autonomous AI embedded in it, to get it juiced up and fight for his own independence together with his friends and comrades ready to fight for a Japan that's liberated from military prowess. Thanks to the MAL Rewrite team for the synopsis to which I counter-wrote here for this review, because I could not be bothered to add more stuff from what the anime presented, so much that it hurts me deep inside.

Kyoukai Senki (or AMAIM which I'll refer from here on out) is just plain bad. Mecha shows have a standard story formula to go by, and as much as the predictability can set in quick, it's the execution which defines the experience. And that experience is set by scriptwriter and series composer Noboru Kimura, which looking at the hit-and-miss work resume that he has, I'd fathom why he chooses to play mindgames with people about the shows that he's written for, especially originals (see Gundam Build Divers, Skate-Leading☆Stars). Not even acclaimed Xebec director Nobuyoshi Habara whom directed beloved series such as Soukyuu no Fafner: Dead Aggressor a.k.a Fafner of the Blue Sky and Broken Blade a.k.a Break Blade could ever be enough to save the horrific writing that Noboru Kimura has conceptualized for AMAIM.

If the story wasn't enough to save the anime, then the characters will be the judge of that. And yep, just as you'd expect, all the characters are one-note mutes, only there to service the "huge" plot that covers the span of the entire post-war Japan and basically having less or even no character development at all. For the first "homecoming" of an MC, 16-year-old Amou Shiiba isn't the type of character to lead that calvary charge, as much as his character feels like the exact opposite of that: a teenager who's just beginning to grow up into the face of reality shoved in his face, being ignorant and disillusional of his surroundings when faced with injustice, only to then be forced to act when the going gets tough. This is not how you want to paint your character being a person that's clouded in his own claustrophobia, and unfortunately all the character development that Amou got feels very forced and intertwined to the central plot. Like come on, have some backbone, will ya? Inject some sense into your head! The other AMAIM pilots of of Gashin Tezuka and Shion Shishibe are only as good as side-by-side comrade complements will get in battle, and have the same or slightly better backbone than Amou himself. Weakness is not a bad thing, but meekness is not weakness, and this kind of behaviour just isn't excusable.

The cast of characters are just far too much, most of the majority being a blip of cameo scenes when the show actually calls for it. From the best to the worst, the AI companions of Gai, Kai and Nayuta are good companions which both aid and power the AMAIM mechs for the respective pilots, and also serve as their stratagems when things are looking hot in heat. But Gai is just too talkative and loud to the point that it can get annoying at times. The branded terrorist group Yatagarasu, made up of people whom want to see the dream of a fully-liberated Japan, I do have some compassion for people fighting for independence, and most of them serve fairly to the plot in a good way. But when it comes to the various military groups (the Confederation of Oceania, the North America Coalition, the Asian Free Trade Entente, and the Eurasian military, like who is gonna remember each and every group), that is when the show banks hard into showcasing that the military is milking Japan for their own gain. And with that many groups, it tries too hard to exemplify that a war is ravaging, but why do you need THAT many people in the first place? Military is military, geddit? You're one entity, not segregated forces.

The two complements that I can give to AMAIM is that "the old has gone, the new has come". Xebec died and rebirthed into Sunrise Beyond is by no means a consolation to expect that there'll be good production values, and AMAIM just comes of as being decent at best. At least this show has Gundam mech designer Kanetake Ebikawa, so the AMAIM mech designs look unique and sleek to give it the fresh appeal. The OST is near-bangin' good with the mysterious new band that is Blank Paper's debut with the OP "enemy", and newbie singer Yu-Na Fukinbara's ED "You're my perfect mirror" is a solemn, yet melancholic song that speaks deeply to the heart, and has undoubtedly risen to become one of my top favourite EDs of the season. If there's one thing that Sunrise can be good at, is nurturing new talent for the company's music department.

But overall, even with decent animation, rather boring visuals and a good OST, art/animation and music aren't enough to save the clusterfish of a by-product that's looking to mime the success of the many iterations of Gundam, its settings and all that are sorely "founded" on the basis of Code Geass, and failing yet so spectacularly. Even yet another mecha show in the same season like Megaton-kyuu Musashi, I would definitely recommend that over this. But thankfully this is just Part 1, so Part 2 is coming soon in Spring next year to continue this as a split-cour.

Just stop using anime to farm for more merch, Sunrise. Even as a business entity, you're more than this, and definitely can produce better IPs than something of a non-canon like AMAIM.

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Dec 27, 2021

Spirit_Chaser

Not Recommended

Kyoukai Senki is so painfully bland I had to drag myself to finish it. The constant "Amou saves the day" and slice of life like episodes dragged it down too much. The plot progresses so slowly, and though I tried to be patient and give it a chance, it just wasn't done well at all. It was exciting to see a mecha series that would focus on 2D animation and completely ditch CGI, but it did an awful job in doing that. Lots of times the animation is Scarlet Nexus tier bad in that it uses still frame fights with flashy lights and cheap effects ... to make it look like animation. You can tell some episodes threw the animation completely out the window while only a few were consistent.

Amou is in that pile of boring protagonists. He hardly felt memorable and his character barely progressed anywhere. Yes, he wants to be a hero and save people, but the writing is so shallow and hollow about it. To fix him, the first thing I would do is change the hideous yellow shirt he wears. For being a political series, that was done awful and underwhelming. Some of the main characters barely even got any development, and they can't cheap out on me and say to wait for the 2nd cour where it could get better because the 1st cour should be strong as well.

Shion had potential to be a great character but the series would rather focus on her making clay pots than fighting for the resistance.

Brad Watt is a cocky and smug high IQ individual that can scientifically breakdown a mecha fight for you just by staring at the dirt they fought on which I found hilariously absurd.

I understand Gashin's struggle under the context his father, but his character mostly felt annoyingly bitter.

The Pokemon were annoying, especially Gai. How could they reduce Violet Evergarden's voice actor down with a minor role voicing a hideous white blob with a boomerang mouth.

This all ties into many of the characters, the heroes and villains, in that they did not have anywhere near enough screen time to be relevant, and many just disappeared since the staff figured they'd just come back in the second cour.

Ghost is the only part of Kouykai Senki that I enjoyed. It's a learning AI that is so advanced it should have learned to jump out of the series and go after the writers before they can think of a cheap way to write him off since it is so obscenely strong. The main cast decide that in order to beat it, they have to do the same thing that doesn't work over and over again. Still, I enjoyed the type of destructive force Ghost can be.

With a second cour over the horizon, the suffering will continue. Still, the staff got carried away and left far too much unanswered and unresolved. At least the ending song and last episode were nice, though the episode was all action and nothing more.

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Dec 27, 2021

i-like-this

Mixed Feelings

Sir Killalot’s Japan.

I was surprised at how hyped I felt by the end of the first episode of AMAIM. It establishes it's world and military problems well, Amou and Gai, a super AI meeting and helping each other even under the reality of becoming terrorists was well set up and animation seemed to be pretty good.
The real problem with AMAIM is it’s pacing. After around the 5th episode the story hops from mecha, military action to a strange mesh between a slice of life and boy scouts genre… thing. It doesn’t really work.

Amou is a pretty okay lead protagonist. He’s shy and indecisive, but ...

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Tezuka, Gashin

Shishibe, Shion

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Kei

Nayuta

Watt, Brad

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