Estab-Life: Great Escape (Establishment in Life)

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: エスタブライフグレイトエスケープ

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 12

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Apr 7, 2022 to Jun 23, 2022

Premiered: Spring 2022

Broadcast: Thursdays at 00:55 (JST)

Producers: Dentsu, Square Enix, Fuji TV, GAGA, Slow Curve, BS Fuji, Crunchyroll, Rakuten

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: Polygon Pictures

Source: Mixed media

Genre: Sci-Fi

Duration: 22 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 6.61¹ (scored by 3,344 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #6666²

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

Popularity: #6011

Members: 11,697

Favorites: 46

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@establife

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6.61

Ranked #6666Popularity #6011Members 11,697

Spring 2022TVPolygon Pictures

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Episodes: /12

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Synopsis

In the distant future, the cities of Japan have been walled off and isolated from one another. Tourism and immigration are heavily controlled—if not impossible. Each region is overseen by an AI moderator that maintains its domain as it sees fit. These clusters are refined into a single ideal, with every citizen fulfilling their role in preserving the moderator's creation. But not everyone is satisfied with the narrowly focused vision of the city they were born in, and thus, they require some under-the-table help in relocating to a more appropriate cluster.

During the day, Equa, Ferres, and Martese are ordinary high school students; but at night, they act as Extractors—people who illegally smuggle civilians between the city borders. Transporting those brave enough to leave everything behind, Equa and her friends risk their lives in order to give their clients a second chance. But the dangers of extraction begin to intensify when the cluster moderators become increasingly aware of the group's actions that threaten their perfect utopias.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Estab-Life: Great Escape is an anime adaptation that is a part of the Estab-Life multimedia project created by Gorou Taniguchi.

The series was released on Blu-ray in Japan on September 2, 2022.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Other:

Bloody Escape: Jigoku no Tousou Geki

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Characters & Voice Actors

Equa

Main

Mineuchi, Tomomi
Japanese

Ulula

Main

Miki, Shinichiro
Japanese

Alga

Main

Hayami, Show
Japanese

Martese

Main

Naganawa, Maria
Japanese

Ferres

Main

Takahashi, Rie
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Mori, Akitoshi

Producer

Komatsu, Shouta

Producer

Yonemori, Hiroto

Producer

Hashimoto, Hiroyuki

Director

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Opening Theme

"Rana (ラナ)" by Meychan (めいちゃん)

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Ending Theme

"0" by GOOD ON THE REEL by GOOD ON THE REEL

Reviews

Nov 4, 2023

bboy_OatsnRice

Recommended

Saying this show subverted my expectations is an understatement. “Then why is it so middle of your list then?” Because I wish it had gotten more episodes, but we will be forever stuck with 12. It’s a shame that this series is largely ignored due to a variety of reasons that almost turned me off from watching it. For starters the show is CG, yikes. But after watching the first episode, I was surprised how decent it looked and how natural it felt. It wasn’t anything bad like Berserk or Ex-Arm, nor was it on a level like HnK or Beastars. Its CG worked very ... well for the show it was, it did not detract my enjoyment of the show like I thought it would. Secondly, it’s a Gacha advert. Many anime adaptations of pre-existing or soon to be made gacha games are usually pretty forgettable. Takt.OP from a while ago comes to mind. But once again I didn’t get any impression of an “epic secret cameo” being shoved in my face for the sake of commercializing the upcoming Estab-Life game. And lastly there’s a furry in the main cast. With all those strikes going against it, why do I like it so much?

Simply put, it’s fun. Yeah, I know it’s rare to hear someone say that as a legitimate reason for enjoying a show or any form of media these days without forced nuances or a deeper analysis. But truly, I was engaged with the silly action, character interactions, the world and the clusters we’re introduced to. Also the story as well, since we’re given very little to work with in terms of story at the start and it doesn’t start elaborating on the story until much later into the series. But firstly a brief synopsis. We follow Equa, Martes, Felles, Alga, and Ulula, who are extractors. The mission of an extractor is simple, someone does a silly dance as a code for wanting to escape their current life, uploads it to the internet and from then on, it’s up to the extractors to give them an escape into another cluster(world) where they can enjoy life again.

A simple concept set in an odd world, or several should I say. Clusters are these areas contained in their own bubble/ecosystem, each have their own unique set of rules, population, and ways of living. Though once you’ve been born into one cluster, it’s impossible to leave yours(prison cluster exempt), that’s where the extractors come in and do just that. Long story short, clusters exist because there came a point where humans could no longer survive and prosper. So they created an AI that birthed a new era of humanity that spliced human living attributes to animals, robots, and everything else in between, each given their own cluster to flourish in. Weird concept, but trust me it works somehow.

What makes this show for me is the main trio we follow and how they tackle each situation they’re in. In fact, a good bunch of the issues they run into aren’t a fault of the cluster’s resistance towards extractors, but turmoil they have with each other, or something personal going ary within themselves. Equa is a kind and compassionate leader. Too kind in fact, the creators made her so kind to make it off putting. I think they failed in that regard since I don’t think she was as scary as she was fake. Feles is the straight man, usually the one who’d rather be at home then putting her life on the line extracting others. It’s probably due to her down to earth nature, but she was my favorite. Finally there’s Martes, a slime who takes on the form of a cute girl. She is obsessed with Equa and will lash out at anyone getting too close with her, namely Feles. Her character grew on me, at first she was annoying but after seeing her actually care for Feles-san I too started caring for her as well. Oh, and there’s Alga and Ulala, a robot and a furry respectively. They don’t add too much to the story, but round out the cast. I preferred Alga since his inclusion felt more warranted than Ulala’s, being a robot of course.

The show tricked me, not only in managing to be rather enjoyable, but also because of the twists the story takes. I started this series thinking it’d be no more than a cluster/weirdo they have to extract of the week, but about halfway through it shows its true colors. After an episode where they have to extract a preacher from a cluster where you’re not allowed to wear underwear, we see Equa’s emotion dimmer than her usual up-beat self. Odd, we then get an episode of the team handling a situation without Equa, due to an illness that came over her and another one about her cafe that she runs, aka, their HQ. But then we reach the best and most emotionally heavy episode where they have to extract a butler who loathes serving this bratty young girl. And with that episode, I'll just say that I was not expecting these kind of feels from this kind of show. It’s a great episode because we really come across some spectacular character development for the character the episode focuses on.

I got into detail about that episode because it exemplifies everything I love about the show. The characters, the world, the unpredictability, and the drama of it all. As for what I didn’t like about the show, well although the CG didn’t bother me personally, I could imagine it being much more successful had it gone 2D. There are moments where we see clones, twins, and reskins. Even the final episode has the master Manager taking on the form of the rich girl (Cindrillion) despite not being her. I chalk this up to artistic merit and don’t knock it for this reason, she’s rather cute anyways. As I mentioned earlier, I felt that Alga and especially Ulala were unnecessary. It doesn’t help that we learn hardly anything about either of them aside from what I’ve already mentioned about them. At least Alga can talk and provide interesting banter with the main trio on occasion, Ulala just grunts and barks. Very forgettable and I’m sure a furry also detracted some viewers from picking it up. The score is nothing to write home about either, and everything else from a presentation standpoint is just serviceable. Though some of the backgrounds and locations are nice to look at, such as the prison or panda clusters.

So in short, what makes this series so good is how much it does right despite having so many strikes going against it. I found the characters, situations, designs, story, dialogue, and voice acting all fun to invest my time into. I might just say this is my AOTS, and if this anime has taught me anything, it’s that you should not judge a book by its cover.

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Feb 11, 2023

SenpaiLuna

Recommended

Despite the show's shortcomings, it is incredibly memorable. I absolutely adore this show. The side characters and the girls in the main cast are awesome and lovable. They do lack depth tho. Also, when you encounter a part of the show which is fleshed out, the show is amazing. However, this can sometimes be the exception plus it is lacking in many parts. For instance; it can be somewhat boring at some parts and the action never makes sense and is only there for plot convenience. This often made me feel like "why didn't they just go in guns ablazing in the first place".

I ...

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Aug 3, 2022

lamaraptor

Mixed Feelings

There are good and bad elements to this show, but I ended up liking it more than I thought I would after the first few episodes. It's one of those shows that on the face of it should be really stupid. The fun kind of stupid, but still, very very dumb. It's the kind of show you can be trying to describe to a friend and realize how ridiculous that sounds on the face of it, only to realize the execution was far more mundane than the setup made it sound. For example the fact that it has a yakuza boss who wants to run ...

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Poll: Estab-Life: Great Escape Episode 3 Discussion KANLen09 - Mar 30, 2022	18 replies	by Deago »» Dec 8, 2023 10:23 PM
Poll: Estab-Life: Great Escape Episode 1 Discussion fourberie - Mar 23, 2022	32 replies	by Deago »» Dec 3, 2023 3:18 AM
Poll: Estab-Life: Great Escape Episode 12 Discussion KANLen09 - Jun 1, 2022	25 replies	by Stealth012 »» Sep 21, 2022 4:04 AM
Episode... 13!? removed-user - Jun 8, 2022	3 replies	by removed-user »» Jun 9, 2022 6:10 AM
Poll: Estab-Life: Great Escape Episode 11 Discussion KANLen09 - May 25, 2022	10 replies	by Viewland »» Jun 1, 2022 12:51 PM

Estab-Life: Great Escape

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