IS: Infinite Stratos

To put Infinite Stratos in simpiler terms.....IT'S A CLICHE, LAZY, HAREM. Long story short: A universe that has mechs piloted by only females , but one guy is able to pilot it without any reason. So the government sends him to school full of chicks so that he can pilot better and learn. Oh, did I mention he's dense. Beyond, Naruto dense! Also, the girls in the school want to be in his pants. Horny much? Now for the girls:

The following competitors are:

Houki- Stupid, USELESS, tsundere childhood friend who has the brain capacity of 10 year old.

Cecelia- The Ojousama of jolly good England who ... has a superiority complex to Harem lead, but then gets her ass beat and turns a 360 and starts getting wet for him.

Rin- 2nd Stupid, ANNOYING, tsun-tsundere childhood friend who fails at being the next Asuka and that is one of the harem girls I show a deep animosity for. Second is Houki. I mean i want to go Shizuo on her.

Charlotte- She's a French plot twist: OH GOD!! A SANE GIRL IN A HAREM? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TOO?!

Laura- The German who has the hots for the lead's sister and is pissed that the lead is not worthy of being the brother of the Famous IS champion...........Am I forgetting something? OH, and she has the knock-off eye patch supernatural eye of Mio Sakamoto of Strike Witches. LAME.


So, who will be the champion of the heartthrob prodigy? Well, what do you think Charlotte? Do you think you have a chance with him?

Charlotte: "Ichika no ecchi"

Me:........... (looks at the fans)

Fans: (Andy Samberg's "Jizz in ma pants" face)

Me: (looks back at audience) WINNER: CHARLOTTE DUNOA!!!


Seriously, that's all Infinite Stratos is in 5 seconds. Everyone hearts Charlotte because of ONE line. They should just have Charlotte be the female lead or even better let it be a normal romance with Charlotte being the heroine.

All I have to sum up about this is that: IT LACKS ORIGINALITY. Nothing in this show is something I haven't even seen before. This is proving that Japan is running out of ideas in creativity in adapted works. Forgettable trash. Watch at your own risk. Watch this. It sums what I'm talking about:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/ir/tfstar/masakox/anif/29804-infinite-stratos

PLEASE READ: This is a review of both IS seasons. Scroll to the very bottom of this review to see IS S2 review (it's legit I promise!!)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with over-used generic stories. Nothing, really! Except when they're like IS. The anime that failed from the start. Though I can't say I'm surprised, with predictable story, characters, there's nothing to keep me guessing or wondering what's going to happen next.

I can sum up the story with a couple of common words:
Boy
Girl(S)
High school
Mechas

... Now go ahead and guess: Will the story be interesting or not?
There you go.

Instead of putting us into a world where the reality of a Woman > Man type world with mechas and perhaps applying Marshall Mcluhan's four laws to that, and showing us the complexities of it's layout. Instead we get, teen boy hustled by horny teen girls.

Plot? Oh I'm sorry, THAT WAS THE PLOT!!!

In all honesty though: the story takes a while to introduce the full cast using a few episodes dedicated to each girl. In some parts there are fights and a tournament, terrorists yadda yadda blohmadda.

The art suffice to say was, great!(it is in no way close to any of the other factors in terms of weight) The settings were detailed enough so I could recognize the general things. You could identify the main characters easily as well (although you can't remember their names cause they're blander than me blending water). The fights were, pretty good but the MC should really ask people to stop giving his butt to him as a damn Christmas gift. All I can say is, decently-good.

The sound was fine as well, but no really interesting music to get your blood pumping.

Characters: Shit. Now I know what you're thinking, "Hey don't be too harsh, the characters are vibrant and have different personalities". I say NO. Let me explain:

What makes a good character? Personality sure! but what other qualities should they have? A decent art model yes. But what makes the character -stand out from the rest-? There we go.

Picture those 5 girls. Imagine in your head about how they interact with Ichika. Now take away Ichika. What do you see now? Nothing.

You know that saying where you say "I can't imagine X without X". Yeah well that's mostly used in a positive context. Here? Bad.

Ok I found their names and here: let's see how this goes now.

Houki: Childhood Tsundere. Enough said.
Cecilia: Proud, stuck-up rich girl who likes Ichika.
Rin: Chinese Loli (pig-tails are bonus OH YEAH!!)
Charlotte: Blonde girl who tried to be a guy.
Laura: Angry German Loli with military background.
BONUS: Chifuyu: Angry older sister, constantly hits Ichika. Gets mad at him for unfair reasons.
BONUS: Tabane: Created the idiocy that was IS.

See? Aside from the 2 bonus characters, I can't see any sort of character in these Haremettes. All I see is some saltless-butter of a bunch of dolls. This is the problem in most harems. (ignoring the fact that harems in general suck) The girls are nothing without the dumb MC to anchor them to be pseudo realistic in any sense.

Almost forgot Ichika.
He sucks......I won't go too much into it I'll point form it.

-Too stupid to exist.
-Boring personality
-Scared of girls
-Did I mention boring?


Enjoyment. I forced myself to watch this because it was so bad, I really had to see just to what extent of bad this was. No I don't torture myself to watch anime, I did this as a self experiment to see just what to expect when going into this type of genre. It didn't disappoint my expectations at least (good!) because they were zero (oh...). But seriously, I was bored as heck. I was very tempted to skip to the second halves of the episodes to see some action... then to my dismay finding out that there was no action in some episodes. Boring Boring Boring. *SPOILER* Not even that climactic battle with Laura was good, it was just stupid in all places. *END SPOILER*

This anime was bad, I'd hate to see it's manga/LN version because I bet that's a bunch of useless writing.

I obviously expected too much from this anime. No wrong. I expected too much of what I WANTED from this anime. Instead, it did the usual pander otaku schtick and rolled with it. Obviously it was a harem/romance/romcom/highschool/mecha anime. But still, just seeing these always piss me off at how blatantly Japan doesn't care to try and even try something new for once.

The settings could really have been expanded on. Like I said, Marshall Mcluhans 4 laws could have been applied here.

Enhancement: No brownies here, this is too easy to explain.

Reversal: Instead of it's intended purpose of space exploration, it could have added on to that, explaining how technology can be manipulated into a purpose of reversal.

Retrieve: What earlier actions/service could have been brought back because of the intricacies of IS?

Obsolesce: What does this technology make obsolete. Again too easy.

It could have showed these 4 laws applied in greater detail. EVEN IF YOU DON'T KNOW MARSHALL MCLUHAN, there could have been some more focus on looking at the mechs do stuff. But no, Ichika and his teenage crisis with his girls is wayy more important. (sigh)

But as I said. It was doomed from the start when it said Harem, Ecchi and those buzz words right off the bat.



...

Anyways here's my IS S2 review.

It's shit.

THANKS FOR READING!!!

Whenever I watch anime, I try to keep a critical mindset. This doesn't mean I examine and inspect every aspect of the show, but that I try to discern the things it does well and the things it doesn't do well so that I may develop an informed opinion of it. Sometimes, however, I don't really want to bother with that, and I just want to sit back and enjoy myself without having to worry too much about reading through the lines, and usually I'll reserve moeblob anime such A-Channel or Hidamari Sketch for this role. This time, however, I decided to go with a ... harem.

And it was not a good decision.

Infinite Stratos has a standard harem setting: the slow, kind, and incredibly normal male main character, Orimura Ichika, transfers into an all-girls military academy that trains teenagers to pilot 'IS', highly advanced power suits which can be piloted only by women and, mysteriously, our male hero. Okay, so maybe that's not very standard, but it certainly isn't as awesome as it sounds. The all-girls setting naturally paves the way for a harem (though pretty much the whole school wants to shag Ichika), this particular one consisting of five main archety-COUGH I mean 'characters': the tsundere childhood friend, the posh foreigner, the genre-savvy bishoujo (well they're all bishoujos, really), the stoic social retard, and a second tsundere childhood friend.

None of these characters are developed particularly well, any development being completely cliché or just simply not existing – this is particularly evident in the case of our main character, Ichika, who remains constantly stupid, hard-headed, overly-optimistic and COMPLETELY oblivious to his harem throughout the entirety of the show. No, I don't like him, why do you ask?

In any case, regardless of the characterisation, the story doesn't very much help to relieve it: the opening sequence shows the group battling a mysterious IS, with heavy hints at a bigger plot in the background being dropped all over the show, with a major one presenting itself roughly halfway though. The thing is, though... that this 'secret and dark background plot' never actually happens. All the introduced implications are completely ignored by the finale and never dealt with, leaving one with a bitter taste regarding the last few episodes due to its nature as a random 'monster of the week' crisis, and whilst the 'harem' plot shows some development, it is quickly shunted back to square one.

As such, the majority of the series focuses on Ichika's school life and the various perverted situations he finds himself caught up in. But, as a general rule, this rarely works very well, and Infinite Stratos is no different, eventually becoming outright annoying due to Ichika's obliviousness to everything. And its not exactly as if the aesthetics help matters much: the animation is low quality and in some areas, outright shoddy, using some weak form of 3D CGI for the IS suits that doesn't work very well and can be very jarring to switch to; the audio is, frankly, completely forgettable.

Infinite Stratos is an anime that achieves at, basically, absolutely nothing. Everything about it is completely standard, and represents exactly the issues the anime industry is facing with harem-based romantic-comedies. Nothing whatsoever is resolved by the conclusion, and the show just pissed me off more than anything else. As you have probably gotten by now, I don't recommend watching this in the least. 2 out of motherfucking 10.

Infinite Stratos... Oh boy, where do I start?
Infinite Stratos is THE ultimate harem. The main character is a retard who happens to be the ONLY male in the world to be able to operate an IS. The reasoning for this is explained later in the series, but if you haven't watched it then I won't say how. Did I mention how he had a sister complex? Anyway, this show contains almost all the harem cliched elements that one show could have.

Elements:
[X] Tsundere
[X] Robot Girl (Laura)
[X] Retarded male character
[XX] Childhood friends
[X] Girl with glasses
[X] Reverse trap
... [X] Bossy older sister
[X] Main character walks into someone else changing (This happens way too often -___-)

Those are the things that I remember seeing off the top of my head. I watched the show around 3 months ago and just now decided to write reviews. Anyway, Ichika is also oblivious to the extremely obvious signs that the females are giving showing that they want the D and it's not even funny. It's actually really annoying and stupid.
I think this is how it went down:
Ichika: "I'll go out with you."
Houki: "R-really?!"
Ichika: "Out shopping that is!"
Me + Houki: -_____-

Art: 5
The artwork is average. It doesn't look any different than any other show that aired around the same time. Pretty standard modern anime designs. Nothing too special.

Sound: 6
The sound is average, but I really liked the ED. I downloaded the song. Nothing really needs to be said about this other than average.

Character: 3
The characters are pretty bad. Cecilia was really annoying and went from tsun to dere in one episode. It might not really be a big deal, but that's just not right. Ichika is a complete idiot and gives off the idea that he has no fucking clue what is going on around him and somehow that gives him the attention of the entire academy. The girls there must have low standards or not like men with brains at that school.

Enjoyment: 4
Honestly, the only thing I enjoyed about this show would have to be Charlotte. I'm a huge moefag and she was just adorable.

Overall: 4
This show is really no different than any other harem. It's pretty average. If you like average, then this is the show for you. If you like looking at pretty faces, then I recommend you watch this show.

With Infinite Stratos, I only watched through it mostly because i wanted a good laugh. Not because it was a comedy, but just because of how bad it could get. The story mostly surrounds a boy who gets put into an all girls school because he's the only male that can operate these machines. Why is he the only male? Why can females only use them? Don't ask, you're here for tits. This is the equivalent of to love ru but with mechas. But don't get too carried away because there is no advancements from the MC to the females.

The main character is basically ... autistic so get used to him not catching on to the clues that the girls around him want the cock. He also needs help because he literally can't do shit so that's when the girls come in to aid him in everything. Now i can dive into a super informative review of how this anime sucked or how it did decent or whatever, but you don't need to.You sit there, pop a squat (or occasionally pop a stiffy) and you watch for tits and ass and all that. Want amazing plot or just a good romance? Spice and wolf or Toradora. Want a good Mecha? Idk any good mecahs but find one that's highly ranked and go for it. Same goes for season 2 of this show since the formula is repeated.

In general, harem shows are often just about the ecchi/romance and focuses very less on the actual plot that it's constructed on.

Nevertheless, I watch many harem anime just for the lols and the fanservice moments. Sometimes, the character interactions are fun too.

Where I.S. failed even in doing this much is with its extremely annoying main character, Orimura Ichika. I can't write an unbiased opinion of him because I just hate him so much.

There is a fair line of how much your character can be based of a stereotype, Ichika is so overly generic (the extremely dense harem king who just gets the ... panties wet) that you wish he was gay just so that it would be one of the best trolls ever.

The anime is about a type of mech that was engineered in Japan and can only be used by women. However when Ichika touched one by mistake, they discovered that he was the only male who could operate it.

So, he gets transferred into an all girls school and instantly, all the girls fall in love with him. Yep, that's the story.............. (-_-)

I watched through it waiting for it to get so bad that it became good but that never happened. I would much appreciate if this became a yuri in an all girls school with Charlotte Dunois as the main character. That ought to bring some fun to this bland piece of trash.

I really hope creators of shows don't assume that if a show looks pretty and has some streotypes thrown in, it would instantly make them a profit.

Honestly, IS had all the ingredients to be a great series.

Art (8) and Sound (8) are both wonderful, the animations were great, action scenes were eye-catching, pretty girls were darn pretty, the new Mecha idea was fresh and interesting, the settings were nice, etc etc etc. After the first few episodes I really had high hopes for IS to be able to at least match up against, say, Highschool DxD. But no. IS turned out to be a project with great potential but no ambition.

It's not like I don't like Ecchi and Harem. I like fan service a lot too. But watching Is I couldn't ... help thinking that it could have been better.

Let me tell you what I'm on about.

Story: 1
The story couldn't have been simpler. Orimura Ichika, a male student, is thrown into an academy, which trains it's students to pilot the IS weapon system. As it turns out, he is the only male in the ENTIRE school full of young girls looking for a boyfriend.

Really? Come on man...

Character: 2
The only male character, Ichika, is an idiot and after intense training from elite students, has OK piloting skills. He is somehow entirely oblivious about the fact that every female in the academy loves him because there's no one else to fall in love to.
And then there's the girls. There's the childhood friend (Houki), the prideful blond (Cecelia), the Loli (Lin), the shy girl (Charlotte), and genetically engineered super soldier (Laura), all trying desperately to get Ichika to love them. But Ichika obviously doesn't know that despite many obvious attempts.

Overall: 2
Overall, it's a huge let down from my expectations after the first 2 or 3 episodes. There were many copy and paste works and many events in the series were overused.
In IS they tried to have a bit of everything. Romance, comedy, ecchi, harem, action, mecha, science fiction, the lot. But it just didn't work out. Maybe too many ingredients spoils the soup too.
And the most frustrating thing was that, it could have been so much greater! The only redeeming point was the great artwork, soundtracks and the background music which, unlike the story and the characters, were quite outstanding.

Hi kids, ever wonder which show killed the LN industry and is responsible for the protagonist-kuns that we get every season?

Here it is then, IS, also called "the wall of shit that blocks masterpieces", it got this nickname when it out sold almost all other animes in merchandising and made a huge buck causing almost all the studios to go, "holy balls, why are we trying hard to make a story when we can just stick in some tits and wait for the cash to start rolling". And even though this putrid work is now died, its legacy lingers on creating the genre of ... LN which is now know as "pretty pictures and toilet paper" (including works like cavalry, asterisk, bahamut and many more).

So for this reason alone it is worthy of the magnificent 1/10 simply because you can't gave 0 out of 10. now on to the actual review

Story - 0

There isn't any, and if you think any otherwise you are wrong, cause nothing matters, its all excuses, for tits. That's the only story, Tits and Ass, there is no other story beyond it.

Character - 0

You know normally I would say these character are cardboard cut-outs, but I realize I was giving the show too much credit. The characters are actually more like a scribble of a cardboard cut out made out of poop, that no one actually bothered to cut out. There are two characters in the show, the MC and thirsty girls, and IS does the amazing thing of making the girls so dull I can't even tell the girls apart.

As for the MC, take off your sock, put it on your hand and have the sock puppet say "tits". Congratulation, you have made a character with more personality than the MC.

Sound, Art - 6, 6

Here is the reason it sold bunkers, because it has "cute girls" that allow all the basement dwellers to fap to. The formula that the industry is now treating like it is the formula of making gold, screw story, screw character, T&A

Overall - 0

I hate this work, its author was a tremendous faggot (have no shame, and proclaimed himself a master of writing), its sells poisoned the industry, and its disgusting putrid children basically killed the LN industry (Along with the WN plague lead by Mahouka but that is a different story). So hate it, forever remember IS as what happens when we lower our standards too far, and gave all those generic LN 1 out of 10, put them in their rightful place, at the very bottom.

Before we start this review I would like to state that I have seen all 12 episodes of this Anime, plus the OVA, although I have yet to read the Manga.

This is my first review, and while this Anime wouldn't be my first choice of Anime to review, I do find it easier to talk about Anime's that I had problems with rather than Anime's that I loved or even liked. With that said I am trying to keep this review as neutral as possible, because while I did have problems with Infinite Stratos, the show isn't all bad at all. I think Lantis did ... a very good job with the Anime because they know their target audience, a demographic that people like me are rarely apart of.

Story - 3/10

If you've seen this Anime or read the MAL synopsis (which if you haven't, I don't know why you're reading this...) then you already know what the story is about so I'll forgo explaining it again. It's not hard to see that this particular story is aimed towards men/males. With the amount of female fan service and Action in it, any stereotypical male Anime fan would probably enjoy the story a lot. The story in itself is decent. Call it what you want, but on the surface it's your typical Mecha with the Harem genre thrown in. Okay, let me phrase that differently, because the Harem aspect of the Anime isn't just thrown in willy nilly. It's a main part of the story, which is one of the key contributing factor to why IS: Infinite Stratos is as popular as it is. As a female myself, this series could of been really, really good. Maybe it's the fact that the ladies of the IS: Infinite Stratos verse has this special power that no man in the world has, and that is what attracted me to the Anime... but beyond that, nada. This Anime had the chance to take a good plot point and turn it into something great (without getting rid of the fan service or the Harem genre I might add)... but it just fell flat. In the end that is why the story only got a 3/10 from me, because while it really did have so much potential, it just wasted it.

Art - 5/10

Compared to the rest of the Anime, the art in IS: Infinite Stratos wasn't THAT much of a bother to me, in this category, the pro's far out way the cons. From a female's point of view, the character designs were somewhat realistic. This Anime did play a lot on the size of the breasts of the main girls, and honestly it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I thought that they kind of toned it down considering I.S is a Harem/Mecha Anime aimed at guys. Apart from character designs, the art is quite good. The backgrounds that were used were quite nice, not amazing considering this anime is set in the future, but nice. The only problem I had with the art; that I know a lot of people have problems with too was the use of CGI. While the Mech scenes had great designs and some amazing backgrounds (see the whole fight in Episode 12), the scenes with CGI gave me huge headache to watch. The CG felt extremely out of place at times and a little bit over used. Maybe if it was consistent throughout the whole show it would have been okay. But it wasn't and I personally felt that the CGI didn't contribute in any way to the fight scenes... but well, that's up for interpretation.

Sound - 6/10

This is where I think IS: Infinite Stratos really strives. The Anime's OP is really nice as a whole and has some really enjoyable moments in it. At the start, the OP didn't hold any interest for me and I skipped it for the first seven or so episodes; but then it really started to grow on me around episode 9/10, and by the time I got around to watching the OVA I was really happy that they kept it in there. As for the OST, there weren't any memorable tracks on it that made me stop and go 'Wow, that's really great!’ It was just kind of there and I didn’t really have a problem with it. Now the reason that the sound category gets the highest rating of a '6' out of ten is because of the bloody ending. I don't really have much to say about it- no that's wrong, I have a lot to say about this ending. The only way I could describe my feelings towards it are 'catchy as fuck' and 'on par with the ending for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya' which is really saying a lot. I don't expect everybody to agree with me, but 'Super Stream' is currently playing on repeat while I write this review, and I don't think it's going to leave my head any time soon.

Character - 2/10

I don't even feel like talking about the characters, because that's how bad they are.

Firstly we have our main character who is called Aichki or either Ikachi (I'm not actually sure). But for the purpose of this review, I am going to refer to his as 'Gary Stu'. Gary Stu, who is the main character of IS: Infinite Stratos is what I like to refer to as a 'Wish Fulfilment character'. More than anything else, I would love to be able to call him by his name... but I can't. Gary is the affection of every girl he comes into contact with (a fan boy's wet dream come true). He is the only existing male pilot of the IS, and oh, it seems he can do anything these woman can do, but ten times better. I will compliment Gary on not being a complete pervert though.

Next we have the girls of this Anime. IS: Infinite Stratos presents us with: a tsundere, a childhood friend and another childhood friend, who guess what? Also happens to be tsundere. These three fight over Gary Stu like it's no one’s business, and of course our Gary is oblivious as ever, because that tends to be the norm in most Harem Anime's. This is where the rest of the characters pick up the slack to get this category up to 2/10. I don't mind Charlotte (Charles) and Laura in the slightest. Charlotte and Laura were the last two characters to be introduced, and I thought Charlotte got the most development (probably not as much as Houki, but she's the first girl introduced and Gary's 'first childhood friend'). I thought it was nice Charlotte didn't start off super and crazily in love with Gary but then progressed to like him as time went on; it was more believable that way. And finally, we have Laura who is my favourite girl of the series. Most of her interactions with Gary were really funny, and made me laugh for the only time in the Anime. I think it was great that she was really clueless about most things and called Gary her 'wife'.

Enjoyment - 3/10

Now before watching I.S, I watched other's people's reviews to this Anime on YouTube. And to say that I wasn't expecting much of anything when I started this Anime would be an understatement. I marathon'd this whole Anime in one day and It wasn't as horrible as I was expecting. Personally, the first half of this anime was cringe worthy at best. Around episode five, I.S had a score of 2/10 on my personal animelist, because the first half was quite bad. But then episode seven came around and it was lunch time and I had a nice cup of Ramen with me, and I don't know if it was the fact it was the first time that I had eaten that day and had food in my stomach, but I was starting to 'enjoy' the show. The second half is so much better than the first half and almost made me forget how horrible it was.
While my review may be on the negative side, I am not saying in any that I don’t recommend this Anime. While I would not recommend it to any of my friends who are also girls, I do have guy friends who have recommended I.S to me. It is definitely enjoyable in some way or another, compared to anime’s like Angel Beats! which took me weeks to watch, when I was able to marathon this show in one day.

And hey, season two of IS: Infinite Stratos is coming out soon, and will I watch it??? No probably not.

Story - The idea is good, Female dominant world Female only mechs, and a guy that can use them, which leads to one of the only harems where the guy has a reason to be in a harem, instead of being a regular guy who gets one for no reason. Now if they backed this up semi well the story would have been at least a 7. It is extremely easy to pick apart the story when you focus on it, saying that the world is dominated by females because of these mechs (which let's be honest don't look like they are really so big ... and bad) is a foolish claim when they proceed to say that the powerful ones are in quite a limited supply. Looking at the benefits to these over heavy artillery include maneuverability, shield, portability (you can bring it anywhere you walk.) flight and decent weapons. Now assuming that the entire world didn't lose their mind they probably have most of that technology in non mech form to at least the same degree, in fact currently in the real world we have lasers that are quite a bit more powerful than the guns they wield appear to be, so assuming they didn't lose their minds they have hover tanks with mounted lasers, leaving that alone, I highly doubt that anywhere in the world would it be accepted to have females so much more overpowered than males, but that can slide. I won't go into why only females can use them or why he can as the author really doesn't seem to plan to either. Next up is the school where people from around the world, their countries representatives no less, learn to pilot war machines, no, just no, What country do you know of that is willing to train it's adversaries how to use weapons that would likely be used in war (against them), or even their sport that they partake in (against them), just no. Also I feel that I'm misunderstanding something as I have no idea why these barely trained children are "representatives" Other than this is a harem so no real story here.

Art - About the only redeeming factor here, I rather like the art in this anime, moreso for the backgrounds than the jiggly bits, and definitely not too big a fan on the character art for the most part. The art is skillfully done with vibrant colours and great detail. I'm a fan of the school uniform but the mechs... not so much, I will give it originality though

Sounds - SFX is meh throughout you don't really notice it throughout but most of the characters voices are annoying enough to have your finger on the mute button at all times. Exception Charles, Charles has a wonderful voice actor I'm actually a Hanazawa Kana fan, and she is the only reason that sound gets above a 1.

Character - Here comes the most fatal flaw in this anime, the characters are the most stale unoriginal and annoying characters I've seen in a while.

Ichika - He had a good thing going for him with the "first male IS Pilot" thing, but then he became the most typical harem character I've ever seen, he is legitimately so typical that it is actually atypical to be as typical as he is. He's an idiot completely unaware of everything around him. He is far to easily surprised and should get an afro.

Houki - Scratch that comment about Ichika being the most typical harem character Houki beats him by leagues and miles. Not only is she the too shy to say my feelings but I'll act like I own you and get mad because you don't notice how I feel psychically (though if he wasn't such an idiot he probably would have) childhood friend

Cecilia - Read Houki except more tsundere and she isn't a childhood friend but instead from England.

Fang - Read Houki except a Chinese loli this time.

Maya - (the other teacher) It's been too much of a negative train here so how about something positive Maya is a neat character she's fairly moe and a teacher, yes that much is boring, but she's not useless, which was a big surprise to me generally moe teachers are completely useless 190% of the time but she can fight well and isn't as dumb as she looks, personally one of the only saving graces in the character department.

Laura - She has serious problems, she starts of yandere and then just degenerates into a more forward and more shy version of Houki/Cecilia/Fang, admittedly at a speed I've never seen before. her background seemed interesting for like 10 minutes but don't worry it gets completely discarded after a harem joke or two, luckily she has an eyepatch so you can tell the difference between her and the other three.

Chifuyu - She's one of those people who thinks that love can only be showed through being a complete bitch 24/7 Apparently really powerful but she decided to retire because her career and the safety of her brother were colliding or something she is so far the oldest person in the anime at 24.

Char - I lol'd hard at her new nickname. She is the only real reason to watch this show, she is adorable and nice, she realizes that Ichika is an idiot and uses it to her advantage to get closer to him.

Enjoyment - Not present, the only enjoyable time is when Char is on otherwise it's useless. Neat note: Ichika will most certainly end up with Houki, that's not a spoiler after watching this for two seconds you can come to that conclusion which is upsetting because Char deserves to win, however if he ends up with anyone else it will be effectively the same as an M Night Shyamalan movie and will actually be worse, what a twist.

Overall - Don't watch this, just find the Charlotte parts on youtube or something that's all you really need.

Honestly I really liked the idea of the story but all the girls were REALLY and I mean REALLY annoying the "love conflicts" voices make me want to scream into a pillow and throw my computer against a wall, and their always getting on the mc's ass about them being better than him and about how he's not doing things right and that's the entire show. I would like to say that was just the beginning of the anime but it was the entire 12 episodes this was probably one of the worst animes I have watched in a LONG while.

Being the only male in a sewing class or female history class or girls' locker room all have the similar feeling in which all the females in that said room are noticing you, which they normally won't do in the "normal" world. IS: Infinite Stratos brings this experience to you by creating a world where mechas(giant humanoid robots that are seemingly very inefficient in carrying out their duties yet look 9999% cooler) can only be driven by females, cept for a reason this one guy.

This one guy attends a futuristic school that teaches mecha stuff(history, combat and so on) and is filled with ... other pilots (all female and either Asian or White, all other minorities don't exist in the future), and explores the relationships he makes throughout his time in school while also fighting other pilots with mechas. This is literally the entire plot of the anime. The main character gets thrown slices or arcs of each female character(cause its a harem if you didn't notice yet) and is forced to deal with their hots for his tots.

So the story doesn't hold up much but what about everything else?
Art and Sound is fine, I mean what isn't these days, characters are kind of dull, main male character is obtuse, other characters are pretty stereotypical, and have the hick for his masculinity(dirty mind you got there).

The last thing I want to get at before you leave is that there is a sense of racism in Infinite Stratos which is unsettling and distasteful. Like I pointed earlier, no other minorities but White and Asian exist in the future, as in even the background characters are all White or Asian and other minorities have no place in a UNIVERSAL school. Chinese people are short, English people have awful food and are annoying, Germans are Nazis and so on and so forth.

Is IS worth watching? It ISn't

IS: Infinite Stratos is a terminally dull experience that, in the two days I spent struggling to binge watch it, taught me more than I ever thought I would know about the state of anime today. Even that makes it sound more interesting than it actually is.

Now, just to get this out of the way, I'm not a big anime guy. That being said, I understand to some extent how storytelling works, and this is why I feel qualified enough to tell you why you should not watch the anime in question unless you are REALLY thirsty.

Our story is set in Japan in the near ... future, at the prestigious IS Academy. In this future, genius scientist Tabane Shinonono has created a technology known as the Infinite Stratos, or IS. The IS are nothing more than mecha suits that, oddly, can only be operated by women, and the academy where the story takes place is where women from all over the world go to learn how to use the IS. Cool.

Meet our main protagonist, Ichika Orimura. He's a fifteen-year old boy who is heading into his first year at the IS Academy. For mysterious reasons, he is the only man in the world who seems capable of operating the IS.

A new viewer who was heading into the show with the above information might, reasonably enough, ask him or herself the following questions: How do the IS work? Why can only women operate them? What about Ichika is special, and why can he operate the IS? How is modern society affected by the IS? How have gender roles been affected? How have the IS been used by world leaders and political powers?

Just as the show graciously did, I am not going to answer any of these questions, because fuck you, that's why. You thought this was a show about giant robots? So did I, when I decided to watch this. Boy, was that ever a gigantic fucking mistake.

What IS: Infinite Stratos is actually about is the most oblivious, superficial, uninteresting male teenager ever to be born who, despite lacking any characteristics that might make him suitable for romancing, manages to collect an absurd number of girls who are all after his cock. Given that this show is entirely 'character' driven, I am going to assign scores to the aspects neither I nor the writers care about.

PLOT: 1/10, for nothing more than existing. There's no reason why the IS can't be operated by men, there's no reason why they've been banned by the military (yes, this world-rending machine of absolute destruction has been prohibited from being used BY THE MILITARY. I said that.)
Nothing in this show happens for a justifiable reason. Any time an action scene takes place, it doesn't make any sense, it simply happens. There's little that could have been done to worsen this anime's story short of making it contradict itself from episode to episode.

ART: 5/10. Nothing noteworthy here. None of the character designs are memorable. The only features that visibly distinguish any of the characters are the length and colour of their hair, their height, and in the case of a few characters, specific items of clothing. The backgrounds are sufficiently well detailed, but the whole show has a distinctly orange-and-blue hue, as in the colour of the sunset contrasting with the colour of the sky or the ocean. By a long shot the most overused color palette in today's media.

SOUND: 4/10. The most forgettable part of the show by far. So forgettable I actually forgot what it was like. The voice acting is at least solid, but the music? I honestly couldn't tell you if there even WAS any. (I'm kidding, there was. But there could just as well have not been). A lot of the time, the music amps up--more than befits the scene, actually--and that only amplifies its genericness.

Now. Ho-ho-ho-ho, hold on tight. Let's talk about the CHARACTER.

2/10, solid. I'll explain why this isn't a 1 very shortly.

Our main protagonist is, as I mentioned, oblvious. This wouldn't be a problem if he didn't frequently give the impression that he was being a prick to the girls on purpose. I can distinctly recall two exchanges (paraphrased):

"Hey, Ichika, do you want to go out sometime?"
"Sure."
"Really? Thank you!"
"Yeah, just for some shopping, of course."

And, of course (note that this is a different girl):

"I'm really glad you asked me to come along for some shopping."
"Well, I did need to buy a few things, so might as well."

I'm not even kidding. He is so incredibly dense, frustrating, and incapable of getting the hint that these girls like him that I started to wonder if HE was the mecha all along. My resolve broke about an episode and a half away from the ending, so if that is actually how it goes, then well fucking played. (That's not how it goes, by the way.)

So, there's a harem. The character is lacklustre, so I suppose the dick must be out of this world, or perhaps the girls are just as brain-dead as he is. I'll list them off really quickly because there's nothing really worth talking about. There are more characters in the show and more are without a doubt introduced in the light novels and second season, but I won't include them because I don't care.

Houki: she is the 'childhood friend'. She's the typical girl who sets up an imaginary restraining order between the main character and any other person of the female form, and gets angry whenever he speaks to a girl who isn't her. Nothing really to talk about here. She gets mad at him. That's it. She's also the sister of the scientist who invented the IS, but I don't care.

Cecilia: she is the 'posh foreigner'. A so-called IS representative from the UK, she has been given a role by her country the meaning of which I will not give you because I neither know it nor care about it. This character has pretty much no reason to be part of the harem. She hates the protagonist, has a mecha battle with him, and realises she loves him. She has literally no reason to do so--she has not undergone any development, nor has any chemistry been shown between the two. She gets angry at him a lot, a bit like Houki. Exactly like Houki, actually. She's the same as Houki but more annoying.

Rinin: she is the 'childhood friend'. Again. She's the typical girl who sets up an imaginary restraining order between the main character and... you get where I'm going with this, right? The IS representative from China, she is identical to Houki in every aspect other than the fact she's slightly less dislikable, and this is entirely due to the fact she is not around for the first episode or so. I don't remember exactly when she makes her appearance because I don't care.

Charlotte Dunois: she is the 'shy girl'. She is the IS representative from France, and I have graced her with remembering her surname, because she is the only girl who isn't a bitch. Hold it--that doesn't make her a well written character, far from it. She is still far behind the line of feeling like a real person, the standard any good character should be held to. However, she is the only one who did not annoy me while she was on screen, on top of having the best voice actor. She should and would be the girl for the protagonist to date if his programmers had taught him the meaning of the word.

Laura: she is the 'emotionless girl'. The IS representative from Germany, she is the girl who is all action. She hates the main character and attempts to have a few battles with him, at the end of which she gets defeated and realises she's in love with him while also being angry at him. Yes, precisely like the other girl. One of the other ones, take your pick. She has some backstory with the protagonist's sister, who I haven't mentioned thus far because I don't care.

That's pretty much it. These are the girls who I don't care about and who are all irrevocably in love with a robotic apparition that was sent down by an extremely petty alien race to annoy me beyond belief. I would pity each of them if it was possible to pity cardboard.

There are other characters in this show, but I actually don't care.

ENJOYMENT: 3/10. This was not a torturous experience, believe it or not. There are dangerous shades of the 'so bat it's good' effect here, but this is no M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. The very few laughs this show managed to eke out of me were not so much because I was laughing at its incompetence, because it's truthfully not bad enough for that. It falls just below the worst place for a piece of entertainment to be, the point of being absolutely dull and boring in every way. This show occasionally managed to make me shake my head and laugh in desperation at what other cliché scene or character would be introduced the next episode.

OVERALL: 3/10. Look, if you wanna watch a show about a lifeless android and five autistic girls who are obsessed with his cock, with a mecha plot that exists as nothing more than the vessel through which to introduce our male protagonist into a female-only setting, then be my guest. Enjoy the countless, hilarious scenes of Girl N walking in on Boy with Girl N+1 and getting angry at him, or perhaps the belly-laugh inducing scenes of Boy walking in on Girl N while she's changing/in the shower and getting beat up by her. Enjoy this show if you can, you'll do better than I did.

If you, on the other hand, have even a passing interest in a believable romance, enjoyable characters, or a plot, avoid this show like you would the bubonic plague.

Just another random review made by a random guy, many people thought this anime was good but at least I don't...

Plot: 4/10 A random guy that got no brain get in a school with 96.69% girls. And the plot goes completely nowhere...

Sound: 4/10 The music doesn't fit the scene and random, it keep pushing down my emotion to "feel the scene"...

Animation: 6/10 Hey! At least they can draw the cute face.

Character: 5/10 I can't count how many tsundere there were...

... Enjoyment: 3/10 The main protagonist is so annoying, he's so brainless that nobody could stand him...

Total: 4/10 Recommend? No! If you have a brain, go watch something else...

Oh boy. Where do I begin with this mess.

PLOT:
Well, the first thing I want to address is that there's no plot. At all. In all 12 episodes, the characters go from fight to fight and problem to problem with no real connection between them until the very end. So, if you're looking for a plot that even exists, then don't bother, but very few harems have plots anyway.

PROTAGONIST:
The second biggest issue is the protagonist. Ichika is quite literally, the densest harem protagonist of them all. Every 5 seconds he's confused about either a concept he's learning in school or a hint one of the ... many girls are trying to get through to him. He continuously misses it all, and it got frustrating after the first few times. This running gag must have went on for a few times every episode. At least. Let's also not forget that he's generic as all hell on top of that, and doesn't have any distinguishing qualities from the many bland harem protagonists out there.

One point about Ichika's density that's important to mention is that the light novels later on point out that Ichika is doing this all on purpose so he doesn't get killed by the girls he doesn't choose. By playing dumb, it gives him a buffer. However, I see this as nothing more than a retcon. There are plenty of points where we can hear his thoughts and they clearly displayed Ichika being confused and not understanding the situation at all. If you've seen this point brought up in defense of this garbage show, don't listen to it. The retcon is sloppily done.

Another point I don't understand is why all of the girls are into Ichika. Harem anime are usually choked to the brim with power fantasy, with the male MC showing off his power for the women so that they fawn over him. However, Ichika is generally not that powerful and doesn't have the 'stupid but powerful' trope that is commonly used. I'd say that this is what I appreciate the most about IS, that it doesn't give in to ALL of the common self insert tropes that these shows follow, but that just leads to other issues. The girls shouldn't be into Ichika at all, aside from Houki and Rin, who were both his childhood friends. Still, once they experience his density first hand, that old desire should disappear quickly.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS:
The harem isn't as bad as the protagonist, but it's still pretty damn bad. Most of the girls are basically all the same character after their introduction. They're from different countries and they all are hopelessly in love with Ichika. I also think their designs are all pretty damn generic except for the main girl, Houki. Something about her is a cut above the rest. That isn't to say that Houki's personality isn't as annoying as the rest of them, but at least she's the most appealing to look at.

As I mentioned earlier, the entire harem shouldn't have any interest in Ichika. The power fantasy makes up for this gaping hole, but without it, the idea makes even less sense. I mean, I understand that these shows are designed for self insert, but it's still really lazy.

IMPLICATIONS:
There's an idea that this anime puts forward. Women are the only ones that can plot the IS, with Ichika being the only man in the world that can do so as well. Women are basically the ones who take control of the world because of this, and the anime never addresses this. What does it do with this concept? Puts a male in an all girls school and they all fall over him every second. That's what I call a lost opportunity.


CONCLUSION:
This anime takes a concept that could have had something to say and turned it into generic harem trash. There's no real plot and what happens in episode to episode are events we've seen in other anime a billion times over.

This review contains some spoilers. (Not that there actually is a lot to spoil)

I´ll assume that everyone who reads this alredy knows the premise, so I won´t go over all of that again, but basically, in this world, there are mechas called "Infinite Stratos" (IS for short), and only woman can pilot them, but our MC, Ichika, is for some reason the only man who is able to pilot them, so he goes to attend a school that teaches you how to use them and is therefore the only guy there.

Story (2/10)

Well, I don´t really now what to write here, because there is very little ... of what you could call story. 90% of this show is just our MC adding new members to his harem, lots of stupid ecchi scenes, and the harem members getting jealous at each other and fighting over MC-kun. Then there are some for the most part totally unnecessary fight scenes with the mechas between the students. They get attacked like two times by unmanned mechas, that pose somewhat of a threat, but that´s it. Nothing else of any importance happens.

And also, nothing in this anime makes any sense, and no questions get answered. I cant talk about every plot hole and every scene that didn´t make sense here, because this would get way to long but to name a few things that never got adressed in the anime. Why is the MC the only male who can pilot the mechas? Why can they only be used by woman in the first place? They were built by humans, so why make it like that? Why build these things anyway? They said that it´s forbidden to use them for military purposes, they apparently have a treaty that prohibits that. So what are they for? And then why make a school that trains pilots? Are they for sports then? But why create such a dangerous weapon just for sports? Someone is gonna misuse them at some point. And why has our MC to learn how to pilot them, he didn´t seem to be there out of free will? But if it´s not for military purposes, why would the government force him to learn this?

I could go on and on about things that don´t make sense in this anime, but I hope you get the idea. in the end the "only girls can pilot the mechs" only exists so the MC can go to a school full of girls who all want to bang him.

Also, the teachers at this school seem to have the urge to let the students die. There was an unmanned mech rioting at one point, that had to be stopped. So now who do you think had to do this dangerous task? Correct, the students, not the teachers or anything, noo. And again, let me remind you, this is apparently not a school that´s supposed to prepare them for fighting for the military, but.. for something else, I don´t know what. So there is no reason why it would be their job to stop this thing. There were more scenes like this, were the teachers should have doen something but ... just didn´t.

So yeah, story hardly exists, and what little story does exist doesn´t make any sense.

Characters (3/10)

The characters aren´t much better. A bad story could have been forgiven if the characters were interesting and good, but... yeah, no, they aren´t

Lets start with the MC, Orimura Ichika:
I don´t have a lot to say about him, he is as generic as it gets. He doesn´t really have a personality. He is a nice guy, wants to protect his friends, and is, of course, very good at piloting the mechs for no reason. He almost beat one of the best students in his class while it was only his second time piloting one of these things. And the first time wasn´t him practicing or anything, that was only when he proved that he was able to use them. So it´s totally unrealistic that he is that good at piloting them. We saw the practice of the class one time (after the battle) and the other students were literally practicing to walk, while he was flying trough the sky, doging missiles, attacking etc. during the battle.
Also, his sisters works as a teacher at the school , she´s his homeroom teacher. She´s just the cool teacher character basically.

Next, Shinonono Houki:
She is his childhood friend, she is, of course, in love with him, and is generally the serious, violent type of girl. She is the character who was probably the closest to getting something like character development when she fucked up, Ichika got wounded and she was like "I´m never going to pilot one of these things again". She was sad for a little while, than another character said three sentences to her and then she got better again. She´s the sister of the woman who invented the mechs.

Cecilia Alcot:
She´s basically the spoiled girl who is very full of herself. Well, at least she was for like an episode until Ichika almost beat her in a battle, she fell in love with him and then her main character trait was basically that she was in love with him. Like every other character.

Hunang Lingyin:
She´s... also Ichikas childhood friend. (They probably ran out of stereotypes, so they were like "eh, let´s do another childhood friend) She´s basically the confident loli character. And she is in love with Ichika. That´s it.

Charlotte Dunois:
She´s probably my favorite character (or rather my least least-favorite one). She´s basically just the very nice and kind of shy girl, but, in contrast to the other girls she actually acted kind of cute and was not annoying like everyone else. She originally had to dress as a boy, because her father wanted her to get a lot of attention as the second boy who is able to pilot a mech, and she was supposed to gather information about Ichika. That actually kinda made sense under these circumstances. Still not a great character, but better than the rest in my opinion.

Laura Bodewig:
She was actually intruduced as some sort of villain. Well, not really, but she was very serious, proud and agressive, she almost killed to other characters. So I assumed she would be the villain, but of course not, what kind of show did I think this was? It took one episode for her to fall in love with Ichika. He saved her, and then she wanted to marry him. And after that she completly lost what little character she had. She turned from the serious, aggressive girl to someone who ran off embarassed because the MC said she looks cute in her swimsuit (ah, yes, there is a beach episode by the way if you were wondering).

There are some more characters, but these are the main ones, and I don´t really have to say a lot about the rest. Everyone is generic, that´s it.

Sound (5/10):
Now to the sound. The soundtrack wasn´t anything special. It wasn´t very good or memorable, if you would play any track of this soundtrack to me, I doubt that I woud be able to recognize that it is from this show, but it also wasn´t bad. The tracks fit to the scenes they are used in, and they don´t sound horrible. The OP and ending themes are the same, nothing special, but also not horrible.
The voice acting was pretty good for the most part. The only character who´s voice I didn´t like was the MC. But I don´t think it´s the fault of the VA, I looked at some of his other roles and there were some characters who´s voice acting I really liked, I guess it´s just like that because of the shitty character. Or he just got that much better over the years, this show is from 2012 after all.

But they actually also had some really good voice actors in the cast. Charlotte Dunois was voiced by Hanazawa Kana and I think her voice was the only thing that kept me from going insane while watching the show. And Laura Bodewig was voiced by Marina Inoue, who is another voice actor I really really like (She voiced Oikura Sodachi in the Monogatari Series, that´s my favorite VA performance of any show I´ve seen). So their voices made this whole experience much more bearable for me.

Art & Animation (5/10)
The animation was..okay, i guess. It wasn´t horrrible but it could have been better. The fight animation was pretty much completely CG. Most of the time it was actually all right, sometimes it looked kinda weird, but it was passable. Aside from that, the artstyle was very generic, but most of the character designs were pretty alright. Well aside from the MC, who looks like every other generic MC ever.

Enjoyment (2/10)
It couldn´t have been much worse. I was constantly cluching my head because everything that happende was so stupid. The character interaction were not enjoyable, because the girls were either fighting over the MC, or the MC was saying something stupid and was showing what a nice guy he is. The anime had not a single original idea, aside from maybe the mechs who can only be piloted by woman (altough I feel like i´ve seen something similar before), but this was a stupid idea, so that doesn´t count as something positive. Everything that happened was predictable, there were episodes were literally nothing happened, for example the beach episode and the things that happened that you could mistake as a story were either never brought up again, or resolved pretty easiily. There was this unmanned mech that was rioting that I was talking about. That was the last conflict of the show (or rather the only one). I assumed that there was some big bad guy who was manipulating them, and well , I was kind of right, only that it wasn´t bad guy, but the sister of Shinonono Houki (the woman who invented the mechs) who manipulated it to riot, so that her sister could defeat it and ... get famous, basically.

So yeah, what I´m trying to say is, it was absolutely infuriating to watch. And I know that there is another season, they will probably introduce some bad guy there, but here it was like the writer gave up on something like a plot half way trough, then there were like three episodes were not a single one of the mechs was used but then at some point he remembered them, wrote some fight as a "climactic" ending and that´s it.

My overall score is: 3/10

Now, do I recommend this series? Well, if you like watching shitty shows to make fun of them afterwards, sure go for it.

And for people who just started watching anime and who like harem action self insert shows, you might unironically enjoy it. If you haven´t seen many show, you won´t notice, that this show is a compilation of like every trope ever.

If you´ve read this far, thanks for listening to me complaining about this show. Well, I´ll probably go and torture myself with Season 2 now.

By the way, this was the first review I ever wrote, so I hope I was able to express my thoughts well enough.

Why is it so insurmountable a task for series to avoid genre shifting? Honestly, if I wanted a dramatic turn of events with tears, shitty "twists," and overwhelming boredom I'd just go marathon a few hours of fart porn while eating yogurt and listening to Sabaton.

The setup here is great. It's nothing new, exciting, or particularly interesting, but it's *entertaining* and that matters the most in my book. A guy in an all-girls school surrounded by man-starved lolis with half-mechas and co-ed dormitory hijinks. I don't really care if something is groundbreaking, only if I find it enjoyable to experience and can do so without ... my eyes rolling so far back that they're greasing my butthole. And yeah, IS did that for half a dozen episodes.

Aaaaaaand then it decided to toss off all the amusing scenarios with a Le Ebin Dramatic Series of Events where any notion of comedy is recycled into something so utterly dull I actually had to lock my cat out because she was getting agitated by my growing irritation. But I forced myself to finish because leaving things half done feels like eating glass tacos.

Anyway, is it worth your time? Fucking no. Just like 95% of animes I watch, IS decides halfway through to become something else. I truly do not understand why writers and producers think this is fun or enjoyable, because it's god damn not. It's even more insulting to my time because everything leading up to the 180 was actually pretty good--especially some cool city/backdrop designs.

To put in shortly, this was SAO with a school and mecha element put in. The long way to analyze this series however takes a little bit more ridicule. A convoluted and sporadic plot had different conflicts being introduced frequently and with a lack of an overall storyline that nearly begins to get on track but then falls off the rails into another unexplained sub story. Unfortunately, this anime also follows the widely known trope of a harem consisted of literally anyone that meets the main character, which again contributes to a confusing overall story as it pulls away from needed time to explain and ... develop a cohesive plot. As for the main character himself, no real character development is ever truly accomplished. The Ichika from the beginning of the series is the same dense, overpowered, and self insert trope by the end of it. As for the art and animation, its average, nothing special to be said besides its extensive use of 3d models paired with 2d animation, which depending on the viewer can change ones perception of the show overall. Sound design and soundtrack are about the same as well, although the first season's opening was quite good. Ultimately, this show feels like a repeat of archetypes and characters that have been used time and time again across the genre and isn't a series necessary or worthy of your time to add to your watch history.

I actually picked up this anime because the main guy sorta looked like Roy Mustang heheh.....But turns out in the actual anime he looks nothing like on the picture. The main picture is misleading, so is the synopsis. When you see the pic and the synopsis you think this will be some kind of beasty arse Action/Mecha anime.

Story: 3
The story deserves a 2 because it barely even makes any sense. They HAD to make the MC a dumb idiot just for us to even know whats happening. All of the girls fall love for the MC for no actual reason. There's not really ... any point of mentioning the IS except to make the MC in a harem and make girls fall in love with him. The main plot is basically fanservice galore.

Art: 7
It was pretty good. Though I think some of the outfits (IS) are weird though. The rest was cool but I just really like the style as much I guess?

Sound: 7
I liked the OPs and EDs but I don't even remember the soundtrack. -3-"

Character: 2
Oh gawd can this get any worst? They are so cliched and unoriginal that it makes my eyes burn! The MC was just a dense idiot. They have pretty much every type of girl that any Harem has ever had! Laura was probably the only one I liked then BAM! She became Ichika's dog. Lost all respect.

Enjoyment: 3
Wat. Some parts were funny/ok.

Overall: 3
No just no. The plot only ever came at the very end. I would recommend just watching ep. 1,11, and 12.

Normally I write a structured review however with this anime I want to get straight to the point.

This anime is F@*0 terrible

The main character is surrounded by the opposite sex with no other guys around but he's a wimp
The slutty mech suit thing they wear looks stupid extremely stupid, especially when it's obviously made for girls and a guy is wearing it. (and they don't even have helmets( if they did it would look far better))
The CGI is godawful
The Voice acting isn't the worst but the lines are meh

If you want to see girls fighting watch Freezing its a far better anime that doesn't crap ... itself on the first date.