Jun 27, 2015
TL;DR : Really enjoyable show, but too much story into only 13 episodes. Characters not completely original with not a lot of character development. Fun fights and interesting story overall: involves time travelling and lots of guns.
I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum. The story is set in 2115, with our protagonist, a high school student, falling back into the past and witnessing a battle between some soldiers and their dopplegangers: he even meets himself from an alternate universe. Curiosity eventually makes him join in the battle to save the world and the story unfolds.
Story: 9/10
The story is really unique, but it might
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feel like a bit too much to fit into only 13 episodes. This is why some people think it all makes zero sense, but in fact it's really delicate and everything fits in perfectly. It picks up nicely from the beginning, it's really exciting, it doesn't lose steam throughout the series and has a nice solid ending, which I found quite enjoyable. All in all, it's great and flows really well, if not slightly rushed as to compensate for a large story but only 13 episodes.
Art: 8/10
I absolutely love the art and animation. It's smooth, pretty, shiny, colorful at times but also gloomy if the need arises. The combat looks great and explosive, especially the melee party. The only thing I found repetitive were the standard shooting scenes found in almost every episode, they might look a bit too generic. That, and the fact that the girl characters' lips look weird in my opinion. It's still a beautiful anime with a pretty dang neat opening.
Sound: 7/10
The opening theme is really good in my view, with the theme of the song fitting the entire show very well. The background music is enjoyable and it fits the occassions well, but it's not all that memorable. There's a great deal of variety and it's generally above average quality.
Characters: 7/10
While it's true that you can't fit much character development in only 13 episodes, Gunslinger Stratos still seems to fall a little bit short. Apart from the main character and the main female character, as well as their doubles, we don't get too see alot about the cast. This is a shame, as some were quite interesting, but some were pretty blank and stereotypical. The protagonist starts off maybe a bit boring and average, but over time he grows some balls.
Personal enjoyment: 9/10
I must admit, I enjoyed this show quite a lot more than I expected to, especially about seeing so many negative reviews. Most of them are by people who don't even understand the plot, though. The characters are fresh, the fight scenes many and greatly animated, which is all backed by a really interesting story and decent music. It was really fun!
Overall: 8/10
Even if the show was great and I enjoyed it alot, delving a little bit deeper into the characters apart from Tohru and Kyoka is what's missing, as well as some more memorable music or scenes. What would do the show more good than anything else, though, are more episodes: if the same story was spread over 24 episodes, things could have been explained better and there wouldn't be a feel of a constant rush.
I recommend the show to any SCI-FI and/or time-travel lovers, but to everyone else as well, since it was quite an enjoyable watch for me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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