I've never seen anything like this one, except for many other anime titles I now see were inspired by this. I watched long after the hype, and I didn't regret it. I thoroughly enjoyed most of it. Nothing's ever just a robot fight, there's always some extra crazy scenario going on and it gets super intense, which kept me rabidly going back for more. Most of the characters are pretty cookie-cutter but STILL enjoyable, which is an accomplishment in and of itself. Unfortunately all of the revelations and story elements collided together like shit by the end, and even in the movies.
There's a certain point where this toon drops what makes it enjoyable and dives head-first into the pool of sheer, unabashed pretentiousness that had no foreshadowing throughout the first 5/6 of the series. Things become horribly rushed at the end due to what I've heard was a budget issue, but even in the ending films when they had the chance to fix it, they still dropped the ball.
In other words, it's not as smart as it pretends to be toward the end, and boy will it BEG you to think it's smart. But still damn good.
