Characters consist only of quirks instead of having fleshed out personalities. Hisone is freaking obnoxious and most of the other characters are utterly useless. Plot gets going close to the final three episodes and does not make any sense whatsoever. The very little character development we get is predictable and bare bones. Tries to have so many tearjerker moments and each one falls flat on its face due to the persistent tonal dissonance between sudden wacky comedic scenes and super serial super sad scenes.
So much for the objective assessment. What follows is a long, personal rant, my main problem with Hisone to Masotan comes down to this aspect.
Sexism is rampant.
"Love is a lady's primary objective" is an actual line form the show... A sentence that vile is something a villain would say. All the male staff act like humongous jerks to the pilot girls and exclusively on the premise that they are females and must therefor be inferior pilots by nature. The old "women are governed by their emotions" BS gets brought up constantly. And the show never reprimands anyone who expresses this thought, it seems in fact to support that notion as the girls' inability to properly pilot their dragons is based on their emotional turmoil. One of the pilots main conflict is her struggles with being treated as a second class soldier due to her gender, and that plot point gets hardly explored and not brought to any conclusion whatsoever. There was a hint of an interesting sub plot with that premise, the male soldiers finally see the girls' skills and realize they've been wrong this whole time... But it just fizzles out, no lessons learned, nothing accomplished. I know it' pointless to complain about sexism in anime, might as well complain the sky is blue. But this is so egregiously "no girls allowed lol" that it gets my blood boiling.
Speaking of sexism. There's plenty of out of place and outright uncomfortable fanservice. The pilot suits being skin tight and making Hisone highly embarrassed by the pervy suit designer was a lengthy plot point. One of those cases where the show tries to have it both ways, making the audience empathize with the girls while unapologetically objectifying them. It's especially Hisone who gets shown off by the camera, panning over her buttocks in intrusive angles many a times. This does not work. You can't tell me to feel sorry for poor abused little Hisone while also telling me to lewdly ogle her like a stripper. Mixed signals much? Do you want to be a real story or do you want to be vore porn? Make up your mind you stupid anime.
And lastly, those fucking Yakult yogurt ad inserts. Seriously? Yakult? Who greenlit this.
Rant over.
If you wanna see a show that does "girl bonds with monster/vehicle" done right, watch Rideback instead. Not a single panty shot to be found in that show, Rideback respects both its characters and its audience. Or try Naru Taru if you like your stories with an extra slice of nightmare fuel. Stay away from Hisotan.
