The thing that I hate most about this anime is the way it changes tone so spontaneously. For example, the characters may be rehearsing for a play one second, but a siren goes off and a voice says "Unit 5121 prepare for battle" then we see the characters getting in their giant robot suits to fight the aliens. What if an anime like Toradora did this? It's like the anime goes from being this slice of life anime to an action scifi anime at a moments notice.
However, what makes it worse is that it fails at both being a slice of life anime and a scifi action anime. To tell a good slice of life story requires strong characters, but these character are all dull with nothing interesting to say about them. This anime also fails as an action scifi story because literally every fight the characters have with the aliens is the same. The characters kill a couple of aliens, jam a bomb in the head of the "brain" alien, retreat, detonate the bomb, and the missions over. It's cool the first time, but the not the 12th time.
Also, can someone explain why the aliens pop like balloons after being shot once?
Sound 1/10
First, the music.
For an anime about teenage soldiers fighting in a war against alien monsters this anime has a very upbeat and positive opening which really doesn't introduce the show well. Furthermore, for some reason, whenever the characters are doing normal school stuff military marching music plays. Why?
Second, the voice acting.
The voice acting for this anime's English dub is awful. The VA's put so little emotion into their voices; it's so robotic that it almost sounds like the animators just used some text-to-speech program to voice the characters. Also, there are some characters like Mai who yell everything they say and others like Hayami that have this super annoying stutter.
Characters 3/10
All of these characters, with the exception of Mai who is the only character that goes through any kind of development, all feel like tokens with nothing memorable or likeable about them.
Takayuki is the ladies man who flirts with every girl he sees.
Matsuri loves money and is always trying to make a quick buck.
Tadataka is the level-headed leader.
Mio is clumsy.
Nonomi is cute.
The real tragedy is I feel like all these characters have the potential to be great, but none of the them get fleshed out enough or get enough focus.
Overall 3/10
Another anime that Gunparade reminds me of is Gundam Wing. Both anime are about teenagers fighting in a war and both have giant robots. However, what makes Gundam Wing superior is it doesn't just depict being a soldier as some part-time job you do after school, it shows that people aren't exaggerating when they say war is Hell. The life or death uncertainty of a battle field, the physical and psychological trauma it can cause, and even the gray area of morality that soldiers operate in. Gunparade is like "Hurry guys, let's finish our mission so I can be on time for my date."
If Gunparade was less serious like Girls & Panzer or more campy like a magical girl anime then I could understand, but because this anime goes from being super serious to being not serious at all so suddenly and it fails at both being a slice of life anime and a scifi action anime I'm giving it a 3 out of 10.
