Me? Just looking at the premise I knew right away it will be a big failure. I mean, SCHOOLGIRLS IN THE ROLE OF RESCUE RANGERS! How much more obvious could it be to smell the BS from ten miles away? Something about the voice actors being amazing, or that they delayed the creation of this show for a year because of that tsunami that struck Japan, so it has to be great for having all this time to work on it. If you ask me, they should have canceled it the second someone proposed the idea of actually making a show out of this anecdote of a premise.
Oh, but wait, maybe I was just being too biased and the show is actually good! Maybe they actually did something with the premise later on and I was wrong to condemn it immediately! So what if we have schoolgirls instead of properly trained military personnel sent to do these rescue missions? This way we will have far more emotional responses out of them and each mission will be more about survival/horror than just guns blazing.
… Nope, the obvious failure was obvious after all. All these attempts to make the series more “humane” as some hoped it would be, ended up being its undoing. You think there is any other reason than fan service for these girls to be sent in school uniforms and not proper military uniforms?
“Maybe this way the survivors will find them cute and trust them easier than if they were scary looking soldiers.”
… Nope, it was the usual bullshit that plagues modern anime and nothing else.
“Oh come on, there is definitely a lot more going on that this. The girls are not normal! They are immune to radiation, and their skin is very pale, and they are probably part of some sinister human experiment.”
Even if they are, does it even mean anything? All we see them doing is acting completely inappropriately for the mission they have, like typical immature schoolgirls instead of the specially bred and trained super soldiers they are supposed to be. The whole mystery and conspiracy theories are just background noise if all we see is that nonsense. There is absolutely no immersion to the themes of the story. Something about being treated as objects and not as people? Who cares? Not even the girls do; they cry for a few minutes and then forget it and move on before they remember they have to cry again about it. It would be lovely if they were actually doing something about it, but no, it all amounts to ephemeral mood swings. Said mood swings just come out of nowhere and there is no time invested on their doll issue. Even if you get a gasping revelation later on, you just don’t give a damn because you were never made to take anything seriously. And the worst part is how the series is not supposed to be comedy but a sociopolitical drama.
“Well, at least the girls are cute this way and not some uninteresting military brutes. And you must keep in mind how they don’t have radiation-immune adult soldiers yet, and they were forced to send these teenage girls who are at a very sensitive age. It is normal for them to be acting a bit emotional and not following orders.”
Whatever, all I see is inappropriately behaving (and dressed) people sent to the wrong mission. All that fuss about they have no time to send others or that the government is pressuring the military to take action, or that thousands may die if they don’t act now, THEY MEAN NOTHING! I can’t take it seriously! I mean can you imagine a news reporter trying to describe this situation without laughing his ass off? And it’s also supposed to be a serious situation!
Even if you don’t mind the ludicrous plot, you can’t even enjoy it for the characters. Not only is the characterization bare bones, not only you are facepalming with the way the heroines are dressed, not only you are cringing your teeth every time they cry for close to no reason (that is, all the time), but you are also left with essentially ONE girl doing all the work, while the other two are just crying in a corner, or eat rice cakes and comment on how pretty the lake looks. There aren’t even any other interesting secondary characters to take notice; most disappear after a single episode. Throw in some plot twists that make no sense, such as creating rescue rangers out of clones of psychotic mass murderers, and huge mecha hiding inside a city. Why did they throw such thing in there? Because it would make things more interesting, and not because it makes sense whatsoever. And as always YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO TAKE ALL THAT SERIOUSLY!
Well, I can’t. I couldn’t do it ever since I saw the entry picture and red the synopsis of the story. And so should anyone who even attempts to watch it.
