First things first - it’s a full 3DCG series that half the time (the humans/downtime) has like 8 fps, I can tolerate it, but I won’t be surprised if some people would literally have their eyes bleed from this. However, the parts that matter (mecha fight scenes) run much smoother, have very impressive choreography and the level of detail that simply isn’t possible for the traditional animation (hundreds of accurately portrayed shell casings flying around with realistic physics).
With that out of the way, I imagine 9 out of 10 people would know this exists because of the Gen Urobuchi’s name in the credits. Short answer is - yes, this is a “real” Urobuchi series, by which I mean not Aldnoah.Zero Season 2. It's speculative fiction (aka maximum hardness sci-fi) that asks and answers a simple question that most mecha series just ignore: “how can our modern world evolve into one where bipedal mechs are a practical and ubiquitous war machine.” Because, you know, legs are an obvious weak point, the higher your war machine is the easier it is to spot and shoot, and the whole idea of mechs is stupid. The answer this show offers involves aliens and economics. If I had to compare it to something, it would be the film Arrival, but instead of grammar it’s about (not very) giant robots. The format of the story is a historical chronicle showcasing six incidents every one of which changes the status quo concerning the place of the mechs in the world. Naturally, every incident involves fighting that, like I mentioned, is pretty fun to watch.
Now here’s the weird part: the whole “series” is basically a prologue to… what exactly? I don’t know. It’s pretty clear-cut - every episode is essentially a character trailer for the four main cast members and one antagonist, they even have the names of the characters as the titles, yet somehow these six episodes are supposed to be the whole anime. Imagine the first episode of Fate/Zero as the entire Fate/Zero. Like, yeah, you introduced the world and a bunch of actors, I’m hooked, now show me the actual story. What do you mean, it’s over? How? What.
Anyway, 8/10 for an hour worth of Gen Urobuchi writing.
