Boasting the now iconic style of modern Gainax, DieBuster’s world is angular, stylish, energetic, and most importantly fun. The protagonist that is Nono exudes exactly the kind of charming stupidity you’d expect from the “lovable clutz”-stereotype, and she absolutely carries the show alongside its audiovisual presentation. And while I can’t say much about the rest of the cast of characters, their designs are kind of neat at least, much like all of the machines featured in the show, be that mechas, spaceships, etc…
If there’s one major thing that DieBuster lacks when compared to its predecessor, I think most would agree that it’d be the sometimes genuinely emotional moments. I’m not saying that it doesn’t try with scenes like this (oh it tries alright), but for me, they just don’t land. While I’m sure that some of the few who actually watched this show will disagree with me, the complete lack of groundedness, which most of the time is the show’s biggest strength, also renders me unable to get emotionally invested. It’s not impossible, but it’s goddamn hard to make stories like these and still have the audience take them seriously. Me, I’m fully content with the show just being a really, really dumb and fun time.
7.5 / 10, Gainax better pull their shit together and make Top wo Nerae 3.
