Argento Soma is a series with a lot of issues, specifically its boring as heck. I found myself falling asleep watching this show way too often considering it originally aired at one in the morning (perhaps it should have been marketed as a sleeping aid). Like Evangelion, Soma is a series inspired by tokusatsu series like Ultraman but with a more mature take on the genre. Also like Evangelion this involves mecha pilots fighting giant-sized alien invaders in order to prevent them from reaching someplace... Utah, I think (this is one of the few animes to take place entirely in the USA). It's not known why all the aliens want to go to Utah(?) but I guess the government in this anime watched End of Evangelion and were like "No way Jose".
The mechas themselves however are overshadowed by "Frank", a reanimated alien pieced together from the corpses of other aliens and forced to fight. Controlling Frank is "Hattie", a girl with brain damage who appears to be able to communicate with Frank through the alien shrapnel lodged in her brain. Then there's our scarred MC "Ryu Soma" aka Takuto Kaneshiro who blames Frank for the death of his girlfriend and wants to get revenge. Ryu is also secretly working with a guy who looks suspiciously like the devil as a spy.
One of the issues with this series is that the story is too slow to establish the basic dynamic as described above. I think Soma would've done well to start in media res introducing the alien + mechs vs alien story dynamic before going back and detailing the individual characters. Instead it spends 3 or 4 episodes introducing the characters before even really beginning to divulge what exactly is going on in the world (the setting is established too slow, in other words). If the confused viewer manages to make it to episode 5 then they reach the next major flaw of the show which is that the alien enemies are boring and there's hardly any action. The aliens all have different powers, but they (mostly) all have the same humanoid shape and are defeated in more or less the same way (Frank Paunch!!).
I wouldn't go so far as to say that I hate this show though or that I regret watching it. Its OST has a few great tracks and later on there are some big plot twists as the series finally reveals its carefully guarded secrets. I'll also say that this show has a pretty decent ending that clearly and touchingly lays bare its core themes in a way that Evangelion left obscure. The final episode in particular really showed a version of its MC who had truly grown and changed leaving the viewer on a genuinely hopeful note (even if its a bit patronizing thematically).
