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Bad but not horrible, I think that's the best way to describe this show. For a while now i have been itching to watch a good ol' mecha series in the charts, so when I'd read the synopsis of this one i thought: why not give it a shot? The concept really is interesting, at least to me sounds that way. Not just music powered mechas but a world with references to rock and pop culture, characters based on musicians and the "equipments": amps that when connected to the performers or "players" turn into mechas they then pilot. All this, I think, had potential for a rich and interesting world-building, like technical differences in the robots, diverse and characterized fighting styles between the players and stuff to name a few. Instead we got clunky and generic CGI mecha action, really bad CGI monsters that looked like a fog biker mice (?) and characters that resembles iconic rock/pop figures only on a superficial level. The may look like them and even throw a line or two out of their songs (which by the way it's done in a really awkward way) but there's not much more to them, no character development or thought in the relation between them or the main characters. Anyway, with a messy story, bad character writing and not too sharp animation it has details about it that makes me believe that there was love or passion put into it, like the detail of different endings for all the chapters with cinematic sequences from the chapter but rearranged to a more symbolic retelling of the episode. So even if the final product has it's flaws i think it's good that some studios keep staking with original projects.

Spoiler free article: A short description that's just a bit longer than normal synopsis to give you rough idea what to expect from this anime. Conclusion for TL;DR at the end of the articles. Reading time: 3 minutes read Review: Facepalm. This is what I got from this anime multiple times, at first I'm intrigued with the promising premises, but after watching 2-3 episodes, I facepalmed, for the first time, because somehow, they successfully turned the interesting premise to some generic story, they didn't expand the amazing worlds, I don't know why they didn't tapped into this potential, but I still didn't gave up hope, I kept watching, to be facepalmed again, this time with a chair...This anime didn't improve, it regress, they introduced a problems, that everyone who have watched a couple anime already know not only how will it ends, but also how they get to that ends, so it's predictable, but it should be somewhat interesting right? Nope, because along the way the also succeeded in introducing unrealistic plot holes, and they thing I dread the most, the blatant usage of plot armor. I mean, at least, if you want to use plot armor, make up some reason to back it up, even though it's unrealistic, but this anime is too lazy for it, that they didn't even give any reason to the viewers. They paced it weirdly too, they time skipped on the moment you least expected, the back and forth are also confusing. The visuals albeit have a few charming points, it have an even more flaws. The world building are interesting, that I must admit, along with the interesting character designs, it's not a really outstanding one, but it's definitely not a generic looking characters. But that's it, that's all I can praise in this department, the other are way below average compared to other anime. First of all, I didn't dread the usage of CGI, especially in action genre like this, but use it only if you've mastered the technology, this one clearly haven't and showed that they used this just to save budget by applying it on literally (almost) everything. The weird things is that, despite the heavy usage of CG technology, the anime still fall in the choppy anime category, why the animation aren't smooth for most of the casees? I don't know either... Also one of the goal of using CGI is that to save time, so that animator didn't need to draw a highly detailed item many times, but only one time, so I expected a highly detailed model, but no, not even the models are highly detailed, the building, the robots, the environments, nothing... Not to mention the battles, is that even a battles? It's more like a staring contest with minimum movements... The theme songs are okay, they're not bad, but it's just too underwhelming for an anime with musical theme to have this "bland" OSTs, that even get overshadowed with a couple of the featured songs in between. The surprising part is the seiyuu, looking at the cast, it should be a great one, but it isn't... they're just like a beginner who don't know the rope, because no matter what the scenes are, they have a relatively same tones, there isn't any sense of grievance, fear, and so on when there should've been one. The sound effects also a big no no, it might be fine if it's something from the 80s or 90s, but definitely not in 2020. Overall I think they just throw money to the biggest seiyuu they can get and skimped on everything else, heck even those seiyuu turned to be underutilized due to the lack of direction here, a perfect example that you can't just throw money to solve everything. Conclusion: Reasons to watch: -You're looking for some rock songs to add to your playlist... Reasons NOT to watch: -A bland story with an even worse execution -Usage of immature CGI all over the place that didn't improve the animation quality one bit -A very underwhelming theme songs for an anime based around music

The first 2 episodes tricked me. "Oh, this has a slight FLCL vibe! The story seems pretty interesting! I bet the main characters will be fun!" And then, as fast as a heartbeat, the series just went right downhill. The story went everywhere and no where. "The Earless are bad! They hurt people? But nevermind they're good? Its all just a misscommunication problem? WHAT?!?!?!" "Let's travel to a bunch of places to get clues on this one heroic dude and lose track of the story by us forgetting what our purpose was for being their in the first place until it becomes relevant to the story again!" The characters became incredibly bland and it felt like all the side characters added nothing to spice up the dreadfulness of it all. Despite their interesting designs, their personalities were just flat and one note. The soundtrack was medicore in the end. Which for an anime like this is just disappointing at best. I wanted to enjoy this anime. I really thought it had a good start...but they lost control of everything with the story, character development (laughable), and characters themselves that...I just can't make this a recommendation for anyone. If you want to be disappointed, have at it. <3

This show has great production value and it comes across they the creators are dedicated and proud of their work. The art is clean and very realistic, especially for the characters. As for the designs of the mechs... eh, they are not the norm and you really need to look at them with an open mind ha ha. The animation is also very good but don't expect highly choreographed mech-on-mech fight scenes because it's not really that type of show. Most of the battles are handled by light beams and expanding energy auras, probably done partly for the story and partly to save cost. The English voice acting is very good and has different accents for characters from different countries, something which is lost in the original Japanese. There is a trio of characters with heavy German (?) accents that that speak in a rhymey way that is pretty hard to understand if you don't have closed captioning and that in itself almost derailed the show for me. The music during the show is not that memorable but the ending credit songs are great! Unlike most anime, each episode ending is unique and has a different vocal song sung by the female Japanese lead. And you can actually purchase albums of the full 13 songs! As for the art and animation of the end credits, it's mainly a stylistic and recolored mix of scenes or sub-elements from the episode but put together in interesting and sometimes unexpected ways... like a music video. I quite enjoyed them. And now to an important detail: the story. As I said earlier, the art is realistic and they may make you come into the show expecting realism, but that kind of attitude may get in way of you enjoying the show. For example, a show like Kill la Kill has some pretty unrealistic art and so your mind is conditioned expect weirdness from the story. This show is not as silly but the story is kind of meta, almost as if the universe of the show was created by a god based on a single theme. There is no breaking of fourth-walls, so the show is realistic in the perspective of it's own universe and theme. The pacing of the story is a bit rushed as they try to squeeze a potentially grand story into just 12 episodes. That usually happens in the last few episodes as the story becomes more important than the characters. I do wish there were more episodes to flesh out the characters and their relationships. The dialog can sometimes be annoying because just when you expect them to explain something or say something important, they say something meta. In actuality, the characters may speak parts of song lyrics, most of which are from older rock songs. Likely if you know those lyrics, the dialog may actually have more impact. Perhaps this is another aspect that is weaker or lost if you watch it in Japanese. The lyrics could be thought have as rock-and-roll-related Easter eggs for those in the know, and the same can be said of other elements like character names and the way they look. It's normal to start watching a show with your mind racing to try to find similarities to other shows or media. The music theme made me think of Heavy Metal and The World Ends With You. The journey of the boy and girl through a post-apocalyptic world made me think of Eureka or Heavenly Delusion. At some point, you have to just relax a bit and enjoy this brief ride.

The story is kind of interesting, but a little too "Go to this place, now go to other place" for me. There are also elements of the plot that are part of one episode and then never really capitalized/built on, but perhaps that's in hopes for a second season? There were some good moments, but it was just kind of eh. 6/10 The art wasn't very good. I strongly dislike the overuse of cg, especially when it's bad. So when I see cg mech with the MCs lifeless unmoving cg models riding it, I want to die. There really isn't any excuse for such poor cg. Some positives can be found in the aesthetic design of the mechs, but the chubby cheeked heroine is kind of an eyesore. Another bad thing is that the animation colors are wrong in a couple scenes... I think? I'm not sure, but it seemed to me that a effect was green when the context and previous scene would lead you to believe it should be purple. The outros are actually a lot more to my liking in terms of art style, but have some of the same issues. Next time instead of animating a new outro with a new song every episode, spend that time and money on the MC cg character model instead. It looks terrible and creepy, case in point 20:35 of episode 2. This isn't the only time it happens, and it's unacceptable. 4/10 In terms of voice acting, I watched the dub, the range was awkward to just eh. The voices themselves aren't great, but not necessarily bad. However there were just to many cringe lines that were awkwardly said by the heroine. Also the sound effects are sometimes kind of weird and not what anyone would logically expect, like when a screw is turned in an episode is an example. That being said the music is actually pretty good, the intro is decent, and there is a new outro every episode(or most, not sure). All the outros are pretty good too. The ost is also pretty well done, I enjoyed listening to the music in the background more than I enjoyed the show as a whole. The music would easily be a 9 or 10, but the voice acting and sound effects are not great and that's something I just can't ignore. 6/10 Some of the characters are interesting, but the interesting elements aren't capitalized on much. The MCs are just kind of eh, and the heroine has some interesting character development, but it kind of fell flatter than it should have for me. The side characters were at times more interesting than the man characters, but not enough of time was spent on them. 6/10 I enjoyed the music, and the interesting design mech designs. However, the poor animation, and only kind of alright characters/story caused me to lose interest. Truth be told I started playing Minecraft while watching halfway through. There were parts that held my attention, but overall it was mediocre at best. 5/10 Overall the terrible cg made a 6 or 7 into a 5 out of ten. You might like this if your into mechs and like the mech design style, but I'd imagine there are better things to watch. 5/10