(Anime Review) Kuromukuro [Complete]

After finishing Kuromukuro, I read through my review of the first half of the show  and I don’t have that much to add to it.  This is why somebody shouldn’t review a show in halves, so lesson learned there.  Maybe there are a few things here and there, but what I said stands for all 26 episodes.  It’s a good show with great visuals and somehow balances slice elements with a real mech show plot.  The ending is a little off putting, but it didn’t ruin any of the twenty-five episodes before it.  If anything, it sets up a second season that I hope extremely hard that it gets.  Spoilers along the way for those who haven’t watched the show yet.  Here we go.

I already talked about the main characters on my review of the first half and they haven’t really strayed from those traits.  Yukina and Ken finish up their arc and their romance subplot by the end of the show.  Sophie’s character shows much more of her kind personality and is put through some challenges that a warrior usually doesn’t like going through, but I don’t think she changes that much.  That’s okay though, because she’s a cool character.  The new character that has been introduced at the end of Muetta.  Her arc is somewhat of a repeat of Ken’s, but with not as much fulfillment behind it.  She never truly finds a place that she belongs.  If you guessed it by now, Muetta is not the princess that Ken has been trying to find, but a (HEAVY SPOILERS) clone.

Art and animation are consistent throughout the entire show.  The backgrounds are incredibly beautiful especially during the flight scenes.  The views were so breathtaking that I almost forgot to focus on the action.  High definition is the only way to watch Kuromukuro. Action is the biggest thing I want to talk about because while it is slow paced compared to many other mech series, I think it really works with this show.  Each mech feels like they have a lot of weight to them.  When a mech hits another mech or a mech hits the side of a building, the resulting impacts feel so visceral and real.  I almost forgot to mention that the mechs are CG, but sometimes you can forget that because they merge with the rest o the show extremely well.  With the realism of the mech battles and the use of slice of life elements to its advantage, you could call Kuromukuro true to life.

The biggest flaw for me was the ending.  They could have wrapped up the show with in a tight bow, no questions ask.  Instead, they went with a pseudo Gainax ending.  You know, the kind of ending that doesn’t connect with the original material at all and tries to keep it open minded for some reason.  Maybe it’s a standard thing for mech shows to do that, but this isn’t a show that needed it.  Despite it though, I highly recommend people to watch this.  It’s an original work that does so many things that other shows can’t.  I mean, how often do you hear about an original work being 26 episodes these days?  It doesn’t happen too often at all.  Please give Kuromukuro a try.  I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.