Watching Top wo Nerae! Gunbuster was a strange endeavour. It was like drinking strange looking "drink" made by your 8 year old cousin just to realise that it's actually pretty dope. Like the amount of strange and seemingly random things that were put into it actually ends up making a strangely enticing flavour, that's how it felt to watch this little show. Random, non the less enjoyable one, especially if you enjoy seeing all the current tropes but done "oldstyle".
Now, one would think that it's all gonna be fun and roses as the show is gonna keep on making fun of all the tropes within it. And yet, when it comes to the other part of the show it will hit you with astoundingly hard sci-fi. So hard that making switch to it can actually become quite a problem considering the swings from funny trope filled segments of cute girls doing stuff into this hard and realistic sci-fi landscape.
Like, I'm gonna be honest. I dropped my guard during episode 2 and had really hard time figuring if the show is serious or not when it comes to how it portrayed "time" and it's technology. On one hand I knew that what they are saying sounds familiar and should make sense but on the other hand considering how frivolous the show was in previous episode it was easy to just disregard as something random and "in-universe". Even more when you never heard about time-dilation. Yes, this anime properly makes full use of this little bad boy, and oh did it made me question my sanity considering last time I heard about it in high-school.
What's more there is lot of such small things here, the whole anime is riddled with such little details that will make you smile the moment you notice them. Like it's really clear that a lot of love went into creating this little show even if it doesn't seem like it at first glance. Even German names for soviet astronauts make sense, after all part of them are from friggin DDR(East Germany). See? Totally makes sense. Or how do you secure more funding for your space army? You strike a deal with corporations so that the mechas they sponsor will fly around in Adidas and Puma paint jobs, like damn I was laughing like stupid when I saw Adidas sponsored mechas.
As for animation, it's pretty good considering what I expected from such old show. Hell if I'm gonna be honest this show have better and more detailed animation style than many currently airing ones. I'd even say the animation fluidity is better than some of the current shows. And the depiction of sci-fi stuff? Very good, especially the cockpits and space opera.
Though unfortunately apart from the main Gunbuster the rest of mecha is of an older more round and bulkier design which is a shame considering that everything else is pretty good while they are just bog standard design. Worth of note is also the last episode, which while not entirely to my liking was a fun take on inserting more pathos into the whole story.
One thing that I should also address when speaking about animation is the fan service. It's actually mixed bag. It was pretty good most of the time or at least the situations where it was mostly presented. And that comes from someone who's generally not a fan of ecchi harems etc. But in this show the situations with it felt natural and in place. Big part of it being that nudity felt like something most normal and that it would be strange to make a big deal out of it.
Unfortunately on the other side the fan service had to rear it's ugly head in the uniform design, which to be frank was little bit annoying considering the rest of the setting. Another minus was "fan service" in last episode. Imagine the most important fight, one that will decide the fate of all humanity just to see the MC rip her uniform during the climax. Yes, she just goes and rips part of her uniform revealing her bosom. Tbh I'm fully aware of the significance of this action and how it was portraying determination of this young girl. Determination to give up her life and rip her heart out so that her ideals can live on. But to me it felt way to abrupt, giving me a feeling of a last one fan service scene. Which in hindsight was just me being incapable of properly connecting with her due to time constraints of this short ova.Thus actually snickering during the scene.
And now finally story. Which is, well... As good as it can be considering the amount of screen time the show got. It gets to all the important points. Though at times it comes of as comedy rather than drama(R.I.P Smith I will remember your 5 minutes of screen time fondly), but with how little time they had to tell this "epic" tale it's no wonder that a lot of parts had to be skimmed on so that they can manage to pack it all up in just 6 episodes. Honestly, given 6 more episodes to flesh out everything and It would most likely be a very good anime, one that would be remembered by way more people. Especially considering how amazing the Sci-fi parts are. The whole dealing with "time" and consequences of life choices segments were also pretty good. The threat and how they dealt with it was also great point of this series(RiP Jupiter). Unfortunately the more interpersonal drama between main cast was the weaker link of the series, clearly trying to just hit of the important plot points no matter how break neck the speed. But all in all I didn't mind it considering it meant that the Sci-fi parts had more time to shine.
So, well, all in all I did enjoy it for what it was. Had a great laugh and saw some interesting things. Good/Very good - 7.5/10
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