Part 1 of Kyoukai Senki was agonizing to get through, and moved slower than a turtle in pacing. None of the characters seemed very likeable or properly developed, and the limited production values ruined it's commitment to 2D animation. The constant slideshows, and long dragging still frames that zoomed in and out during conversations felt very disappointing. The fights were not given any justice in how brutal they were supposed to look, and the lack of detail is frustrating. Between this starting and finishing, I also watched many of Tomino's Gundam series, from the original, Zeta, ZZ, and Char's Counterattack, to Victory Gundam. Kyoukai Senki is a droplet of water compared to the ocean that any of those Gundam entries are in comparison to it. Gundam ruined it even more for me by giving me higher standards for a series of this genre. Even now with modern mecha, Megaton-kyuu Musashi, that rarely anyone bothered to watch, is significantly better, and is a series that I would recommend (second season is coming in Fall 2022).

Kyoukai Senki felt like a severely watered down war story where the staff couldn't kill off any of it's main cast. Maybe it was an issue with risking being too dark. When a side character dies, the main cast get depressed each time and it's annoying. They could of at least done something such as in Victory Gundam where the feelings of loss are effectively and horrifyingly expressed, instead here it's constantly seeing Amou, Shion, and Gashin sit by a tree together looking as if someone stole their lunch money. Amou is the frustratingly emotional, delicate flower protagonist that I despise to see in anime like this. He would get killed immediately if he was in any Gundam series I've seen. Anything this series tries to do fails in comparison to how Gundam did it. The music is forgettable.

One of the biggest mistakes this series makes is that it reveals many of the characters motivations at the very end, and leaves them undeveloped and sort of behind the scenes throughout almost the entire series. This biggest fault here is their management of Brad's character. He rarely does anything, and is constantly smiling behind the scenes and acting as if he is two steps ahead of everyone else. I kept wondering, "why is he like this?" "When is he going to actually do something instead of just smiling at monitors and people every episode?" At the very end, they do explain what he was up to. The pay off felt great, but for all the wrong reasons.

The story and politics are mostly elementary and not very interesting to talk about. The cast is fighting to restore Japan. That's it. As they go to war and try to win a revolution to gain it back, there's a lot of dirty politics going on between the factions. Ghost, who was the most interesting and amusing part of Part 1, is reduced to a toy for Brad, and doesn't go anywhere for almost the entirety of the second part. I would have liked to see if he was an AI like the ones the trio have. Their last ditch effort to have Ghost do anything at the end felt hollow. I much preferred how in Part 1, Ghost was this fearsome force with an AI that was constantly analyzing and countering it's enemies with it's high intelligence. They built up it's new form in this second season as something even more wicked, though the way Amou deals with it during their disappointingly anti-climactic final fight is just laughable.

It's tragic that the episode that left the biggest impression on me is the plotless one where they had a birthday party for the AI. Up until that episode, the Pokémon rejects were annoying to me. It took me a long while to come to appreciate Gai. He felt like a convenient plot device and hack for Amou to help him win his battles.

Of what I did enjoy, were mostly 4 characters. Brad, as pathetic as his execution as a character was for most of it, always remained the most interesting character because of what he was really up to in the war. Misuzu, their engineer, is the one who created the AI, and constantly struggles to come up with upgrades for their weapons. She's mostly glued to a computer and spends the rest of her time explaining. She still seemed likeable as the one who is in the lead of determining the overall technological advancement of the war. Lastly, the only dynamic and characters that I felt were the best ones for me came to be Shion and her AI, Nayuta. They have a fun dynamic where Nayuta is in love with her, and treats her as he is a servant and her a princess. Shion was nearly abandoned in part 1, and didn't really go anywhere in Part 2 besides being a supportive force to help Amou in battle. There's still a charm to her, as she is the only main character I could tolerate from the trio. Gashin is too annoyingly bitter, and felt like even more of a background character in Part 2.

At least, the last 2 episodes bring some kind of redemption. Despite that they still overtly show it's problems as a series, they were intense and finally bring answers and closure to my headaches from all the previous episodes. Overall, this series was doomed from the start, and the ending was anti-climactic and as generic as they come. The slide show epilogue was very disappointing to see. As I said before, if you want to watch a modern mecha series that is out right now that is worth your time, go to Megaton-kyuu Musashi instead.