Gainax is a monolith in anime history. You would find no one to dispute that. The studio produced arguably one of the most influential anime ever, Neon Genesis Evangelion, to mass acclaim. So it’s no surprise that the studio has garnered a cult following due to its legacy. But for this review and series, I approach it as someone who respects and appreciates the legacy of the company but is not particularly a fan of any of their works. So I stand removed from the “Gainax can do no wrong” crowd and seek to view Gunbuster as its own piece of media, independent of Gainax's accomplishments on other projects and Gunbuster’s theme influences for the studio’s projects moving forward. So to commence this review frankly, this series is irredeemably appalling, and I cannot recommend it to anyone. Here’s why.

The pacing/writing
I’ll begin with what I consider to be the most irredeemable failure of the story, and that was in its structure and pacing. Things went by way too quickly, with minimal reasoning or connection, leading to me being in a constant state of bewilderment while watching. A good example is episode 3. In the space of 15 minutes, the protagonist interacts with a guy, falls in love, he dies in space, she’s traumatised by this and cannot go into space anymore, and she makes a vow to never cry again, and then proceeds to cry in this episode and every one after... I couldn’t believe what I was watching; I still can’t believe it even... And as a consequence of this pacing, there was never a real moment to actually understand the main characters or care about them in any shape or form. The show does an exceptional job of keeping your head spinning and realising that none of these characters have any depth or real personality whatsoever. Even conceptually, nothing ever links together in a logical, coherent way in Gunbuster. It’s almost like every character and idea is communicating in a different language; there's just this really odd disconnect, which I have to assume is a result of both poor writing and inadequate use of the runtime.

Shameless product placement
This might be more of a debated topic, as this is likely how Gainax was able to in part fund the production for the series, but since Gunbuster is a piece of shit, I rather they didn’t get the bag. In some cases, advertising can be an additive to world-building, like real-world advertisements in sports video games. But in this sci-fi futuristic "epic," I found it removed any semblance of investment I had in the world, as I had to shake my head at how shameless Gainax was in placing products in the centre of a frame. Off the top of my head, there were ads from Pepsi, Japan Airlines, and Seiko clocks (this one was less egregious), but I’m certain there’s likely more I’m blanking on. This point is more of a nitpick, I confess, but it took away from my experience watching the series, so I believe it is worth addressing.

Gainax… please…
Holy shit There is way too much teenage nudity in this series, which is incredibly uncomfortable. I had to skip through quite a few scenes because of this, but fortunately or unfortunately, there was zero reason for these scenes to exist in the narrative other than to be fanservice. Yep, gross…

Positives!?
Ok, so I’ve gone pretty hard on this series, and deservedly so, but are there any redeeming qualities? Well, the series isn’t quite a 1/10; I’ll give it that. It has some decent music, fun corny 80’s tropes, and some visually interesting animation in some areas (although, on a serious note, if you somehow still want to watch the series, be aware that there are multiple potentially photosensitive epileptic-inducing scenes; this did air the Pre-Porygon incident after all). But do any of these positives actually add up to a series worth watching? Nope.

A seriously lacking execution
The heading here sums it all up. There were some ideas with potential, like the whole time disconnect of time and space between characters, interfering with their relationships. But the execution was so lacking in depth, like everything else, that I felt nothing but confusion and frustration, which I highly doubt was the intended effect. So I feel that this series really came apart before anything was even animated. All in all, I cannot in good faith recommend this to anyone, and I have to believe that this is primarily enjoyed by Gainax fans, as the MAL score is way too high for what this series actually is. So seriously, please save yourself a precious two hours.