This review was part of Anicord's Winter 2025 Contracts
Gonna keep it a buck and say this review will likely be a bit shorter than normal simply because there was almost nothing that I enjoyed about this show. When thinking about how to write this review, I realized it is a lot easier to write about something you actually enjoyed. And this wasn’t one of those, “so bad it’s good” scenarios either, I just legitimately think this was not good.
#Plot (6/10)
I think the plot here is largely confusing and the way the plot progresses is not helping its case. We have the main character Hajime, who becomes a Gatchaman, which if you aren’t aware are like the OG Power Rangers. At first they are fighting this “evil” alien force at the behest of their leader, but that enemy quickly is determined as friendly by Hajime, then never brought up again. Next the main antagonist shows up, and even though half of the gatchaman seem to have a history with it, they don’t actually tell anyone else until essentially the very end of the show? You would think if your job is to protect the world, you would share any information you had on the one trying to destroy it right? Another character Rui is introduced (as sort of an “anti-hero” in a sense) that is doing things differently to “update the world”. But he’s basically playing god with almost no foresight into what the potential ramifications are to messing with people’s souls.
And the way the plot progresses is to me, nonsensical, and boils down to Hajime using talk-no-jutsu and her extroverted personality to solve nearly every issue. Plot was a big miss to me
#World/Setting (7.5/10)
Setting is fine. It’s just modern day Japan if someone had developed TikTok for good instead of evil. I think a lot of the alien stuff isn’t utilized very well which makes the world and setting much more generic than it needed to be.
#Characters (6.5/10)
I felt like none of the characters here were actually interesting, and none of them were utilized well. JJ for example just exists as their overlord but is never actually explained past Paiman telling them they have to listen to him. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t enjoying this already, but I also felt like Rui’s “redemption arc” was just boring and kind of uninspired. He ignores all warning signs to do something he thinks is good, then has to face the consequences. Very basic stuff imo. Then I feel like they set Sugane up to have some kind of character growth and all he does is decide he won’t blindly follow JJ anymore and basically blindly follows Hajime instead.
Hajime. I do not have an issue with bubbly characters, but I feel like there needs to be a little contrast to their personalities to make them interesting. Hajime was basically the same character the entire season, and solved every single problem with just being a nice, high energy, extrovert. Not every character needs to have development in every anime, but if they don’t, they need to be interesting from the start if they’re getting a bunch of screen time.
#Visuals (7.5/10)
Fine for the age of this show.
#Audio (7.5/10)
Fine, nothing really stood out
#Enjoyment (6.5/10)
This was an absolute slog to get through. I legit was dreading having to watch each episode past episode 5 or so after
Final Score (6.9/10)
8.5 out of 14 users liked this review
