Back Arrow #01 — Dicks Out For Magical Mecha

January 8th, 2021

 

I can't imagine how much that vest must chafe her.

There are two more shows today (Project Scard and Hidden Dungeon), but I need to focus on work stuff like attend meetings for a while. I'll get to them in a few hours.

Impressions:

This is a very corny show, for better and worse. On one hand, you have magical mech transformations. On the other hand, you have characters mocking each other for their magical mech transformations not being magical enough. On the other other hand, the sole female who gets a mech this episode has a fancy schmancy magical girl mech whose special power is that she's super flouncy bouncy. These are also profoundly stupid characters. A random alien pod falls in the middle of their village and they spontaneously decide to cook it. They don't even open it before they decide that it's secretly food, set it on fire, and try to eat it. Upon seeing that there's a person inside it, they… continue to try to eat it. I can see why their kids' favorite game is "leap off a cliff and hope someone tries to catch you."

Meanwhile, the antagonists are looking on, cackling orgasmically that something unexpected happened. It's also super weird that they understand the concept of walls, but refuse to believe that anything exists on the other side of the super wall and must immediately murder all who disparage the wall. Not kidding here. Apparently their religion is that the wall spews magical bracelets that turn people into mecha that represent their inner belief at random, whatever the hell that's even supposed to mean.

It's… a lot to take in, but is certainly about what I expect from this director/writer. It definitely lacks the production of a Sunrise show though. It's not awful, especially considering how god-awful Voln has been in the past, but it's definitely not up to the level of the usual mech names like Sunrise, Satelight, or Bones either. It is the best animated action show for the season so far, but again, low goddamned bar and I expect GoHands's show later today to take that from it. It's earned enough for a true second look at any rate, and given how the rest of the season's opening episodes have gone so far, that ain't nothing.

 

Posted in Back Arrow | 3 Comments »

3 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • kenuran says:

    Well this was a silly episode through and through. Pretty fast paced to establish the setting as quick as possible. I like it so far though. Hope it can keep being weird and energetic and sticking to it.

  • The Phantom says:

    It gets the prize for the most ridiculous character designs of the season, it seems it has some budget at least.

  • Ark noir says:

    Standard fluff. I would of slapped those starving villagers upside their head for laughing at mc for his objective. Dumbasses couldn’t catch food for themselves.