Gunparade March

Watching Gunparade March brought tears to my eyes. This is what I’ve been talking about. A mecha anime that doesn’t focus on the mecha fighting, but on the character development. Heck, there is less than 30 minutes of animated combat in the whole series and the ending had absolutely nothing to do with saving the world or even winning a battle. True, this whole series could’ve been done like a normal high school romance type anime, but the back story of an ongoing war really did help to flesh out the characters.

The year was 1945 when aliens invaded earth. Blah blah blah… 50 years old fighting… No progress… in 1988, a volunteery law was passed to allow the enlistment of high school children. Our main cast, Troop 5212, are from one of these high school/military base clusters. They pilot mechas called HWT (Humanoid Walking Tank… or maybe Heavy Walking Tank… ZZzZz, nvm, it’s not important anyway) and fight aliens that look sooooo stereotypical they don’t even have names. Did I mention they have no tactical planning at all and every battle is won by planting a PBE (think: huge huge bomb) on the alien’s Brain, (think: Brainbug from Starship Trooper) while the rest of the aliens somehow didn’t bother to protect their lifeline. All these sound lame, don’t they?

Well they are all not important. As I’ve said, actual combat took place like maybe 4 times throughout the series, and at least one of them wasn’t even featured. (they just report that it was a win without even showing combat) When they ARE featured, little airtime is wasted for those “look at all the cool projectiles” sequences. Heck, they didn’t even have any cool weapons, just plain old nut-and-bolt rifle, bazooka and wow, missiles. The mecha designs ain’t groundbreaking either.

The real shining point of this anime is its characters. The character-developing driven plot is well planned and never lose my attention for even one episode. However it, like every other romance anime, will make you FUSTRATED. VERY, VERY, fustrated. You know how when everything seems to be going smoothly, then something happen suddenly and you are back at square one? Yeah, the very thing Love Hina was best at. Sure, it’s obvious that who and who are the main characters and they will end up together, but sooner of later in the series, you WILL be driven crazy by all these “coincidences”. Still, this can’t really count as a negative point since as I’ve said, it’s a genre-wide problem. (well I guess they can’t really continue the series if things go smoothly so soon)

The REAL problem with Gunparade March is its length. Mai and Hayami (male and female lead) are developed perfectly, but due to the time constraints, the secondary characters get less airtime. One exception is Tanabe Maki, who had a whole episode dedicated to her. From what I’ve seen, Higashihara Nonomi could use more airtime. I mean, as a 17 (or 18?) year old child stucked in the body of an 8 year old because it is necessary in order for her to control the PBE, she MUST have some problems dealing with this. Another example is Motoko senpai, who started acted all dark and mysterious in the last few episodes when she saw the problems between Mai and Hayami. I thought they were going to elaborate on that, but nooooo, we are supposed to imagine what pain and suffering she has gone through to become what she is today.

Also, the soundtrack is lacking. I could see a few emotional scenes where a nice background music is needed.

But all in all, Gunparade March has become my favourite mecha anime, tied with RahXephon. (I still love Nadesico for Ruri though ;)) Full Metal Panic was nice and all, but the later episodes got too bloated with fight scenes that last too long for their own good. Evangelion gets points deducted for screwing with my mind. Watching Gunparade March reminded me of Dual!, another under-appreciated little series that I liked. There’s some similarities I guess, but for one thing, Gunparade March was NOT a harem, even though it had romance-focused plot. Seriously, I’m getting SICK of all these harems that breed faster than rabbits.

Final Score:
9.4/10
Points deducted for lousy soundtrack and a whopping length of only 12 episodes. Ok that is less than what I gave RahXephon, but scores don’t matter when it comes to “favourites”. It’s a subjective thing. :P

I’m glab I trusted my intuition and bought GPM DVD without even watching a single episode before hand. JC STAFF really know their stuff (that was not a pun)… Ai Yori Aoshi, Azumanga Daioh, Tsukihime (well I enjoyed it) and Maburaho. (still hope left…) ROD TV, where are you!?

EDIT: Oh yeah forgot to add. Noda’s voice is really suitable for Katou. She’s like Kitsune number 2 or something. :P