What is this?
© 「勇気爆発バーンブレイバーン」製作委員会
Lewis Smith and Isami Ao were enemy pilots. Lewis is a United States Armed Forces pilot who operates the armored humanoid weapon Titanostride. In the midst of battle, he meets Isami Ao, an ace pilot of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force.
Bang Brave Bang Braven is an original television anime by Cygames. The anime series will air on Crunchyroll every Thursday.
How was the first episode?
© 「勇気爆発バーンブレイバーン」製作委員会
Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:
Well, I will say this for Brave Bang Braven: it definitely left an impression. What we have here are two different types of mechanical programs combined together. On the one hand, we have mechanics that are (at least nominally) based on actual technology. They move on wheels and their feet and use guns and rockets as weapons. They are science fiction movies with at least some factual basis. On the other hand, we have the more exotic giant robot—it can fly at will, wields a glowing energy sword that can slice through anything, uses a hard-light holographic interface, and comes with with an AI companion to help keep everything under control. It’s more like a superhero robot than a war machine.
What we get in this show seems to be the equivalent of”What if Voltron suddenly appeared in Gundunda”. And frankly, I’m not happy with the concept — especially the way they played it straight. Even with the arrival of alien forces and Braven, the story still takes place in the “real world”—with all the death and destruction that implies. This makes Braven playing his own anime theme song during battle and forcing Ao to shout out the name of the attack (which I assume only works if he does so) a nice touch. Great. It perfectly demonstrates the fusion of genres and the obvious conflicts between the two.
On the other hand, I had some problems starting the anime. Due to the pilot’s suit (with the helmet obscuring it) and the voice actors having similar voices, I had a hard time figuring out who was who during most of the first episode’s fight scenes. This added an unintended layer of chaos to the expected chaos of the battle and made it difficult to connect with the show’s key characters.
That said, although at this point most of the characters are one-dimensional—i.e., Lewis wants to be a hero, but Ao’s mechanic is passionate about his work—Ao has some ways Great visual storytelling around him. At first, he seems to be the embodiment of an ordinary, semi-emotional villain. However, when things move from mock battle to real war, we see him lose his courage. His hands shook as he loaded live ammunition into his machine for the first time. He stared at the destruction in shock — frantically searching the abandoned hanger for any sign of his mechanic. He screamed and panicked—barely able to bring himself to charge at the giant robot and fight.
All in all, it was good stuff and more than enough to make me give the old three episodes a try.
© 「勇気爆発バーンブレイバーン」製作委員会
Rebecca Silverman
Rating:
First, there’s The Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom. Now there is this program, I won’t try to type the name of this program because my learning disability hates it. It’s the same concept, but for the gundam set. Well, more or less Isami wasn’t a Gundam pilot as a teenager, but he dreamed of becoming that kind of hero. The closest thing he could find was joining the JSDF and becoming a Titanostrider pilot, which was pretty similar but much less flashy. In fact, the first three-quarters of the episode is spent showing us how ungainly Isami’s job is. He was participating in training exercises with the US military in Hawaii, where he met American Titanostrider pilot Lewis Smith. Lewis is a typical blonde, muscular American girl, just a stars and stripes away from a Speedo so as not to come off as too much. But he also appreciates Isami’s skills, which is great, even if Isami isn’t too impressed with Lewis.
Anyway, very little of this seems to matter, because it’s all just a big bait for the aliens to attack and Isami is propositioned by a Gundden-like machine that calls out to him. And as soon as he enters the cockpit—where the robot invites him in in a way that I’m sure no one will misunderstand—he can actually hear his own theme song playing, which is a joke I always appreciate. Even though I wasn’t sold at all on the first three-quarters of the episode, the ending did help me; the quick transition from serious military drama to an almost parody level of absurdity is effective. I realize that won’t happen for everyone, partly because it’s such a sudden change. Even the colors quickly change from dreary grays and browns to the bright primary colors of the 1980s Transformers cartoon, while Braven has Isami shout out the names of attacks with him. It’s a shock, but it’s meant to be, and if you’re open to what it’s selling, it’s a lot of fun, scratching an itch similar to what the Infini-T Force did in 2017.
Where this goes from here—serious, silly, or some combination—isn’t entirely clear. The theme song has quite a bit of girly twerking and it looks like a pre-teen(?) alien girl would bond with Lewis. As the granddaughter of a World War II vet, I admit that I was troubled by the bleak beginning and battlefield scene when the aliens first attack; I heard too many stories growing up to handle anything like that comfortably. But the candy-colored silliness of the story at the end of the episode won me over. I’m here for nostalgic shows that encourage adults to remember their childhood dreams and giant robots that play their own theme music.
© 「勇気爆発バーンブレイバーン」製作委員会
Nicholas Dupree
Rating:
I want to go on record saying that the official release of this launch being delayed by a week is a crime, and any business executive responsible should be forced to serve the community for hundreds of hours and send a handwritten apology that includes at least five full pages about why Bang Brave Braven is cool, awesome, and unbelievably handsome. Do not worry; From just this first episode, they’ll have a lot of material to work with.
I sincerely encourage anyone interested in this series to go in as blind as possible. While I don’t fully understand the marketing plan to obfuscate its nature as a Super Robot show (as opposed to the more grounded “Real Robot” content shown before the premiere), I think it’s best to enjoy it with as little prior knowledge as possible. This episode is a rollercoaster of tone and energy, starting out like an anime version of the volleyball scene in Top Gun and delving into multiple genre spaces before reaching a wild action conclusion. So wild and ridiculous that it made me clap my hands like a seal. It’s a fun, wild time, and if you have some joy in your soul, you’ll get something out of it, regardless of whether you’re a longtime mech fan or not.
If you’re a robot fan, this is a special treat. The design and animations of these machines are solid. The CG animation has some flourishes that help it blend well with the 2D characters and environments while moving with the same speed and weight. The design work perfectly drives the episode’s escalating tide, shifting from the gun-metal gray military tech of the Titanosriders to the sleek sci-fi sheen of the grunts’ robots. invade aliens and reach the climax with the toy-filled brilliance of Bravern as a one-on-one sentient super robot. Clearly, the participants love the genre and are excited to play with so many different angles and incarnations of big metal fighting machines. The moment Isami revealed that Bravern’s cheesy battle theme was being played in space and actually sounded muffled from inside the cockpit, I knew I needed to watch every second of this show because, god Oh, they understand it in a way that few others do. program possible.