Zegapain – episode 1

April 10, 2006 on 7:13 pm | In Zegapain | 2 Comments

“Entangle”

I don’t think that I’ve watched a mech show that was made after RahXephon. Zegapain looks surprisingly good to my eyes, but keep in mind that I’m not exactly an expert on the modern mech. In addition to proper utility of the SUNRISE way (SUNRISE production values somehow annoyed me in Escaflowne, but here they do not fail me), Zegapain hilariously and unintentionally takes aspects of this season’s Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi and Ouran High School Host Club as well as the hit live action Japanese film of a few years back, Waterboys – not to mention the old standby of “mysterious girl”.

Colour me impressed.

Suguru Kyo gets out of working on a student film made by his childhood friend, Ryouko Kaminagi, because he sees a girl standing on the diving board of the school pool. As the school’s only swim team member, he desperately rushes out to claim her for his own, but she dives in and disappears.
The girl – Misaki Shizuno – appears to him that night and enlists him to pilot the Zegapain Altair, a giant robot that fights some as yet unknown enemies. Kyo is a natural, because apparently he’s done it all before.

The childhood friendship of Ryouko and Kyo is well represented, and one gets a feel from some of the events of this episode that there might just be romantic troubles ahead for the two of them. When you’ve got such a leading ending as the one on offer here, of course, that’s a natural inference to make.
Other mysteries of Kyo’s life – he has a bad reputation, not least of which is spawned by his tendency to run around school wet – are offered by way of suggestion but not in any form.
I won’t even begin to talk about the body that governs Zegapain because I know nothing of any substance, other than that it appears to contain several students from Kyo’s school and also, bizarrely, that its uniform is pretty much a school uniform.

Misaki Shizuno is played by Kawasumi Ayako in one of the best performances I’ve heard from her. She doesn’t do so much of an upward inflection, instead keeping the voice down low. She’s very nice to listen to here without sounding too sickly sweet.
This is a very clean looking show, and despite Kyo’s lame hairstyle (and Heero Yuy outfit), it shows quite a bit of promise. I was expecting to be bludgeoned to death by the CG – as normally I can’t stand the stuff – but here it is done well and the action sequences are pretty.

Zegapain may be overrun with the overdone for some, but I personally don’t care what you do in anime as long as you do it well. Straight up, Zegapain looks good; I’m not even yet worried about the mysterious organisation that governs all of these here robots.

2 Comments

  1. “I personally don’t care what you do in anime as long as you do it well.”

    I agree greatly with this statement. People complain about cliches so much, no matter how well-done a show may be. I know originality is important, but these days it’s a really hard thing to do. I’m a firm believer in “there’s nothing new under the sun.” You can’t go around pointing out every little thing that’s been done before, because for the most part, it’s all been done before. It’s all about execution now. It doesn’t matter what the anime’s about, as long as it’s executed well then the production should be a very good piece of work. In my mind, anyway.

    Comment by KT Kore — April 11, 2006 #

  2. I agree KT Kore, and with that said, there is nothing more to be said .

    Comment by Ghoust — May 12, 2006 #

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