Robotics;Notes Review

5pb is known for making some very interesting Visual Novels. The anime however, tend to be a hit and miss. Chaos;Head was a good example of a good Visual Novel being adapted into a poorly executed anime. Steins;Gate was different, the anime was generally well received by both the anime and Visual Novel communities alike. I personally consider Steins;Gate as one of the best anime if this century. Hence, my expectations for Robotics;Notes was high. After Steins;Gate, how can you possibly go wrong? Well, it appears you can go very very wrong...

Robotics;Notes in paper sounds very promising. The story is set a decade or so after the events of Steins;Gate. The world has changed for the worse as solar storms seem to have become a yearly occurrence. Robotic engineering has become a popular profession, and robots are becoming the norm. Our characters Yashio Kaito and Senomiya Akiho are regular childhood friends in high school with a disturbing past. Both suffered from a terrible "supernatural" attack on a cruise leaving them with odd illnesses that distorts time for them when severely stressed. Their school has a robot club where the main goal is to build a giant robot. Akiho is obsessed with robots, and aims to build a robot that will surpass her sister's work. Akiho's sister seems to be a very important character despite showing very little of her in the first half of the show. Her true role is revealed later on, as well as the reason for her odd behavior towards her sister and Kaito. Kaito is obsessed with robots as well, but his obsession leans more towards playing with them through video games, which is a recurring thing throughout the series. 

At first glance this seems like a slice of life portraying the typical teen plight, but it goes way beyond that. Just like Steins;Gate, conspiracies are afoot, and the world is grave danger. A mysterious character named Kimijima Ko is the main focus. This person's actions and legacy drive the main plot. Overall this anime showed strong promise for about the first 10 episodes, but something happened after that. For whatever reason the anime started becoming too complicated for its own good. Like I said, on paper it seemed promising but seeing it in animated form turned out to be completely different. The show turned up the "doomsday" meter making it seem as though the fate of humanity rested on the shoulder of our main characters and their friends. There was no need for this, the world was in no real danger. The show started becoming too unbelievable for its own good. Worst part is the robot fights. What were they thinking at the studio? I felt trolled, very much so. The animation overall was great, so were the character designs. Character development was decent, the saving grace for this anime was how great the characters were. Had the characters been boring or stagnant I no doubt would have dropped this show. 

If you go into this anime thinking your gonna watch another Steins;Gate or something better, I hope you prepare yourself for a huge disappointment. The characters are fun to watch, the animation is great, but the story lacked heavily after the first 10 or so episodes. I would not recommend this show for serious anime watchers.

Score - 7/10 (being lenient because of my love for the characters)