Anime: Break Blade

Break Blade caught me by surprise. While it's somehow typical and may be forgotten admist the huge amount of mecha animes, this show can't be left out of the spotlight. The way everything develops, the nice pace and fast approach to solve the story's problems, the superb quality with which almost every element of its genre is done. Nearly everything in Break Blade makes it a must see for anyone who likes military-based anime or some plot with war and intrigue.

Art & Animation
Being an OVA the series is given a special care in this department. While art style can look like a bit lazy, the animation is superb and everything is kept at maximum quality through all episodes. Fights are really well done and ordinary sequences are given a bit more care, rarely using static images while only using voice or music to show things. The scenario itself is a bit too simple, with more deserts and brown areas than necessary, and leave you wanting for more shots of cities outside the place where the story occurs.

Sound
Break Blade starts with some very nice opening theme, showing exactly what to expect from the series: epic moments of conflict, war losses, military tragedy, etc. Background music fits very well the series and is never lacking. Voice-acting is very mature and very well done despite having a few childish characters mixed. Those looking for a consistent sound direction will certainly find it here.

Story
Break Blade is the tale of Rygart, a young man with an unusual lack of magical skills in the world. He is invited by an old friend, the king Hodr, to check a mysterious golem/mecha thet have found but couldn't put to work. When the enemy's army strike, Rygart finds himself as the savior of the day.

1. Typical Shounen Start with Quality
   Story-wise, Break Blade does not bring anything new. The typical political struggle between huge kingdoms and the main character's kingdom being throw admist such war, a group of old friends meeting each other after a while, some secret mecha that only the main character can pilot, etc. Everything is very predictable here, but is executed with great quality. Dramatic moments are plenty, battles are good and the development of the war is very unpredictable in short-term.
   
   Poor Presentation
   Break Blade's story creates some good moments of tension and fill it with war tragedy, but it fails to develop the setting in the way it should. Because of its short length and very limited focus, you'll be left without much information about the surroundings of the main area, leaving the scenario less believable than it should and mainly without a true conclusion regarding the presented kingdoms and characters.
   

Character
Break Blade has some very nice characters. They fit in stereotype roles most of the time, but grow very likable through the series. The way they can show emotions and face them with a greater degree of realism than others shounens is very surprising and they never become annoying or boring. Despite the well paced development of the main characters, secondary characters are forgotten too soon and seems to have bigger importance when they appear. One of the old friends of the story, for example, looks like a main character for the first two episodes and than it's left out of the spotlight and almost completely forgotten from this moment. This is bad and can really annoy those who like character development, but this can only be noticed and annoy after the series has already ended.

Value
Break Blade brings nothing really new aside from a setting that is very rarely used (similar to Escaflowne) and has a nice pace and use of typical elements of the genre. The animation and sound direction are top quality and the dramatic moments and combats are worth watching it, filled with tension and constant action. While it brings a fantasy setting and shows some nice background history, these are never really developed like it should and the focus is centered only in a small cast of characters and a single place, making it more simple to understand and easier to rewatch, but leaving you wishing for more when it ends.

Enjoyment
Break Blade has an awesome fun factor due to its combats, pace, and intrigues. The small number of episodes help to keep the anime away from fillers and helps a lot to increase its tension and pace. Those looking for some nice mecha anime or some war-themed series with more political intrigue will surely find one of the best animes in the recent years here, but those expecting more for character development will probably feel Break Blade a bit bland.

Comments
Break Blade looks like a very common series, but can be surprisingly good. It's hard to tell where the series really shine, but for me it was the best series I've watched since Code Geass and up to its release. It's short, it's well paced, has nice combats, nice dramatic moments, superb animation and sound, huge production value, etc. Maybe because of this positive points most of the steryotypes, the lack of development in the setting and the lack of originality in the story elements can be overlooked.

Those who like not only mecha, but war-themed animes as well will be pleased with this show for sure. If you expect romance, emotional problems, comedy, supernatural powers, or other things like that will be left empty-handed. I see many similarities with Gundam Seed and Code Geass, from the military use of the mecha to the feeling of powers beyond known technology, but it's hard to compare those three. Give Break Blade a chance and it may catch you by surprise like it did to me.

Fast and Dirty review.

This is a mecha OVA series that doesn't really offer anything new to the veteran anime viewers. We have a medieval-fantasy setting with mecha-golems. Everyone has the ability to use magic except for one young man who can't. Their peaceful nation is attacked by a powerful foreign power. At the knick of time they find a mysterious ancient mecha-golem, and guess what, only the boy without the magic powers can pilot it. We have an unlikely hero, reluctant to participate in battle, who is forced to do so in order to protect the people he cares about.

However, even though everything seems like standard fare at first glance, the anime has some interesting ideas to offer. The mecha-golems look and fight more like stone giants with clubs, than metallic robots with guns. The way the various battles are portrayed is refreshing and enjoyable. The addition of some pretty good music along with the detailed and fluid animation contributes even more to the pleasing audio-visual outcome.

The story is adequate. As Ive already mentioned it's nothing spectacular, but it's nothing cringe-worthy either. The characters are mostly likable and they manage to get some exposition along the way. A bit of internal conflict, a hint of romance and a lot of intense skirmishes. Since the anime is based on an ongoing manga, the story is not concluded with the sixth OVA, but thankfully we get an ending since the story-arc is completed by the end of the final OVA.

All and all it was a rather unexpectedly enjoyable OVA series that manages to be more than the sum of its parts. I would certainly like to watch the rest of it.

The premise is about a war amongst nations for the control of natural resources. It is also about several personal dramas around pilots and aristocrats and their interactions during these times. In theory this could have been a great epic of strife, ambition and tragedy around the needs of nations forced down the path of violence and destruction. In practice though it is hardly as interesting.

The most obvious reason is the action. The whole thing looks like a dull Gundam rip-off, where the pilots keep monologing and explaining everything to the viewer instead of just letting us get it, minus the big explosions and the poser mechas. It focuses too much on skirmishes and duels with simplistic field tactics that doesn’t make you feel you are watching a continent-wide war. What you mostly see is big robots punching or firing at each other with invisible fragment bullets, the gunshots of which are almost as if they use a silencer and the damage they inflict is a simple dent. Even hand-to-hand battles are simplistic to the point you don’t even feel you are watching mecha action but some b-grade armored dudes brawling. Heck, the mechas themselves are made of crystals and not metal and you feel they are big chunks of rock. They are in fact called golems that mostly act as armors. It’s dull to look at.

The only time the action becomes interesting is when the elites of the war are having showdowns. All of a sudden the top pilots can use weird superpowers and a bit more strategy which makes everything look better. The rest of the time is as a whole boring action-wise and I never understood why they even need entire armies when it’s just the elites doing all the work and deciding the outcome of the war. Couldn’t they just have a tournament or something? It would spare them the thousands of deaths as well as the waste of resources.

So the action is mostly a miss but what about the sociopolitical angle? Nation A invades nation B and must win before nation C decides to aid B against A. And that is all the politics you get in this show. In fact, nation C doesn’t even matter since everything was decided by the duels of a handful of pilots; so we might as well screw the tens of thousands of troops that were sent to die in this so-called war. Don’t go expecting any complicating mind games and unexpected plot twists because you won’t find any; the whole story is straightforward and simple enough even for elementary kids to follow. There are several scenes where generals and kings chat about their next move and it ends up being dead time as all you hear them say is how cool their few elite pilots are and how they alone can win the war. I believe this was done deliberately so the kids would be amazed and buy the plamo kits easier.

Let’s proceed to the drama part; maybe that will be good… Nope; it is again weak. One guy is worried about becoming a heartless killer, another girl gets captured and has duty clashing with morality and… um, that’s all of it actually. What, you expected more? Sure, there are about two dozen different characters in this anime that affect the plot in some way, yet besides the generic shonen lead blondie, the rest have a very weak presence in the story. They all talk and they act and nothing seems important to remember because they are all typical shonen archetypes that solve their differences with good old fashion SMACK THEM DOWN. And since the action is mostly boring not even that works in the show’s favor. I hardly understand their motives, like why the blonde queen is sleeping with the big busted loli who tried to kill her, or why is there a woman that looks like a kid, or why did the megane dude surrendered and allowed to be killed in battle when he owned everyone during the fights. And who the heck is the opposing elite general? I don’t know anything about him other than he is an ass with good fighting skills. What is going on here and why should I care? This is all paper thin.

The production values are far better than your average anime, but the mechas move rather crudely and fight simplistically, while half the backgrounds are barren wastelands with rocks. There isn’t much variety in locations or uniforms either. The only thing I visually remember is that blond queen who gets naked every 15 minutes, just so the viewer can stay awake through the uneventful scenes.

As a whole it is a wasted world of multiple nations at war and of supposed political games that even my 10 year old nephew can understand. There is very little to see or expect in this series, and frankly I don’t understand praise it got for its supposed amazing story and wonderful animation. An average Gundam series has ten times more exiting action, an average shonen series has far more interesting characters, and the story can be described in three lines of text. Character interactions are basic and in effects throw in the bin the whole setting.

If you have watched any actual good war epics, I don’t recommend it. If you have seen shows with good mecha action, I don’t recommend it. Heck, the average viewer would find it hard to stay awake through the dull plot or the simple fact it is a mecha show. Don’t believe a single person who claims this is some sort of masterpiece when it fails to be good even among its contemporaries.