Tenchou's review- Infinite Stratos IS 1-3

International harem, with not one, but two tsundere childhood friends! = WIN

Before you scroll down, the bottom image is NSFW, you have been warned.


Alright, I have decided to review Infinite Stratos as one of the episodic reviews I will do this season. The reason was pretty simple, Mecha + beautiful girls (not just loli-moe crap) + somewhat of a story = Good for me. Let's get started!

IS' backstory is somewhat interesting with these pseudo-mecha that can only be pilot by these lovely ladies, and with the Ichika being the only male capable of using an IS, it sets up for a pretty good plot twist or even a plotline later on. The 'only male tossed into the a whole lot of girls' theme is getting old, but hell it's a cheap and effective way to set up a harem, so I am not going be too picky with it. This anime also seem to utilize on archtypes a lot....I mean, not one, but TWO tsunderes in Houki and Rin, and they are both childhood friends to boot. Seriously, usually one would settle for a tsundere or a childhood friend, to combine the two into Houki was already pretty awesome, adding an extra one is just win in terms in harem lovability . Then we have a British snobbish, tsuntsun character in Cecilia, possibly a 'lively' character in that Italy French one and the silent type in that German one (both had not appeared in anime so I'm speculating on looks alone), we have a pretty good harem crew going. It's pretty unfair for someone like me to be watching this anime, even if the story had suck balls, I would still watch it because of the two tsunderes, damn those producers!

With the crew aside, the story might not be half bad with the whole idea of 'IS usage for sports only'. My speculation would be the story will eventually turn to full-out world war with IS because of some illegal IS and Ichika will be there to save the day. Typical but should be enjoyable to watch.

Now what I do have beef with IS is the art. Although the general stuff is done with pretty good quality with very few distortions in the three episodes, I absolutely hate 3D rendering in anime. I hate it with a passion, it takes away from the anime, it takes away from the art. It's not creative, it doesn't look cool, it's crap. If you are going to draw the mecha, draw it! The cost of drawing it may be higher, but in my opinion the anime comes out MUCH better with more consistency in terms of the mecha to background. 3D rendering should be reserved for 3D rendering shows, movies and games, not anime.

Alright...so next up is the actual story and not the overview. Ichika is your typical ultra-dense main character that needs to use his brain once in awhile, so I hope Rin or someone can pound some senses into this guy. I highly doubt that will happen next episode, but from the preview it seems like we can expect some good fight then an unexpected twist. I just hope we don't waste half the season introducing the characters since we only have 12 episodes to this series, let's get to some actual story soon!

Let me leave you off with this (NSFW):

Title image was taken from Animesuki's forum, and the last one was off somewhere on the interwebs~