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Last edited by Tony K. on Tue Jan 26, 2021 4:13 pm; edited 3 times in total

EX-ARM (TV)

Genres: action, sci-fi
Themes: androids, cyberpunk, mecha, police

Plot Summary: High school student Akira Natsume's brain is saved when he is involved in a traffic accident, and it later becomes part of an advanced weapon. Akira cooperates with the police's EX-ARM countermeasure division in order to regain his lost memories and body.
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EPISODE INDEX

(Clicking on the episode will take you to my post that has a summary, comments, and screen-caps)

Battle 001: Forbidden Weapon
Battle 002: Day of Judgement
Battle 003: Angel of Murder
Battle 004:
Battle 005:

Battle 006:
Battle 007:
Battle 008:
Battle 009:

Battle 010:
Battle 011:
Battle 012:
Battle 013:

Oh my god, you actually made a topic of this Tony K, you really spent your Earthly time making a topic for the EX-ARM anime. Well, I suppose I could just copy paste my comment I put in the watching now topic in the general anime section for episode 2.

(pasted)
I can't believe that this is the year 2021 and I am watching an anime like Ex-ARM, god I am not going to create a lone topic. I don't know if it was a case of me not noticing in the first episode, but the second episode had several moments that just left me going "oh my god!", it is amazing.

There are some okay uses of the CG characters, like a machine can be okay, where you might even want something to look a bit unnatural. But the biggest problem with the second episode I noticed was its complete failure at facial animation, no one's face changes, which means you have some girl talking about a terrorist attack with a big grin on her face, it is amazing that this got through.

But worse than the uses of cg animation are actually the 2D animation, some of the characters are actually done in 2D, and generally in just static character designs that are exactly the complain people have of the idea of anime. Or, it had a 2D character move and there was practically no in-between animation. Laughing

It even tries to create some movement or something in the scene zooming in on the characters, where you can see the pixels from upscaling the 2D image.

It is a marvel when you have thoughts to things like Knights of Sidonia and BBK/BRNK.

I feel very alone. I actually don't mind this show. Sure, some of it looks like ass, but the story is fairly standard. I'm interested in seeing what Brain in a Box and his female colleagues are going to get up to. I think the hatred for this show is a little outside of what it actually deserves.

Last edited by Tony K. on Thu Jan 28, 2021 3:40 am; edited 6 times in total

Battle 001: Forbidden Weapon

Summary: In the year 2014, Akira tried to be a hero, only to be knocked out, then wake up in 2030. But his brain is now digitized and in a suitcase being retrieved by Minami and her android partner, Alma. Apparently, Akira's brain has been categorized as something called an "EX-ARM" and is part of something much bigger than he realizes.
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Comments: Why am I reviewing this? I dunno. Probably 'cause it'll be easy. I've seen anime with shit production, but still turn out okay, story-wise (I love Kingdom). I think it's also 'cause I'm in the process of watching all iterations of Appleseed, and just finished the original OVA from '88 and the Alpha movie from '14 (still need to watch the XIII TV series). That franchise has always been notorious for weird looking CG animation, and I thought "how bad can this (EX-ARM) really be?"

Well, it's pretty bad. I thought Pierrot was low-budget, but holy shit, could these people not even afford to have them do this? My gf saw this playing in the background and asked "why are they floating?"

I will say, however, they really try to emphasize movements in the choreography. The hand-to-hand combat stuff with Alma and the goons in the shipyard reminded me of the Matrix movies, and I actually thought that part was a good effort to show off some of the action. My guess is this rookie studio has little to no money, so they're just having interns and students working on all the art and animation, and they gotta' start somewhere.

I really like the key art for this, though. I'm guessing that's from the manga artist. Too bad they couldn't draw it like anything close to that. I'm also not a fan of the weird punk rock OP and ED, either. The actual score seems okay, although somewhat generic techno and synth.

This has "low-budget" written all over it. But we'll see if it goes anywhere. I am actually intrigued with where the writing might go.

Manga differences:
spoiler[
- There is absolutely no reference to Akira being the cause of the Tokyo disaster. That whole clip was added for dramatic effect.
- On his way home from school, Akira meets Kaori, his big bro's, gf and fixes the earbuds on her phone, but the screen makes him dizzy and he trips into her bosom. She didn't mind and just brushed it off, but also wanted to take a selfie of them to celebrate the successful repair of the earbuds.
- At dinner, Shuuichi (big bro) tells Akira he met Kaori at university and that they both had an interest in androids. And there's actually zero talk about mom and dad. Akira was just wondering how Yuuichi changed from the chubby awkward kid into the man he is.
- In the truck that hits Akira, you don't actually see the driver or the truck before Akira leaves the store, but he had a picture of the selfie Kaori took and you can actually see possible EX-ARM markings on his wrist at the corner of the panel.
- The scene where Kimura and Kondo are walking down the hall never happened. And the briefing was not run by Chikage, just a random guy. It is also split between the people in chairs running comms for the mission and a separate flashback talking about the location of EX-ARM 00.]

spoiler[
- The Through Hand guy is supposed to initially show up and kill the rest the team and a few other baddies on the boat; he actually wields a sword in his non-EX-ARM hand and chopped a couple heads open.
- When he popped out the wall in the hallway to kill the other baddies (there were 2, not 1), he actually put his hand through the back of the guy's head and out his mouth, then pulled him into the wall. He then phased through Minami's vest (she's actually wearing tactical gear with a helmet, vest, and pads) to cop a feel, and then knocked her out.
- When he has her tied up, he was actually planning to harvest her organs, because he sells them on the black market as a side-job. He also cuts her uniform dress open with a knife to expose her (bra-less) boobs and undies to be pervy, then licks her foot, before hovering the knife by her nipple saying she smells like a virgin. He phased his finger through her belly and was about to pull her undies down, till Alma showed up.
- When Through Hand guy knocks Alma out, it was actually with a taser to the back of her head.
- Chief Shiga doesn't actually show up at the end, it's another random guy. And Minami and Alma are not even a part of EX-ARM Counter Squad, yet.
- The anime ends at Chapter 04, but the beginning of Episode 02 with Shiga, Chikage, and the first bombing are the last two chapters (5 and 6) of Vol.1. Shiga actually interrogated Akira, while Alissa watched. And they even went as far as torturing Akira by keeping him conscious, but in a state of hibernation so he could still be fully aware, but with zero sensation, which drove him quite crazy.]
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Caps:

EDIT: Added a whole bunch of manga differences.

@ Tony K. - I'll look forward to seeing somebody review this with an open mind and not just, "ha ha, I'm doing it for the lulz!" attitude.

I didn't go into the second episode expecting to be about the lulz, but then you have things like a character smiling as they give the news that there was a suicide bombing. How is that not hillarious at the expense of the show? I am sure that as anime fans we have had our time being familiar with shows that try really hard with limited animation, and even having some high tolerance to some.

I can call myself a fan of something like RWBY, and I feel a bit of mention where some action stuff did not feel too different, where the models do not always work best. But then you have a scene of whatever happened in the second episode when the bad guy I think was going to make his pilot explode. The robot girl gets into the helicopter, and then something happens with no indication on screen where the villain is falling, I think that he was sniped by the other guys, it was really bad at explaining what happened, and the upside down helicopter just made it more funny.

I don't just watch things wanting them to be bad, and I have really wanted Crunchyroll originals to do better, that I would describe myself of thing Onyx Equinox was pretty awful, but I got kind of invested halfway through, although the swearing felt really out of place. So I Am A Spider, feels like the first Crunchyroll original that actually feels fantastic, not another webtoon that I can barely watch. But as the same time as that show is coming out it is really being balanced with this show. With Cyberpunk 2077 having a pretty awful initial release, I have still tried to stay positive with it, but EX-ARM anime is beyond that.

Just so you know, DP, I wasn't including you in the "ha ha, I'm just doing it for the lulz" crowd.

Last edited by Tony K. on Thu Jan 28, 2021 3:48 am; edited 3 times in total

Battle 002: Day of Judgement

Summary: Upon being confiscated, Akira is recruited into the Counter EX-ARMs Squad, a police unit in charge of locating, dealing with, and apprehending persons in possession of EX-ARM weapons. And in the wake of a suicide bombing, there's a group led by a man arming its followers with a mark that turns them into human bombs. The group threatens to detonate one "bomb," out of a hundred, every 5 minutes, if their demands aren't met.
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Comments: I'm not gonna' continue dogging on the art and animation quality, as it seems to be a pretty moot point, and I've accepted the fact that it's just never gonna' look good, unless (fingers crossed) Madhouse, Production I.G., or someone awesome does a reboot.

I will say that the illustrations by the manga artist got me a tad curious, so I looked up the manga, and wow, it looks really good. It has quite a bit of explicitness with fan service, ecchi elements, nudity, and gore. I would approximate it to a cyberpunk version of Tenjou Tenge (a great smutty action drama), if anyone wants a reference. I'm a bit bummed the anime adaptation isn't even close to justly representing those details, but oh well.

One thing that struck me about the plot in this episode was the mention of "technology that hasn't been invented yet," which seems to imply that maybe all this EX-ARMs stuff might actually be from the future? They don't really give us a whole lot about what EX-ARMs even are, or where they come from. But the whole "tech from the future" theory could be a part of the equation.

After looking at the manga, they seem to be adapting about one volume per episode. However, in an interview, it looks like they're only doing 12 episodes (but with 14 volumes, which means a little condensing will be done).

Manga differences (there are a lot, bear with me):
spoiler[
- The prologue with Shiga talking to Akira, and then the bomber blowing himself up actually belong with Vol.1 of the manga, so they moved it over a bit. The interrogation of Akira from Shiga is also much more harsh. Refer to Episode 01's notes.
- Chikage driving Akira around was also part of the end of Vol.1; more moving around. But there are also panels showing the fallout of the Attack and lots of homeless children.
- Also part of Vol. 1: Minami was investigating the crime scene and actually knew Koharu (the girl who was detained). Minami occasionally gave her money for information.
- There's a whole other scene of Minami asking a homeless girl if she recognized the marking. Then the panel transitions to Koharu kneeling and praying in front of a framed picture of Jesus with a big cross at the top of the frame, then Father Anzai patting the other girl on the head spouting religious affirmation.
- The "genetic extraction" scene with Alma and Minami actually takes place in a tunnel with a bunch of cables connecting to stuff around the city. It's just them and Akira with nobody else. And the kiss from Alma is actually of the French variety with visible tongue (hee hee).
- Koharu's original target was a president of a corporation named Shugen Toh, who was under suspicion of murdering his secretary. During the attempted bombing, Minami found her and tried to stop her, but failed. Akira/Alma shows up before Koharu can fully detonate and comes up with the idea of freezing Koharu in liquid nitrogen.]

spoiler[
- Although Koharu fails, there's actually a second and successful attempt from a single mother who throws herself off a bridge in front of her child and blows herself and Toh's car up. Her kid (who looked six or seven year-old) sits on the bridge crying and screaming for her mom.
- The raid on the church is quite different. All the followers inside are actually children (who are all marked as bombs), and there's also a nun. When Kimura and Kondo try to take the Father down, he says something that ends up hypnotizing Kimura to turn on Kondo. They later attribute the hypnotism to something that affects visual sensation. But it actually turns out Kondo is blind, which they never imply in the anime.
- When the Father escapes, Alma and Minami chase him down. Minami takes a shortcut and catches up to him, first. As she's chasing him, some of his bodyguards are jumping out of the car and acting as bombs to thwart the chase, which is enough to flip her car. When she gets out the car thinking she lost tack of them, she gets knocked out by the Father, then marked as a bomb.
- In the helicopter chase, the Father is convinced he was a war veteran at some point in his life, but he actually wasn't. He was an engineer and lost his arm in a construction accident. Akira found this information from a deep dive on the 'net and tried to use that information to make the Father snap out of his delusion. But he wouldn't have it, then tried to mark and blow himself up.
- When the father is sniped by Kondo, Kimura isn't even with him. And with the Father dying, it made all the bomb marks on people disappear, hence saving Minami.
- The pilot of the helicopter is actually the one who grabbed the Father's corpse, then threw himself and the Father out of the helicopter and to his (the pilot's) death. When they try to recover the EX-ARM from the body, it's gone. And it was stolen by the nun, who was actually undercover for some other shady group trying to acquire the EX-ARMs.]

spoiler[
- The beginning of Episode 03 shows everybody eating food together. That didn't happen in the manga and is actually the last chapter (13) of Vol. 2. It actually introduces a classified top-floor penthouse that Chikage used to own, but is now being used as a temporary HQ for the Counter squad members. Alissa built holographic emitters into the public areas of the penthouse so Akira would have a visual representation of himself.

Originally, it's just Akira there with all the women (a harem situation). And then it gets a little ecchi with Chickage wearing a nightgown to accentuate her cleaveage, Minami and Alma bathing, then Akira "accidentally" peeping in on them. Chikage says everyone is welcome to make themselves at home, but she's not a good cook. Akira volunteers to do it, then Alma French kisses Minami to extract genetic coding with a long string of saliva connecting their tongues (hee hee), letting Akira take over Alma, and then he cooks and has his first taste of food in a long time. So at least that part in the anime about having sensations is accurate (Kimura and Kondo weren't there).

Later that evening, they broke out a very expensive bottle of Romanee-Conti from 1990. Akira goes out on the balcony to talk to the gals about human psyche, android programed behaviors, and wanting to get his body back. Chikage says if there's a way to do that, it might lie in the retrieval of all the EX-ARMs. And then Alissa comes out, super-drunk, trips, and pulls down Chikage's gown exposing her boobs. And then it transitions to a panel of the selfie Kaori took with Akira all that time ago, as well as a picture of her and Shuuichi. The woman in the panel (but with no face shown) says something about, "it's time, Shuuichi." So I'm guessing that woman is Kaori.]
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Caps:

EDIT: Added much more detailed manga differences.

Last edited by Tony K. on Thu Jan 28, 2021 4:00 am; edited 2 times in total

Battle 003: Angel of Murder

Summary: The team is sent to retrieve a possible EX-ARM from a man named Jason Mraw, a former dictator who was responsible for committing genocide on the people of the Mwange Republic in Africa. Mraw had sought asylum and currently resides in the S.E.Z., a kind of neutral territory located within Japan that provides diplomatic immunity to those that live there. He is protected by his android bodyguard (and maid), Elmira.
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Comments: I feel like this and the last episode are trying to do a little more world-building. Before Akira blacked out, we, at least, got some sense that technology was advanced enough for the concept of androids (maybe? Or maybe I'm just starting to get the manga details mixed up).

When Akira woke up, I feel the presence of EX-ARMs sort of escalated the world. What was once a concept of androids had evolved and become reality. People who were zealots or villains are now super- zealots or villains. And then you have Akira basically existing as a kind of on/off cyber-brain supercomputer that can hack and/or take over all sorts of electronic and robotic bodies to fight said villains.

At this point, the plot setup seems pretty basic: EX-ARM Counter Squad good guys going after power-abusing EX-ARM-using bad guys. And again, they allude to, but still don't explain, where this supposed future tech is coming from. But if there's anything I've learned from every other cyberpunk (both live-action and anime) title out there, it's probably gonna' be some kind of message about the dangers of artificial intelligence, some sprinkles of morality tales about the sins of man or corporate greed, and then society's over-reliance on technology leading to weapons of mass destruction.

Production-wise, we get another hand-to-hand combat sequence with Alma and Elmira. I don't feel it's not quite as strong or fluid as when Alma was taking down the goons in Episode 01, but it tries to mimic the kind of camerawork and choreography you see in a lot of action movies. Looking at the production credits, I saw a lot of Chinese names, so I'm wondering if they decided to really try and make the fights feel more kung-fu-y just to make this a little more unique.

On another note, last week I ended up watching a couple iterations of Appleseed for the Forum Badass Tournament: the XIII TV series from '11 and the Alpha movie from '14. As some of you may know, pretty much all iterations of that franchise past the original OVA from '88 are animated in CG. The movies look decent and sometimes even good; obviously, because they have much higher budgets and less time constraints than a show. But man, XIII looked bad. I was so distracted by how off-putting the art and animation were, I barely remember caring about any of the actual story. I would probably say it's as bad, if not slightly worse than this show, and that's saying something. The voice acting for this is pretty solid, though. I just really wish it looked better.

Normally, I don't like to bring manga into anime discussions, as I feel comparisons can lead to a lot of nitpicking. Seeing as how so many people are already nitpicking the visual quality of the anime, however (and rightfully so), and the fact that they cut a lot out of what's actually in Vol. 3, I figure if I push the manga enough, people will, at least, get interested in the that and give the franchise a fair shot.

Manga spoilers:
spoiler[
- First part of Vol.3 (Chapter 14) actually starts in the red light district. There's a man named Leon looking for Elmira who actually works as a sex-droid in a brothel somewhere. He was a doctor volunteering in Mwange during Mraw's dictatorship. His wife and daughter died in a car accident, and he lost his right leg. He then met another woman named Violet with a daughter, Marsha, who gave him the courage to keep living after losing his family. He was going to remarry, until Violet and Marsha were beheaded during the genocide. Then he vowed revenge, somehow got an EX-ARM leg, and is out to find Mraw though Elmira. When he initially goes to the brothel looking for Elmira, they try to beat him up without answering his question and he kills all the men running the place as well as the sex-droids.
- Kondo, Alma, and Akira (in suitcase) go to question Nguyen after the massacre to see if he knows anything, because he's the kind of guy that usually happens to know these things (think Lord Baelish from GoT). He knows what Akira and EX-ARMs are and says he'll help them find Mraw on the condition that he (Nguyen) gets to kill him.
- Meanwhile, Kimura and Minami followup the investigation by visiting a sex-droid otaku, who likes to frequent brothels and collect information for his database, about possible information on where to find Elmira.]

spoiler[
- Because of said massacre at the beginning, the squad is able to locate Elmira and sends Akira/Alma to go undercover as a sex-droid at her brothel, with Kondo acting as her owner. "Mom" is the name of the drag queen boss that runs that brothel, and after a conversation with Kondo (where Mom actually hits on Kondo), Elmira throws A/A on the bed to perform a rookie initiation to test the body's sexual performance. Elmira does all the work (boob sucking, then oral), but Akira is the one feeling the sensations and comments on how great the sex felt as a female. Afterward, when getting dressed, he looks at Alma's body in the mirror and remarks upon how incredible the female body looks and feels.
- There's a small inner-conversation between Akira and Alma talking about the evolution of androids becoming a normal thing. Initially, they were used as weapons in war and for sexual services, but then started replacing human workers. Alma sees androids as mere tools programmed to serve humanity, but Akira feels different and sees them as sentient beings.
- As part of being a rookie sex-droid, A/A is put charge of cleaning and maintaining other sex-droids by disinfecting and lubricating their genital areas.
- There is a later conversation Akira has with Mom, where he (Mom) starts referring to android women being made by human hands as the "perfect Eve" (as in, Eve from the Bible), and therefore, are the ideal woman, because they can accept human love, but without the complication of human lies.
- The sex-droid otaku that they questioned earlier is killed by Leon. After Leon learns Elmira's location, Nguyen finds him and recruits him into a temporary alliance.]

spoiler[
- While undercover, A/A is put with a man they call, Yasu-san, who's really into S&M. Akira is scared shitless on how to handle him, but Elmira steps in to take the bondage and whipping. When he hears her screaming, he thinks it's from pain, but it's just her playing the role. Her skin actually has the ability to regenerate, and then she goes on to say she took over not because she was looking out for Alma, but because she was programmed by her master to completely fulfill another human's happiness.
- Meanwhile, Kondo, Kimura, and Minami are investigating some debris left by Leon in an attack, who they nickname "The Ripper." But when they try to analyze, they are detained by the U.N. bots working the area. Kondo distracts the bots long enough for Minami to swipe some samples to analyze at the lab. When they do analyze it, they trace it to a military assassin droid, the big mech Elmira ends up using, later. The mech wasn't even sold by Nguyen, and he's not even mentioned as an arms dealer in the manga, either.
- The profile on Mraw isn't revealed super-early like in the anime. All the the other stuff above led to this moment. And Mraw was never trying to create and "android nation." He used the androids as muscle to execute people and make them live in fear like an actual dictator.
- A/A never actually fights Elmira. Leon is the one that fights her. And they don't even fight at the mansion, it's in an alley where Leon tried to ambush her. Akira tries to save Elmira after starting to believe she's sentient and happy. But it turns out Elmira possesses an EX-ARM, and her master programmed her to kill anyone who sees her using it. Leon manages to dismember Elmira's right leg. And even after Akira saves her from a death blow, Elmira attempts to behead him, until Kondo shows up and wounds Elmira's shoulder. Nguyen is watching from the background.]

spoiler[
- The squad regroups at a room in the brothel. Mom finds out they're all cops and offers them advice saying they can ask Yasu-san for help. Yasu-san actually turns out to be Administrative Vice Minister Yashuda who works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that's how they learn Mraw's wherabouts.
- Before the group leaves, one of the sex-droids that knows Elmira asks Minami to "please help Elmira." The scene was supposed to illustrate a little bit of the implied sentience/consciousness that Akira believes exists in androids.
- There's a raid on Mraw's mansion by Leon and some of Nguyen's goons, and they encounter a small army of androids. Meanwhile, Elmira dismembers her lower half below the waist on an operating table to put herself in the mech. You see a reflection on her eye of who's supposed to be Mraw, but you never actually see him talk, implying he might actually be dead, already, and that Elmira is acting on a type of free will, rather than programming.
- There is a flashback of when Leon tried to find and kill Mraw a first time. The room with the heads are the heads of his genocide victims. Turns out the EX-ARM that beheads them actually transported their heads, which Mraw was planning to use as face templates to build his own society of androids from. He actually goes into a big schpiel on how humans suck because their lust, greed, and emotions keep leading them to killing each other as "instinct." He believes androids are evolved beings in human form.
- While in the mech, Elmira actually kills all the goons with the EX-ARM (the doctor barely avoids getting hit with rockets). But then she starts going through the red light district, destroying places and killing innocent civilians with the EX-ARM, as well.
- There's a sex-droid Minami saves. In the anime, it shows other members of the crew running around. That doesn't happen. It's just Minami and the android getting chased by Elmira, until Akira manages to access that other mech.]
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Caps:

This entire show so far reeks of a team that has never animated, a director that never touched animation before, and relied too much on motion capture. Oh wait, that is what happened. The fact they saw this and said "yeah let's show this."

I know animation takes time and they probably didn't know exactly how bad this was going to look, but the fact you can tell they use edits and wonky cinematography to try and hide the shortcuts, it's telling.

So far, it's just the ultimate kind of bad movie night kind of experience. It's bad in about every way possible with the exception being that corny opening song.

Good grief. After trying to read parts of the manga and watch the anime for side-by-side comparisons, I spent hours editing manga differences into the episode reviews. Apologies for making them look like redacted reports, but there are some huge differences and omitted content. Past the first episode, I'm almost summarizing each freakin' volume. That's how different it is.

Again, I don't like to bring manga spoilers into anime, as I usually assume the anime is fairly accurate. But as each episode airs, they seem to be cutting more and more stuff out and completely changing the context of the story.

It's not just the art/animation quality or the fact that they're not incorporating the ecchi/TNA elements and gore that's starting to frustrate me. It's that there's so much writing they're not adapting! Philosophically, it's starting to get into GitS territory, even (programming vs. sentience and consciousness in androids).

If done properly, this easily could've been 24-26 episodes (1 vol. equaling 2 episodes), as each volume seems to get more and more complex. It's to the point that I'm turning this into a manga thread. I try to be optimistic and look for the good in things. But the way this anime is going, I feel like I'm just gonna' get more and more disappointed as it progresses.

This hunk of pig poop thought it could pull off an Evangelion Unit 1 Berserk mode? What the Fork?

This show keeps getting dumber and dumber and I just love how ineptly made it is.

This was the rare anime that I dropped after the first episode! I’m usually not picky with anime, but this show was a very rare exception. Seems that I definitely made the right choice!

Episode 4

Probably the most awkward parts are the ones where there is just silence. A better show can use those for impact, this one just has us looking the awful cg models. I have heard the one good thing the staff has are movie fight coordinators, but some of them just make me laugh and rewind at how bad it can be even in that area.

There was a particular fight where in his new battle bot he hit the mech's hand, raised the gun up to shoot as he was released from grasp, and then the perspective changed and he did a flip kick. He then started to run away then weirdly doubled back and ran up the wall to jump off of, the implication followed up that he noticed the beams holding the ceiling up and decided to break them. But it is so ineptly done with no emotion like body language or weight that it is just bad. It was why the berserk mode that happened in this episode was so bad, that we were required to have other characters tell us that he was fighting like a monster instead of it coming across in the movement, where he just has an open mouth and jumps far. You need more than just copying some elements.

Probably removing some of the fun, I really do think that if someone was smart with this show they would put the whole thing on hiatus, and figure out how to make it actually good for the rest of its show so it could be more than an ironic watch. That is at the very least find out how to express emotions on characters, how to give more weight to everything, not have effects that feel so cheap, and so on. It would not need to be perfect, it would practically be fine if it maybe took advantage of certain things it cannot do too well, a lot of other anime do exactly that. I can honestly say that Inferno Cop looks better presented than EX-ARM, because it at least leaned into areas it could pass and played into areas that it might have trouble. This show is going to become an example of what not to do in anime, and I feel bad for the people who have been pushed into it due to no fault of their own.

Episode 12 (finale)

Well that is over, and it still sucked all over. It has been one of the most baffling experiences of a professional piece of visual media I have watched, by the pure element that it does not at all feel like it is professional, except maybe those cases of the motion capture stuff. Although even those are probably questionable.

I don't think it is a fault against people who might assume that this show is just using easy to get premade assets and just throwing them together in a way that could make a story. The mixing of 3D and CGI characters is out of this world for this day and age for how bad it looks, the 2D just being embarrassing. The rigging of the CG models does not allow changing of facial expression, which ruins any emotional aspects, and sometimes despite the idea of motion capture being what this show had some of the models move like they are out of machinima (that is using a video game to make an animation). I just don't know who saw this stuff and thought it was acceptable.

Maybe actually improving things would have given it less attention, but I honestly do believe that this should have been a time where someone should have cancelled the run to greatly overhaul everything. I can only imagine that continuing to release this show would only hurt the careers of anyone attached, especially the source material. And it would have only been a smart idea to maybe be the show that started like an absolute garbage fire but came back a few months later looking actually passable, with the decision not to making me think some people thought there was nothing salvageable and it could kind of get away on meme potential. I am sure some people put in a lot of effort, and I think that it is tragic this is what they ended up attached to, and also that some people must have royally messed up.

I don't think I even mentioned the part of the animation I think is the worst. It is when they do zoom ins for images and you can see it becoming pixelated because the resolution was not made to be zoomed into. It is just so dang embarrassing. but bouncing off of this, there actually is one positive I can point to, the opening song actually sounds half decent, even if it looks dang awful, it might even be catchy if it wasn't attached to this show

Alright, giving the show a rating; mine is Bad (2/10), which I think is one of the lowest rating I have given. It is bad, maybe even awful, but there is an aspect to it that it is in the so bad it is actually kind of interesting to watch, so I can't really recommend it, but not quite an avoid at all costs.

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