The Spring 2025 Anime Preview Guide

Moonrise

With the invention of specialized elevators, it became possible to colonize the moon, and now, humanity is split between inhabiting both planets. But the moon-dwellers aren't pleased with how Earth has been treating them, and a "moonrise" is coming. Jack Shadow, the adopted son of the people who commercialized the elevators, is living an indolent life in L.A. when the moonrise happens. Will he give up his privileged life at the behest of his old friend Phil?

Moonrise is an original project by writer Tow Ubukata and Wit Studio. The anime series is streaming on Netflix on Thursdays.

Moonrise could have had an immaculate first episode, and I still would have deducted at least a star for the final line of the episode: after a holographic rebellion leader makes a rousing speech about how the moon must secede from Earth, he shouts, “Moon, rise up! MOONRISE!” While I wasn't impressed with the script overall, this line was so cheesy it left me breathless. My husband and I spent the next twenty minutes shouting, “MOONRISE!” at each other. When my cat, Maya, screamed at me for dinner, I shouted “MAYARISE.” My husband just turned to me and said, “Moonkanda forever.” It is just too ripe for mockery.

We were already primed for this by just how jarring the episode's conclusion was. It started in media res with a bunch of pretty young adults traveling in military vehicles before being assaulted by either robots or enemy soldiers in power suits before jumping back to one of those pretty young adults as a small child and his brother trudging through a fiery landscape—and finally jumping forward to those same pretty young adults doing the kind of stuff rich people in Los Angeles get up to. However, there was zero work put into establishing what the conditions were like on the moon and why they would resent Earth's government. But, well, that's Tow Ubukata for you! Proper noun mush and poor pacing is pretty much synonymous with his name in the circles I run in.

To be clear, the episode wasn't an awful way to spend a half an hour. Jake Shadow's friends are a bunch of spoiled brats, and Jake does a good impression of one himself. The episode was quite beautiful overall; while orbital elevators have been around as a science fiction concept for a long time, the fanfare of the rich corporatists around the opening of a new shaft creates a sense of dazzling opulence. As previously established, all the characters are very pretty, thanks to designs by Hiromi Arakawa, and the contrast between their exhausted expressions in the cold opening versus them swanning around a pleasure cruise is effective.

But there was a pervasive sense of disconnect for the entire episode. I could tell the characters were the same people, but none of the time jumps seemed connected in any way. I never had a sense of what was happening, what we were building up to; in fact, there was little sense of buildup at all. And still, I'm not sure what Jake's long-lost brother has to do with the moon rebelling—or what that has to do with the AI that's running the world. I don't mean that it made me feel intrigued, like made me want to see how all the pieces fit together; it just felt incongruous.

But at the very least, my husband and I have a new in-joke, and what could possibly be more important?

I know a lot of people these days are down on “in medias res” to start a story. (To quote Rick and Morty, “We should start our stories where they begin, not where they get interesting.”) But man, if any story did need to start in the middle, it's Moonrise.

The first part of this episode is an action set piece where our heroes defend a train on the moon from hordes of Terminator-style endoskeleton robots. The characters make use of the lunar gravity and crazy sci-fi technology in their fight. From weapons that change forms mid-battle to capes that act as boosters—changing their direction on the fly—it's super exciting to watch. It's a perfect way of setting expectations for what the series will become—which is important because the rest of the episode could not be more different.

Basically, we see that these badass gun fighters used to be a member of the ultra-rich, his girlfriend, and his entourage. Our lead, Jacob, is suffering from imposter syndrome and survivor's guilt. He's an orphan adopted by the richest couple in the world and feels like he doesn't deserve to be. Because of this, he distances himself from his adoptive parents and acts like a shallow rich-boy/screw up—sabotaging his own life as some kind of subconscious penance.

And, of course to give both motivation and pathos, just as he's ready to accept his adoptive parents, the world falls apart. The moon declares independence and destroys the power transfer system between the two worlds—blacking out the entire earth in the process. Then pieces start falling from space and a lot of people die—including his parents. It's one hell of a cliffhanger to end on—and one sure to make people check out episode two.

All in all, this is a great first episode. It shows both where our heroes come from and where they are going in spectacular fashion—and, more than that, makes their motivations clear. Now to find the time to watch the remaining 17 episodes.

I had completely forgotten that Moonrise was a Studio Wit production, but it didn't take me very long to figure it out. Within a minute or so of starting the first episode on Netflix, my first thought was, “This feels just like Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, but in space, and with evil robots!” There's just something about getting a bunch of heroes into a cramped train compartment and forcing them to fight off hordes of enemies that never gets old, I'll tell you what. I suppose it doesn't hurt that Moonrise's production values are drop-dead gorgeous to behold. This is right up there with Lazarus and GQuuuuuuX with the season's most technically brilliant premieres, and this season is hardly lacking for contenders.

That said, there is something about Moonrise that left me feeling rather cold by the time the credits rolled on its premiere. After such a thrilling opening sequence, we spend most of the episode back in the days leading up to the conflict, where we get to meet a whole bunch of rich Future Yuppies in the days before they get swept up in the simmering Moon War. It's not a bad premise at all for a science-fiction yarn birthed from the brain of Tow Ubukata, he of Psycho-Pass fame, but there's nothing about this story that really hooks me, yet. The characters are all vaguely likeable but systemically insufferable Pretty Cartoon Protagonist Types, and so much of the dialogue flows in one ear and out the other as exposition that is ostensibly important yet terminally forgettable.

This may partly be an issue of localization, which has the tendency to make the already blunt and too-obvious dialogue sound borderline parodic. The show is so determined to make Jack into the archetypal reluctant hero who has to shed his playboy ways to become the hero that the world needs, but goddamn if it can't even get through a single conversation without me gawking at some of these lines. At one point, Jack's father turns to the screen and says—and I quote—“Jack, I know you like to hide behind this reckless facade, but are you still ashamed of your adoption?” Later, a shocking encounter with some traveler from beyond the bounds of time and space ends with the stranger screaming, “I need your strength for the sake of the moon!”

There are only two explanations for this dialogue. The first—and most plausible—explanation is that the script for Moonrise simply isn't on par with its rock-solid animation. The second possibility is much more tantalizing, though: Moonrise was, in fact, written by Garth Marenghi. The almost spiteful refusal to even consider the possibility of relying on subtext would certainly make a lot of sense, in that case. Either way, I wouldn't expect a landmark tale of capital-g "Great Science-Fiction" from Moonrise, but it will still probably end up being a fun time fighting an army of evil moonbots.

The best science fiction has something to say about our present world, and Moonrise is aware of that. It's too soon to elevate it to the upper echelons of the genre. Still, its first episode does feel at least a little timely as it opens on a story where the privileged upper classes party and game on superyachts while their colonies on the moon foment rebellion. Did the suspiciously-named Shadow Corporation do more than build the technology that allows easy travel between the earth and her satellite? We don't know yet, but watching the ship be taken out by the very tech it's celebrating feels apt, if not just.

Of course, it's not technically their fault – even the name is taken from its founder's family name, Shadow. But there's still a sense that the Shadows are out-of-touch, at least to a degree, and that maybe that's because they're busy living their champagne dreams. Only Jake, their adopted son, seems aware of the disconnect between how his family lives and the rest of the world. He does a good job playing the role of spoiled, indolent son, but there are hints that his life before he became a Shadow was anything but kind. There's a strong implication that he and his friend Phil lived in a group home on the moon and that Phil did something to orchestrate Jake's survival. Jake appears to have believed that Phil did so at the cost of his own life, but that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case by the end of the episode – and I suspect that if he got to choose, Jake might pick Phil over his cushy life.

It's a strong opening. The episode does an excellent job of showing rather than telling, allowing us to draw our own conclusions about Jake and his world, and the contrast between him and Rhys, who is very preoccupied with Jake being who and where he's supposed to be, is well set up. We know from the flash-forward opening that Rhys will realize that there are bigger fish to fry, but right now, she represents the idea that Jake owes something to his family that he might disagree with. She's uptight in a particular way that contrasts with Jake, interestingly.

This also looks and sounds really good. I'm particularly impressed by the sound design, which knows how to use silence almost better than sound. There are two moments where events unfold without any noise, allowing us to focus on the nuance of the characters' reactions. I think the sub cast is slightly better than the dub, mostly because side characters, like Jake's father, sound stilted in the dub, but it's not a question of one being overwhelmingly better. Moonrise is a little disjointed in its opening episode, possibly on purpose, but it's still off to a good start. Serious science fiction fans should check it out.