Brave Bang Bravern!

Episode 12

Brave Bang Bravern! episode 12 closes out an excellent season with a finale that is as bombastic as it is expected.

So if you've ever watched a super robot show, you can probably predict 80% of what happens in this episode. That's not a bad thing mind you, but if you're looking for a lot of curveballs you probably won't find them (though of course if you're looking for another kind of balls…). Part of what makes a genre fun and relatable is knowing precisely what you are going to get and loving every second of it. There are tearful goodbyes, shocking transformations, shining golden alternate modes, unexplained powerups, outrageous punches, mecha turning into swords, and final boss god-beings exploding all over the place. If you thought to yourself “Gee I wonder if Smith and Isami will punch an eldritch horror with the borrowed shining spirit bomb power of - among other things - an AWAC pilot” then you were correct cause hot dang we got that and so much more. A Masami Ōbari production with Brave in the title twice had better end with explosive mecha punches, otherwise, I'd be upset.

There's some fairly solid emotional reconciliation here as well. Isami unpacks his deal, never quite understanding why he could not connect to the idea of being a hero like other kids could. All it took was someone caring about him enough to time travel and make love to him via mecha merging to make him realize that he did want to be a hero. This is great, cause it also means we get an obvious Ultraman jump-towards-the-screen-fist-high shot and, once again, that's all I want in my media. Smith, Isami, and Lulu end up buck naked, crying, happy, and hugging at the end, in what is somehow the least sexual scene in the entire series thus far. It's a moment you can cheer for and it's nice that everyone survived to boot.

The only fault other than being rather by the numbers is that there isn't a higher number of episodes to watch. I would have loved to see another dozen entries at least filling out the rest of the cast, but alas. Hopefully, we get more like this in the future.

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Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Brave Bang Bravern! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.