The following may contain spoilers for Bang Brave Bang Bravern.
Director / Masami Obari
Screenplay / Keigo Koyanagi
Production / Cygames Pictures
Release Date / January 2024
At the time of this review, we’ve already gone through the first half of 2024. And with confidence, I’ll gladly say that it’s been a great year for mecha fans so far. It marks several anniversaries, including Gundam’s 40th, and the 30th for both Magic Knight Rayearth and G Gundam. It will also see the return of legacy franchises like the new Grendizer U anime, and the massively successful Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM, both of which are helmed by Mitsuo Fukuda. But before we got here, 2024 was kicked off by an initially unknown anime that quickly became an overnight discussion sensation. Yes, I am talking about the return of veteran mecha animation director Masami Obari to the director’s chair to helm Bang Brave Bang Bravern.
I got wind of the series around mid-2023 and outside of Obari’s name being attached to the production, it seemed like a more conventional real robot series, like Kyoukai Senki. The posters and visuals told me the same, although the title gives off a completely different vibe. If it’s from Obari and has “brave” in the title, then we could potentially see something crazy, right? That’s the question most in the community had while waiting for its January 2024 premiere. And once it came, everyone was eagerly anticipating whether all the marketing was accurate or they’re all a clever misdirect. For the first half, it did appear to be a military-focused real robot show. But when the invasion came during the second half of the episode and we saw what’s essentially a Brave mecha lifted from the 90s, we all knew we were in for one heck of a ride this season. And so, it might’ve taken me several months afterwards to pull all my unsolicited thoughts, but I won’t let this one slip by as we check out Bang Brave Bang Bravern or basically what happens when you let Obari go wild.
Bravern starts in a military base located in Hawaii and as part of Japanese-American joint exercises, we meet Isami Ao and Lewis Smith. Following this, robotic aliens known as Deathdrives start attacking the base and invade the rest of the planet. When all hope seems lost, a mysterious hot-blooded talking mecha calling himself Bravern appears out of nowhere and asks Isami to come inside him and fight. Bravern, along with Isami, Smith, and the rest of the Allied Task Force then set out to know more about the Deathdrives and reclaim Earth.
Let’s get things out of the way, besides the great mecha animation and action direction, Bravern‘s charm are the characters, and the rather crazy situation they have to deal with. For starters, Isami isn’t your typical mecha pilot and is more of a Shinji Ikari who’s quite reluctant to pilot Bravern. On the opposite end is Smith who always wanted to be the hero since childhood and thanks to the events of the series, he becomes that hero. Together, Obari threw the brakes out of the window, presented their chemistry as something fun to watch, especially if you belong to a certain demographic. You can check out the ending credits online and you’ll see what I mean. Of course, we can’t forget our titular super robot Bravern who is a self-aware representation of the genre. You know the background animation used when a super robot does its signature pose? Bravern literally shows the same animation behind him during battle. You know the stereotype when the opening theme song plays in the background? Bravern also has built-in speakers to play songs both inside and outside the cockpit. During downtimes, Bravern even builds models, just like me and any mecha fan — one of which is his power up support unit later on. I can list more here but basically, Bravern isn’t just the de facto titular character, he’s a fan of the genre placed inside the genre.
Going into even more characters, Bravern also has a hot-blooded rival named Superbia, and to an extent, Lulu. Lulu initially gave an impression of a fan-service character but turned out to be more integral to the story than anyone could imagine. While we didn’t see Superbia combined with Bravern as typical of these rival characters/machines, the audience grew attached to him as much as with Lulu. They also allowed us to know more about these Deathdrives and what they really wanted. We also have the rest of the Allied Task Force who, despite being trained soldiers, are still caught off guard by the events that happened, and the shenanigans with Bravern.
Animation production was done by Cygames Pictures, the in-house animation studio for game publisher Cygames and while they don’t have an extensive portfolio, the animation quality for Bravern is quite good, especially with its use of cell-shaded CGI. Not to mention having animation direction provided by Masami Obari itself so you will get a lot of those perspective shots and exaggerated angles. If you’re a long-time fan of the genre, then you know exactly what I’m referring to. I also appreciate the different directing choices made in some of the scenes, particularly when they showed the alternate timeline Lulu came from. Overall, there is great production value and it’s easily reflected in the quality of the series.
It’s not every day that we get a mecha series that doesn’t take itself seriously and pokes fun of the genre and all its tropes — and Bravern excellently does all. The perfect mix of silliness and epic action, along with very likeable characters and an interesting story ultimately leads to a very entertaining series that any fan should watch. I wanted to say the now-standard 12-episode seasonal anime format is a little short for Bravern but they were able to tell a complete story and while I wouldn’t mind additional works in this universe, how it ended is quite perfect for me.
