Robotics;Notes
Plot:
Akiho Senomiya joined the Robotics club at her school to continue her sister’s dream of building a to-scale, working, giant robot Gunvarrel from a popular television series. Her sister had to leave the school before it was finished, somewhat disenfranchised with robots in general at that point. However with the help of her friend Kaito Yashio, a less than model student who loves fighting robot games, and other robotically inclined club members they work to complete the robot and answer the question, “What would happen if people really tried to build a giant robot?” But, things are never so simple, and in the process they encounter a number of mysteries.
Staff:
There aren’t too many notable members of the staff. However, surprisingly, the director wasn’t involved in Steins;Gate or Chaos;Head in which the world of Robotics;Notes is loosely fits into. But, note, you don’t need to, or have to, see the other two shows to watch Robotics;Notes.
Studio:
The production was done by Studio I.G. so the animation is very tasteful, slightly realistic feeling but still in a “traditional” anime style.
Review:
At the beginning of Robotics;Notes I was interested in where the show would be going. To come from an off-shoot of the universe of the much loved Steins;Gate I had hope for it. Robotics;Notes is also based off a visual novel game, much like Steins;Gate, and while I have never played it I still hoped the existing content could help the series.
I felt the anime started out a little slow, however, what I did like was that even though it was a little slow it was because of the realism they were trying to achieve with it. The show did work to have a realistic approach to high-school kids building a giant robot. Granted, there are some liberties that had to be taken with this that made the anime feel disconnected with it’s goal. For example, in “real” life the majority of the kids in the club would need to be technological geniuses. How would a school have that much space just hanging out to hold a giant robot for like 6 years? Where did they get the money? They answer that question some by having to win contests to gain funding and verify funding from the school. But the amount of money required for this project I feel would be so massive (as it’s only set in 2019 – not that far into the future) that it’s just crazy to contemplate High School students having access to that kind of funding.
Some things they did get right, I’ll give credit where credit is due for that. For example the team did have a number of setbacks and, a slight spoiler from the middle of the series, the first time they took out the robot it didn’t even really work. They also had people from high-ranking organizations like JAXA interested in the project at the point of the unveiling.
But the things they “got right” didn’t weigh up to enough for me when the GOAL of the anime was to tackle that question of being a “realistic” answer of what would happen if kids built a giant robot.
That being said, the show was solidly decent throughout the first arc when this was the only question of the show. It was a fairly straight-forward show in what it was trying to say and accomplish and for that it actually was solidly engaging throughout it.
However, the second half of the show, after about episode 11, began to just feel messy. It started to feel like an entirely different show. They began introducing new people and new arcs that felt like they never had proper resolutions. There was plot, and subplot, and I feel like the goal the anime set out to achieve and was in the first half got lost in all of the chaos that occurred during this time.
Also during this time I began to care even less. The anime had barely has my attentions due to the aforementioned contradictions but it lost it even more during this time.
Overall, I feel this show could have been something but was too ambitious in most areas that it ended up falling flat.
[starrater]