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In my grand (?) tradition of adding other shows together to achieve new ones. I hereby declare that idolmaster is what happens when you add Evangelion and Angelic Layer together, then throw in a splash of moe obsession…

Basic story is that the moon has exploded. This is bad. Tidal levels are all thrown out of whack, and the moon is made out of rocks. These rocks like to interfere with cell reception when they’re not falling out of the sky. But that’s not a problem when the world has a country like Japan, where they can just launch little girls into space to fight the falling debris.

It’s funny, it’s slightly quirky. It’s also pretty standard issue girl- from- the- sticks- who- thinks- she’s- gonna- be- a- rock- star- winds- up- driving- a- giant- robot- to- save- the- planet- from- falling- meteors fare. Penny enjoyed it sufficiently that I think we’re gonna try to follow this one if at all possible.

The year is 2035 and a strange blight has wiped out much of the planet. For some reason, the UN has somehow managed to convince nations to wage a “wise” war against each other – where each country provides a champion to duel it out with other nations champions. In big robots.

The mecha are CG, and their art doesn’t quite fit, but it’s better than it could be. The show’s art in general is much more on the realistic side. Everyone has brown hair, has more realistic eyes and facial shapes, etc… I like it. Penny’d probably hate it though. The music didn’t do anything for me. In fact, 5 minutes after watching episode one, I don’t remember anything about the music, so I guess I’ll just file it under forgettably typical.

Despite the cliche wrappings, this one looks pretty good. It’s being subbed by one of my favorite groups, so that’s also a plus.

So far… shrug. It’s definitely got some sort of period setting to it. The title suggests that this is somehow related to the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. But koutetsu (鋼鉄)? It means ’steel’, so shrug. Some generic war reference perhaps? Shrug.

Nothing I’m seeing is overtly reminiscient of the Sanguo period, at least nothing matches up with my admittedly limited knowledge of the age. Episode one introduces us to two nations, ‘Gi’ and ‘Go’. And there’s a magical cube that makes people jump around and grow mecha arms and throw lightning and stuff. And ninjas steal things.

I’m not horribly impressed with the show, and I don’t think it has anything to do with my lack of enthusiasm coming in. And, I don’t think it’s just that I’m being turned off by the yaoi overtones in our hero’s relationship with his master. I’m honestly… just kind of bored with the show. It’s a lightly scifi flavoured retelling of a fantasy retelling of one of the most highly romanticized periods in Chinese history… and everything feels a bit too watered down.

That said, the art is decent, the animation is decent. The facial close-ups annoy me – it feels like they distort the proportions. Meh. I’m not really planning on watching episode two of this one, but I won’t walk out of the room if somebody else puts it on.