Cadetes de mechas

I went into this with no expectations and was surprised to find superior animation, fully-fleshed-out characters, good symbiosis with their robots, and truly nasty and difficult-to-defeat monsters. For Kaiju fans, this will be a winner.

The one nagging question I had throughout (and thus the 8 stars instead of better)... where the blazes is the rest of the military? There are no tanks, no fighter planes, no missiles... nothing but a handful of comes-from-nowhere UNARMED alien robots (which have to be armed by the humans) to help the humans fight these giga-monsters from outer space? The lack of any other military is a major flaw here, with no reason whatsoever given for that lack.

The plot and animation are considerably superior to most giant-robot fare, the characters well-developed, and it had both a primary plot and mini-plots within. Each character had their own story, their own hangups, and their own growth through the series. I'm a real stickler when it comes to having a valid plot and story... and was totally satisfied with this series.

I binge-watched the first season (all 9 episodes) in one day and am looking forward to season 2, if there is one. There should be.

Yes, the cons are real:

• The frame-rate can be awful in scenes. There is a cool fight seen early on that is completely ruined by the frame-rate.

• I don't know the source material, but if you're married to it it seems you'll be disappointed.

Otherwise, this is a fun show. While the frame-rate is bad and absolutely needs to be improved, the 3D modeling is good. The world depiction is good. The storytelling is fun and not too cheesy.

You've got all the typical character roles and messages about teamwork, responsibility, expectations, sacrifice, and the like. And while there is war against alien bugs and the typical schemes of humans trying to get there way, there is no humans killing each other, which is always welcomed.

Liking this better than Voltron w/ a 8.1 rating on here.

But otherwise a disappointingly juvenilise and derivative waste of a strong voice cast. This is essentially a mash up of Gundam, Evangelion and Pacific Rim by way of a 1980s Saturday morning kid's cartoon, with bizarrely stunted proportions, eerily incompetent animation, and low frame-rates that seem to be all keyframes and no tweening.

There's no real plot, characterisation, or drama here, just an absolutely basic presentation of Deus Ex Astra mechs who choose teen pilots (for no reason, since they don't need pilots) versus giant space bugs, with a plucky underdog wish fulfilment motif.

For those easily confused, stereotypes may be recognisable and even satisfying but that doesn't mean they're well conceived, original, or developed. And dialogue composed of little more than straight exposition of ultimately selfish and egotistical desires is not growth.

That's all you get, and it's fine for what it is, but Netflix should have been clearer in the marketing and synopsis. The 10-star review-bombing at the moment of release to get the initial numbers up was embarrassingly obvious.

There isn't enough time to grow attached to the characters. I believe this is more of a fault from Netflix, rather than the writers. Netflix bought too few episodes so the writers had to work around it. Towards the end of the season, our MC says "we're family" to his fellow pilots and while it was a sweet moment, it felt kind of unearned. Why? Because we've barely seen these characters properly interact. In one episode, our MC gets his Robo and one of the pilots is like "he hasn't earned it like the rest of us" and she clearly holds some sort of resentment. By the next episode, they're all chill with each other. This show should be like...twice as long. I enjoyed the cute character interactions but there were too few so their bonds don't feel fully developed. The dynamics between characters who've already known each other is smart and enjoyable but between new ones, that could use work. Aside from that relatively small criticism, I really like the story and animation. The character and monster designs are very aesthetically pleasing and perfectly fit this story. It took an episode before i liked the Robo designs and they steadily grew on me throughout. I think the crew involved has done a good job so i'm excited for the next season. The concepts and execution are done well for the most part so i'd suggest this.

Dialog is very disappointing it feels like the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, character development is also weak, like carrying the weight of the world on a single person i mean its very underwhelming. You dont get the rush in watching i dotn really get connected to the story & i cant get sympathize to any of the characters either there simply so many loopholes in this one this is a complete failure story wise & character building wise. The director/s & producer could have made more of the its time to really galvanize & ties up the story it is so cliche well i dont know if netflix will order the next season.