[roriconfan]

Spoiler for review:

Oh, such joy and wonder, I found myself an anime that has all I ever like in fiction. Monsters, action, some romance, some mystery, some smart scenario ideas. So I sit down ready to watch what I like most. Ten minutes later … WHAT IS THIS SHIT?

Boy, talk about fail squared. Anime usually aim to have some good initial episodes before reverting back to whatever mediocrity they were meant to be. Regios managed to be uninteresting since the very beginning. I guess that is a talent too.

Let’s get down to business. Regios is the story about mobile cities in a grim future, fighting amongst them for survival, while repelling invasions by super powerful insects a guy and his harem. The premise was rather interesting as it reminded me of Blue Gender, a good dark science fiction anime of the 90’s whose greatest flaw was the dull plot. While Regios fixes this by having a lot more action and variety, at the same time it failed completely to build atmosphere and immersion with the story and the characters.

Let’s start with the action scenes. They are completely random and chaotic. There was no way to feel a battle was done properly as magic gizmos were pretty much running the show as the directors wanted. Anything could happen, any way the they wanted it, as fast or as dramatic, successful or failed. You could see a rain of rabbits followed by a rock shaped as Lincoln for all it matters and the outcome of such spells would be whatever the plot required. And forget about proper transition from one scene to another. There is NO TRANSITION. Thus, no choreography exists to make action appealing.

-Then it’s the actual animation. So little of it. For a semi-action series, the characters were terribly frozen. Too much still panels going around to feel anything good about it.
-Then it’s the character figures. What kind of random accessories was everybody wearing during battles? And what’s with the weird facial structure? Totally unappealing.
-Then it’s the background music. Jesus Christ, it was terrible. The main battle them is making your ears bleed with its terrible tune. And the opening and ending songs are completely average pop trash.
-Then it’s the setting itself. One moment they are fighting for the survival of the human race, the immediate next they are taking part in a typical romantic school comedy trip. You get futuristic cities full of weird machinery, next to nobles clothed as if it’s still the 18th century, next to a cosplay party called the main characters. Consistency is nice!
-Then it’s the cast itself. What is going on with them? You hardly get to know most of them. The lead is the typical harem dork, with a broken power, hoarding all the girls to himself, and does nothing with them. Most girls are defined by their sexual frustration syndromes. Most males are defined by their ridiculous costumes and signature moves. Everybody is a stereotype 101. And nobody is memorable for any given reason.
-Engrish! Jesus Christ, when will they ever hire real Americans to do the English lines?
-The ending … which is not an ending. Major bummer.

In all, Regios uses a mediocre action superpower formula, mixed with a mediocre romantic school comedy formula, with random ideas such as mobile cities and fairies and bugs in the background. It hardly makes good use of any of its elements and ends up being a completely average work.

Before you dismiss my harsh judgment because of the nature of the setting, please consider this. Mixing teenagers fighting huge monsters before going to school and getting to all sorts of sexual frustrations can be as bad as Gunparade March or as good as Neon Genesis. And Regios is no Neon Genesis. In fact, it doesn’t even know what it is. There are no connecting points between the genres it tries unsuccessfully to blend. Think how many stuff Escaflowne mixed in the same bowl and how uniformed they felt. This was a random hill of irrelevant ideas with lifeless animation and poor storytelling.

Sorry, I prefer Blue Gender and Neon Genesis over this one. I don’t even consider it a worthy watch. In fact, I don’t consider it as anything other as a good example of a badly made anime.