Mixing scifi and fantasy is pretty popular for anime stories. Unfortunately, not many are well executed. In the case of Shangri-La, I think it's a somewhat brilliant plot got dragged under by a flawed concept with a flawed execution.
For one, it seems that certain aspects of the story is just too unrealistic. The measurement they took to stop the vibration of ATLAS, I don't believe that any civilized country would ever allow such a thing to happen for this reason. Are they trying to say that Japan would eventually become uncivilized like that when problems like global warming arises?! That's just a bit too hard to believe.
Then there's that final battle. Jump, dodge, throw, flash, bang, bang, we won! What the hell was that?!! Did they run out of budget making this last episode or what? This ought to be the worst final fight I've seen lately.
SciFi and fantasy could be a good mix, but this is definitely not one of them. However, if you could shut off some common sense, the story becomes somewhat acceptable. In fact, I think certain part of the grand plot was quite brilliant if certain stupid plot devices didn't exist.
Final scoreboard:
Drama: 83 (Jittery)
Comedy: 80 (Not that good)
Action: 83 (The final fight is terrible)
Art/Animation: 80 (Average at best)
Sound/Music: 90 (Not bad)
Character: 86 (Depth and variety)
Plot: 86 (Interesting plot, flawed concept)
Ending: 76 (Terrible final fight)
Re-watch value: 60 (Once is enough)
Overall: 80 - So so
Recommendation: This is a classic case of flaw concepts and executions ruined an otherwise brilliant plot. Very wasteful. It's hard for me to recommend this to average viewer. But if you are the type of people who can easily shut off your common sense (or don't have any :-) you might actually enjoy this story.
I was hoping this series could earn GONZO a little star. But instead, they just got one more strike from it. Oh well, GONZO just has to earn back my respect some other time.
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