Thursday, May 19, 2016

[Ended] Active Raid

last of the bulk endings, now to do the backlogged New series

Pros: Good action that never feels mindless.
-An interesting insight into Japanese standards for Police conduct and law enforcement, as much as I'm sure the show takes liberties with what the reality may actually be
-The tech on display always manages to feel realistic, albeit some more than others

Cons: It comes off feeling very...out of place
-None of the characters are particularly deep
-The Plot is also quite shallow
-For all that it tries to present like things are always moving for good reasons, a lot of the shows direction still feels very...arbitrary?

My Opinion: This show is definitely either parodying, or taking heavy inspiration from the Kamen Rider/Power Ranger style. That is literally what the main cast of characters are in their world, for all that the show seems to be trying to be subtle about it.
Despite all of the cons, and the huge hard time I had trying to think up those 3 pros, I rather liked this show a great deal. I don't feel particularly awe inspired or amazed about it now, several weeks after the end of it, but while it was airing, I looked forward to it every week. I have to underline, again, that I really enjoyed considering this show an insight into how the Japanese police may likely conduct themselves. Sure, it has to be divergent from reality to some degree, but just the base line of all of the characters actions and the laws in the show is an amazingly unique perspective compared to everything I've ever seen of American law enforcement.
Even though I say the characters and plot are all quite shallow, and I do sincerely believe the show would have benefited from spending some more time fleshing them and the world out, still none of them feel particularly held back by this. It's not so much that there's a problem with how much development everything has, as much as it is that I simply would have liked to have gotten more of it.
I also want to point out that you should watch the opening music and animation every episode, and the ending as well. They do some subtle (and not so subtle) things with them, that I found very charming.

Impartial Opinion: The whole show feels like what you would get if you asked the Anime industry to make a show like Law and Order, or CSI. That's the majority of what I can say about the show, I'm afraid. I really should have wrote and completed this ending review as soon as I completed the show, because I feel like I had more to say about it back then. They do say hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

Regardless, I give this show a rating of:
Good 

I enjoyed it, and I think others may as well. Watch 1-4 of the opening episodes to get a taste. While the show will try to have a bit more depth than what happens in those episodes, really, it doesn't succeed in getting very deep. It did move in some unexpected ways near the end, but ultimately nothing hugely amazing happens. It was just a good show.

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