[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.

[New][January 2016] Active Raid

Doesn't 'purge' usually mean...oh. Oh No.

Summary: Set in a futuristic Tokyo, after the Third Quicksand Disaster sinks Tokyo into a quagmire, the city's reconstruction efforts are carried out using high-output, reinforced exoskeletons called Willwears. But they can also be misused, and to combat the crimes involving them, the National Police Agency establishes at its Kichioji Branch the Special Public Security Fifth Division Third Mobile Assault, Eighth Unit, A.K.A.: Unit 8. 
Active Raid tells the story of “The Eighth,” a rash and careless unit of power-armored police.

First Impression: This is really good.

My Opinion: Did someone finally manage to hammer in the nail that giant robots are impractical, on all accounts? That's two exoskeleton based series at once, now. Grant, I think Bubuki could still pull the Giant Mech card, but still, the emphasis in the first episode of both that, and this show, is on more manageable and practical (sort of), exoskeleton equipment.
The story itself is also great. Well, unremarkable really, something that has been done before. But still, great, because it's a good foundation for a great plot to rise up from. Since the story is following a Police division, there's a lot of places they can go. It could just be a 'Criminal of the Week' type of show, which would be fine, or they could string an over-arching plot over it all, which would be riskier but potentially better.
The characters are so far interesting. In fact, it feels like the show went out of its way to get that adjective in this first episode, deliberately displaying several exceptional quirks from the characters in rapid succession. I'm okay with that though, because they have a very large central cast on display, what with the so far displayed two, spoken of third, active suit wearing members, and then the cluster of other command and support people. They had to cover a lot of people in a short amount of time, and I think they did alright.
All told, this show could become great, or it could just coast along at Nice and Interesting. I look forward to seeing.

[Aside]I've had an unusual splurge of motivation all of a sudden...Three posts at once? That hasn't happened since I started my job. Must be getting back into the flow of things, either that or I just require sufficiently interesting anime to motivate me. Did I mention Erased was awesome? I'm still buzzing from it. So looking forward to that one.
[Aside end]