Infinite Stratos–First Episode Review

Episode Summary: Orimura Ichika begins his first day at the prestigious Infinite Stratos Academy feeling grossly out of place; the Infinite Stratos battle exoskeletons can normally only be piloted by women, but since he’s got the ability to pilot them as well, he’s been tossed into a classroom full of girls who can’t quite decide whether they like having him around or hate his guts. To add to his strife, his sister, who he’s barely seen the past few years, is his new teacher and she’s a real slave driver. More than once, Ichika embarrasses himself in the classroom, and makes enemies of the various high-ranking women there.

He sees one ray of light; his childhood friend, Shinonono Houki, is also in his class. Unfortunately, their happy reunion soon turns awkward when they’re placed in the same dorm room together and she reacts violently. The last straw is when nominations for class rep come up and Cecilia Alcott, the IS representative from England, is insulted when Ichika seems to have acquired the nomination. She challenges him to a duel, to be carried out in the IS battle suits. It’s assumed that Ichika, as a man, has no chance, but can he pull through?

Thoughts: I’d be very happy if I could report that the show’s premise wasn’t nearly as bland and cliché as it sounds. It would thrill me to be able to say that the characters that we meet in the first episode are interesting people, with hopes, dreams, heck, even personalities that are defined by more than one or two traits. It should be clear by this point, however, that I wouldn’t be talking about the show this way if it had exceeded my (very low) expectations in any way whatsoever; while some shows try to distinguish themselves with nudity, violence, an unusual art style, music from a respected composer, a famous seiyuu, anything, Infinite Stratos is perfectly happy to stand off to the side and let the world go by, existing to be accessible to everyone but memorable to none.

Actually, I take that back. This first episode does have one notable feature; there’s an action scene which opens the episode, and it’s rendered and choreographed fairly well. It has some of the same issues that plagued the space battles in Macross Frontier in that the CG used to render and animate the mechanical armor doesn’t really blend seamlessly (or even particularly well) with the character animation and other 2D elements and the choreography of the conflict is so hyperactive as to make an AMV editor blush, but it certainly demonstrates a higher level of artistry than an average harem show is likely to have. The major issue here is that this short segment is nothing more than a tease; there’s a minute or two of exciting action, but after the opening credits roll, it’s back around to business as usual, establishing characters whose introductions are only the confirmations of the audience’s assumptions of their personalities, and setting up the various ways in which their encounters with the main character can maximize on humorous awkwardness and palatable perverseness.

Touching more closely on character specifics, what boggled my mind was how completely all the characters, and especially the female characters, played into their expected roles with little deviation. The creators have tried to fool everyone by making the cast multi-national, therefore introducing factors which could potentially confound the usual character tropes, but in practice this turns out to be of little bearing on the result. Cecilia Alcott is British, but more than that she’s an unapologetic ojou-sama character – a rich girl who looks down on the lowly male who dares to challenge her position as resident IS hot-shot. Houki is the honorable Japanese character (who’s a kendo star, natch) who also happens to be the childhood friend character. In addition to those two who are introduced in this episode, a quick look at the cast list informed me that there’s also a character from Germany (a genetically-engineered super-soldier who’s probably a good analog for emotionless Ayanami Rei), a French reverse-trap, and a perky Chinese girl (also a childhood friend of Ichika’s – yes, there are two of them and I bet they’ll fight over who gets to jump his bones at some point). It’s more or less as if the creator was going off of a check list, the obviousness of which makes sitting through even one episode a test of patience.

The central dynamic is also a major sticking point for me. The show attempts to establish an atmosphere of sexism, only this time it’s based around a culture of powerful women picking on the useless men who don’t have whatever innate ability is required to pilot the IS. Setting aside the fact that a society so heavily based on patriarchy wouldn’t do a complete 180 in the 10 years since the introduction of the first IS, a conceit this show tries to make which ends up making the it even more laughable, the execution of the episode ends up transforming the show into a caricature of sexism, the idea of which doesn’t really sit well with me as someone who’s already frustrated enough. The “battle of the sexes” will probably be a common theme in anime, and indeed and all media, as long as I’m alive, but in this case it has kind of a subtly angry tone to it; the poor put-upon male character who’s *gasp* being discriminated against by all these mean girls… then gets to see them undermined one-by-one as he catches glimpses of them in their underwear, or, due to his inexplicable attractiveness, causes them to abandon all personal goals and respectability to fight over him. Granted, this isn’t on the level of, say, Sora no Otoshimono in terms of being hateful towards women, but it has a discernable, perhaps not fully intentional, flavor to it that tries to make a joke of sexism and only manages to look insensitive and ill-intentioned.

I can’t really get too angry about this show, because there’s very little to get angry about; it doesn’t go out of its way to be gross, and its panty-chasing ways are more pathetic than anything else. I have little doubt that, in 6 months or so, most people will have forgotten that the show even existed (that is, until Funimation randomly decides to license it, then markets it with some ridiculous tagline like “It’s a woman’s world… until this man BUSTS in!” *include shot of big-breasted childhood friend character to go with the banner ad*).

I think I’ve missed my calling as a writer of advertising copy.

Pros:

• The opening scene is nice to look at, if poorly-incorporated.

Cons:

• The main character has zero personality, and the female characters all got theirs from the recycling bin.
• The setup tries hard to whine about female-on-male sexism, but the deeper logic isn’t there.

Recommended? It’s funny, I watched Rio and though it was one of the stupider things I had seen in a long time, but at the very least it distinguished itself through its implausibility, ridiculousness, and disregard for logic. This show seems similarly implausible, but it’s so by-the-book that it can’t even be recommended on silliness. It’s just bland, and I doubt even harem anime die-hards will find much of interest here.

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