This fall season definitely has a bit of a mechie feel to it.  We’ve been hit with a minor avalanche of mecha series, though I confess none of them has made a huge impression on me.  This was one of the genres that made me an anime fan and indeed, there may be no genre more universally regarded as anime’s true form, so I’m always hoping for the next great mecha show to come along.  Unfortunately there’s been a general downward trend in the quality of mecha offerings, slow enough that you might not notice it but really striking when you compare the genre now to five years ago, and that to ten.  And this season has so far proved no exception.

Enter Megaton-kyuu Musashi – though you might not have noticed.  This series hasn’t been licensed by any English streaming service, and that’s pretty much death with the English fandom these days.  Especially since fansub groups are almost extinct now, the vast majority either dormant or disbanded with the undisputed dominance of paid streaming ruling the field.  You have to look pretty damn hard to find any translated version of this premiere, and a dodgy one at that.  But I got tired of waiting, and no matter how long I waited this series was never going to have much English following anyway.

And you know, that’s too bad, because I actually kind of liked this premiere.  More than any of the other mecha entries so far this season in fact, though it’s probably the least flashy in terms of visuals.  Megaton-kyuu Musashi is a multi-media franchise (game, models, web anime) with the anime produced by the venerable OLM.  There are some relatively major names involved but the biggest is creator and chief director Hino Akihiro, who’s already created two huge kids franchise in Inazuma Eleven and Youkai Watch.  He’s also the CEO of Level-5, the game developer handing that arm of the Megaton-kyuu Musashi franchise.

The visuals here definitely have what might broadly be called a “kids show” aesthetic – colorful, with broad lines and somewhat goofy character designs.  But content-wise, this doesn’t feel especially more kid-oriented than other mecha shows – it’s fairly dark in fact.  The premise is generically modern mecha, with aliens having wiped out 99.9% of the Earth’s population (it’s 2118), and the memory-wiped survivors herded into underground shelters dressed up as normal cities.  Banchou Ichidaiji Yamato and Hijikata Ryuugo are recruited by “classmate” Asami Teru to pilot the mechs being used to battle the aliens on the surface.

Without question the elements here are pretty standard – kids piloting mechs, pretty older lady in charge, dystopia for everyone.  But it works pretty darn well, because you get the sense that Megaton isn’t trying too hard to be authentic, and the lack of conscious effort to do that gives it authenticity.  There’s a relaxed, convincing style to the narrative and the premise is straightforward and easy to latch onto.  I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of either Inazuma Eleven or Youkai Watch but if nothing else you can say that Hino has total confidence in what he’s doing, and that serves the first episode well.

This promises to be a tough series to follow, and it’s one that’s certain to have little to no following in the West.  Those sorts of factors (among others) do impact my decisions on whether to cover a series or not, and I have no idea whether Megaton-kyuu Musashi will hold my interest long enough for it to matter.  But I did like this premiere a lot, and I find myself rather hoping it does – with this many mecha series on the schedule I’d like to be able to follow at least one of them.