Series Review: Upotte! (6/10)

Instant Summary: Guns are girls.

I need to give Upotte a bit more credit than it probably deserves. Upotte is one of those titles that appears to be silly to get into; after all, this is a classic example of Japan making anthropomorphic versions (moe-versions) of everything you can ever think of; from noodles to cockroaches. This time it's guns, and they're taking it a lot more literally then usual. Their bodies are pretty much still hardware; a broken part would induce stomachache or nausea for the character, spoiled food can cause weapon malfunction, and even choice of underwear is related to the weapon they represent. If you think it's silly, I agree with you. For most part.

Even if not for the concept itself, there's still plenty of reasons to hate this anime; for one, the animation is really bad, and it goes right down into horrible towards the end. The stills are pretty to look at, especially the incredibly cute Funko, but they used a lot of stills; so much that it's depressing to imagine how much budget they're desperately trying to save. The voice work is shoddy too. As an ex-military man, I have more reasons to complain about; the girls are handling weapon way too big for them to use; despite being "professionals", they can't shoot for shit; their posture and firing technique are all wrong; their strategies and combat techniques are below elementary. It should be pretty interesting if you know nothing about guns, but prepare for cringe-worthy moments if you know your rifles.

So, what are the positive aspects of Upotte? Well, for an anime industry that is saturated with generic anime girls that's been recycled for decades, Upotte lets me catch a refreshing breather. And that I gotta owe it to the concept of the shows itself; they writer tries so hard to incorporate the traits of the weapon into the girls that it generated original characters with unique personalities... to a good extent. The near perfect Sig. The arrogant and popular M16. The clumsy and dysfunctional L85A1. Split personality Steyr Aug. Etc etc. They didn't all have very consistent or complete personalities, but it certainly makes them special. That is why I enjoyed Upotte.

That, and because Funko's the cutest character in the whole darn season.

Plot/Concept: Good
Story Style: Mediocre
Audio/Visual: Mediocre
Value: 6