Bokurano Episode 1

Hey there. Mitchi here, since we've been having problems getting me added to the group, Kotarou was so kind as to let me post my reviews using the main account for the blog until the problem gets fixed.

A word of warning for my reviews: They may at times be spoiler ridden and sometimes biased (though I tend to try to make my reviews as unbiased as I can, everything still ends up being tainted by opinion). I also don't generally do screenshot reviews, as I watch most of my stuff away from a computer.

So now, without Further ado, I give you my review of Bokurano.


Genre: Seinen, Drama, Mecha
Opening Theme: "Uninstall" by Ishikawa Chiaki



Premise: Some kids are hanging around a beach, when they find the secret lair of a game programmer. They are promptly lured into playing the game he has created.


Okay, first off, I love games, and happen to be studying programming, so this immediately appealed to me. I mean, kids getting sucked into a game? Brilliant. And of course, the theme song met my main requirement of being good music, but I've always been a big fan of Ishikawa Chiaki/See-saw/Kajiura Yuki.

So I sit there watching the opening theme and see Mechas. Wait, what? The description I read never said anything about mechas. I hoped it wasn't a case of old fashioned Slayers style "spoil the entire series in the opening sequesnce." Thankfully, it wasn't.

The series starts out with about 15 kids on a beach. I'm personally not a fan of introducing a ton of characters all at once, but at least they don't try to cram too much character development into the first episode.

It starts out pretty slow for a while, revealing a few character details...One kid seems like a mean older brother, one is a sadistic crab killer and the only one not in the same age group (a little girl) blushes from physical contact.

It also goes to touch on the Japanese ideal of "All for one."

So after about 7 or so minutes of this, they finally move on from their little beach party and find this little cave. They, like most youths, decide to embark on a little spelunking. Now, normally, this would be a very bad idea, right?

Well, this is where the story starts to move on. They find a bunch of computers and the guy who owns them, a man who made a revolutionary new game, and wants some people to test it. He coerces the 15 or so kids to join in, after explaining the premise. Starting to look promising at this point. It takes about three minutes to introduce all the characters by name. Long and arduous, and I'll never remember 15 Japanese names that were only said once.

And this is why I hate when lots if characters are introduced all at once.

Anyways, the episode finally starts to take off about halfway through with the appearance of a giant robot enemy. A mech appears for the players, and the game master guy come in to explain what to do. He tells them that he can only help them this once (and that he's never done this before either) and after defeating the enemy, he tells them that the earth is in their hands.

It ends just as vaguely as it started.

Ending theme: "Little bird" by Ishikawa Chiaki



Final verdict:
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone with a short attention span or anyone with little to no patience. However, it might appeal to people who liked .hack//sign.

I'll be watching more of this to keep you guys posted on if it gets any better.

Toodles~