This series is so full of cliches and very bland; it may serves as excellent introduction mecha anime to beginner but seasoned veteran will find it very uninspiring mecha actioner. The only good thing about this anime is mecha design and some music tracks. I honestly don't know why the execution was so badly done and lazy research in proper setting (supposedly based on real world) did not help. The series even resorting to cost cutting of reusing stock animation which is a big no no in action packed anime and the plot holes bigger than iceberg that sank Titanic. Episode 10 revealed so many inconsistencies that really did not make sense unless it really depicts the adversary of Viper's Team as morons from circus. How to create a sense of awe and anticipation if the protagonist is so unconvincing to begin with? The plot twist even come as ho-hum, anyone can see it coming from miles away.
It is a letdown since the director (Shinji Aramaki who did better with first Appleseed movie) promises a "hardcore sci fi" approach to Viper's Creed but what I see so far is a listless anime with stock characters stolen from myriad of hundreds of mecha animes. I suspect that he don't have enough funding to realise his visions hence the half ass attempt.
The voice acting is good but the characters line was so boring that they appeared 2 dimensional (ironic here) and despite the attempt to spice it up with adult themes, they come across as forced and tacky. Saiki (the male lead) sounds like a stoned addict instead of taciturn and cool pilot for example.
A friend told me that why the PMC did not use gunships to police the issues presented in this show since the common terrain is mainly consist of long, long electromagnetic highways isolating high density urban centers. The cool factor definitely overrule common sense hence the existence of "Maneuver Roids" in the story. This is main dissonance here to begin with which threatens the whole setting. The writer obviously did not understand that to have vibrant economy you gonna need large tracts of land to house industry that capable of replicate and forge things up necessary for modern society to function. This anime despite using the backdrop of plebeian vs bourgeois to create the conflict fails to address this fundamental factor. I can go on with more examples but I think the gist is, setting is very crucial for me to immerse myself into the story. If you going to make a story based on current setup, please make it so.
People can watch this show but don't expect too much, it feels like lousy snack compared to more thoughtful, intelligent mecha series like FLAG or Gasaraki. Heck, even Gundam 00 has more soul than this piece of crap. Make no mistake, Viper's Creed have some interesting idea to explore and cool mecha design to boot but the execution is a huge let down.
A big meh from me.
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