Jinki:Extend

I really wanted this show to work. At the time of me watching this, I had yet to see someone try to make a mech show that has a female lead. That was the primary reason for me to watch this show. Within the first four minutes, I was interested. Tokyo Tower getting destroyed (as usual) and some psycho chick in a robot is about to kill some other chick in a robot. I got a bit confused as I was watching the show the first time. I ended up watching the show again just to see if I missed something and to do ... this review more properly.

The story is simple as most mech shows are. The show tends to take a few pages from other shows.
“Oh look, a convenient manual for the robot happened to fall on my lap.”
The thing that may confuse some people is how the story is being told. The show itself is more or less based on two mangas: Jinki and Jinki:Extend. Jinki, being the prequel of the latter, occupies most of the spotlight during the first half of the show. While the initial story is going on, the story of the sequel, Jinki:Extend, is also being told in between scenes of the Jinki story. You will notice when there is a bright white transition the scene suddenly changes to character you met in the beginning suddenly are in Japan for five minutes, and then transition back and they are back in Venezuela. I think it was meant for the viewer to notice the transitions on their own, but sometimes when people are not paying attention (which was the case for me the first time) you tend to lose track on what is going on. You may end up thinking that the Extend manga scenes are flashbacks of the Jinki story. During the second half, the events of the Extend manga take over as the leading story. Though, the show picks up from here, it still felt a bit rushed. You get a few “OH SNAP!” moments during this part of the show, but it felt a bit forced due to lack of development.

The show is twelve episodes, well technically thirteen. They more or less tried to make a show that could have worked a lot better as a 26 episode show into 12 which forces the viewer to take in all the information quickly. The manga was still running during the process of the show which could explain some gaps in the story and the ending which left you wondering, “What the hell happened?” I guess this show was meant for those reading the manga. A good amount was actually skipped from the manga to tie both of the stories together. This show had a lot of potential, but the creators screwed up by making a shortened version of an unfinished manga.

The characters unfortunately did not get enough time to develop. At first, you get a lot time with Aoba and then the second half starts and you have to already know who the new characters are, because they do not spend much time on them. The villains of the show somehow worked though. Most of them are just plain evil, especially Shizuka. The dub for this character was on point. She acted so well I wanted to stab my monitor.

I didn't mind the mech designs that much. The Moribito itself looks a little bulky, but it made up for itself towards the end. Some of the later suits actually look good too. I can’t say much about the mechs since most of the story centers around the characters not the mechs.

The show has been licensed for a while, so I have to talk about the dub a bit more. It can be hit or miss at times. It is an ADV dub, so you can expect the usual staple of people doing the show. I have bit of a bias since I love most of the cast, most not all. One of the pilots from the Extend story just did not work for me. For me, the best part is Vic Mignogna playing a shape shifting, psycho, child rapist. Hilarious. As a side note, don’t play this show too loud on whatever it is you use. Brittney Karbowski, who plays Aoba, can scream like you can’t believe, which I commend her for doing. Final things about the dub you should know, is the previews for each episode were…it would be best if you just listen to the Japanese previews and see for yourselves.

Overall, I thought the show was not as bad as I thought it was and I didn’t think it was terrible before, just confusing. Again, had each manga were given enough screen time, it would have worked out. As a side note, for those who are tokusatsu fans, you can compare the way the story is being told to Kamen Rider Kiva. That show has a story being told in 1987 and another in 2008. It would be the same, except in Kiva they do a better job at the transitions between times. It even gives both stories equal screen time. Ah, but I digress, I think that people should try this show out. Even with its flaws, it is worth a watch. It’s short and you can bang through this show in one day. Just make sure you pay attention. If you are given the choice of the sub or dub, I would go with the dub. I think the cast did a good job. They acted all over this show and for that I thank them. It’s not perfect I know, but this is one of the few shows that are giving equal opportunity to leading mech pilots.

By the way, the opening and the ending sequence is a homage to Mobile Suit Gundam and Mazinger Z respectively. Just in case you didn’t notice.

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Jinki:Extend was a truly weird experience, the show was just all over the place.

One episode you’d be having a great time and get really interested and immersed into the show. The next episode would be an absolutely terrible, confusing mess of an episode that would totally ruin the vibe and I can’t really say if I enjoyed this show or not.

Story - 5

The story begins with a girl named Aoba. She enjoys building model robots and stuff. That is until her grandma randomly dies out of nowhere with no character development.
She then gets kidnapped and sent all the way to Venezuela in a truck somehow. ... She gets out and finds this giant robot and a random military base. An alarm goes off and now she’s decided she wants to help her kidnappers for some reason and fight another mech.

The show eventually did get better and became an actually solid show later on. You saw Aoba do training and get better at controlling mechs. You saw more characters getting introduced and more development on the characters, and the whole world. Until the second half came around and killed the whole vibe.
Now the story was doing pretty good from this point. During the second half of the show, they introduced their main mission and stuff…

And then 1 episode later. The show just turned into the most confusing anime ever. What actually happened this episode was the creators thought it was a good idea to show scenes from the present and some other scenes from a few years ago. Except they never told you “Hey look, these scenes are from a few years ago.” So now you don’t understand anything that’s happening and nothing in the show makes sense.

They could’ve at least made it have text that said 2 years ago or maybe had the characters appear younger and have a filter or something on to show that it was in the past. But nope! They just mixed that stuff in a normal episode with no explanation and no context. Not only that but they decided to add more fanservice in the second half so now the whole show just went downhill faster than anything.

Art - 4

The art definitely was not this show’s strong point either. For 2005 this show just looked like the blandest thing ever. It wasn’t vibrant or dark either. It was just bland looking and looked like a really good flash animation more than anything. Everything from the background to the characters just looked bland. There was some shading but super barebones. No big improvement as the show went on either

The character designs were alright. They looked cute but the lack of detail or shading or anything made the character designs bland as hell. The animation wasn’t that good either, especially when I can see actual 2 frames per second lasers.

Sound - 6

The sound in this show was alright. The opening song was good but not memorable and the ending song was also pretty good (Any song by angela is pretty good.) Now the background music was as bland as the animation. I didn’t even notice the background music until I skimmed through a few minutes of episodes to find some. The sound for the opening and ending was good, the background music was just bland.

Character - 7

I actually really liked the characters in this show, especially Aoba. During the first half of the show the characters really developed and it probably made up the best part of the show. Even the second half still left me satisfied with the development that the characters got. Aoba really got the most development with all the training and stuff. But so did all the side characters. Most of the characters were likeable and everything was good.

Enjoyment - 5

Overall this series was a mixed one. On one hand it could be really fun and interesting. On the other hand, it could be super confusing and unintelligible. I think that you can still have a good time with this show as long as you can keep track of everything and have knowledge of the random past and present scenes. This anime isn’t going to blow you away and it probably will just mess with your mind but it is still worth watching if you don’t mind all that.

This is one of the most truly insane shows I have seen in my short anime watching career. I enjoyed the hell out of it in much the same way that one enjoys a low budget action movie from the 80s. Turn your brain off and strap in for the ride. Needless to say, this is not going to be a show for everyone, and it's flawed enough that I can't honestly recommend it, but if you go in with the expectation that you're watching something ridiculous rather than something aspiring to be high art, it'll be an entertaining experience.

The pace of ... this show is relentless, there are 26 episodes worth of plot crammed into 12, and it throws some absolutely preposterous plot twists at you in short succession. It can be a very disorienting experience, in part because there is so much happening all the time that the show leaves little room to explain what is actually going on or the significance of various events. It requires close watching and even rewatching to fully understand what is happening at points, and the show is very light on exposition until the last 2 episodes, so it requires a fair amount of reading between the lines. For example, there is a 3 year time jump at one point in the story, and the show does not call attention to it in any way or let you know that is what's happening. It simply leaves you to wonder why the characters are so different and are all in different places until they start referring to previous events as having happened years earlier in conversation. A bit more audience handholding through a plot this loopy would have been greatly appreciated.

Another issue creating a generally confusing atmosphere is poor character design. Characters often look very samey in this show, especially in the Tokyo arc when they're inside their mechs and the lighting makes every character's hair and eye color the same shade of blue. There are spoiler reasons why some characters look so samey, but that doesn't actually help the problem of being unable to tell some of them apart for significant stretches of the show. Most aggravatingly, there are 4 different characters with purple eyes and black hair worn in a similar style and the show essentially leaves it to you to figure out who is who the majority of the time.

In general, the art for this show is dated and does not look great. The mechs actually look fine, it's the characters that don't always look good. The animation is occasionally a bit janky and the characters look fairly ugly. They have a tendency to look like they have the mumps when viewed in 3/4ths profile as well.

The characters themselves are fairly weak. Aoba and her mom are almost alone among the cast in having complex personalities, and her mom plays generic villain early, not developing layers until the 2nd half of the show. Many are one note, like the cold and competitive Rui and her goofball surrogate mother Minami, but this doesn't necessarily mean they are bad, just lacking in complexity. An unfortunate number of other characters, most glaringly Akao, are simply generic Good Girl That Tries Really Hard characters.

It can sound from all of this like I am very negative on the show, and I suppose I am in an objective sense, but I have to emphasize that this show can absolutely be a fun rollercoaster ride if you have the right mindset for it. The twists in this show are very stupid and very fun. If this sounds like something you can appreciate on its own terms, you'll be in for a treat. If you want to watch a legitimately high quality show, there are many better to choose from.