Zegapain

Information of Anime

Kyo Sogoru tries very hard to rebuild his school swimming club as he's the only member.  Facing closure from the student council, he decides to make a promo video by asking Ryoko Kaminagi for her help.  Seeing a girl named Shizuno Misaki swimming beautifully, he asks her to be model for the promo video.  However, he needs to fulfill her request in piloting a mecha for an organization called Celebrum in destroying Deutera Areas which is made by Gards-orm.  Finding himself in a new world, Kyo battles these aliens & starts to recall about these events.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The start of the show shows a wounded Kyo with Shizuno behind him in the cockpit of a mecha.  He sacrifices himself to save Shizuno & kill some nearby Gards-orm.  Afterwards the show fast forwards to the event where Kyo is trying to rebuild the swimming club & joins Celebrum.  Joining Celebrum, Kyo doesn't know what this is about.  Initially, he thinks it's a game as he rides in the mecha & killing Gards-orms in a virtual world.  As time passes, it turns out that the virtual world is actually the real world where no humans live.  The world where Kyo initially believed was real is in fact virtual.  He's nothing more than a partition of data living inside a computer server.  Everyone in that world are pieces of data as well.  Over time, Kyo gets confused about this & tries not to accept this fact until he discovers that he can't leave the town at all.  Later on, Ryoko follows as she finds evidences of this truth & becomes part of the Celebrum team.

During their first battle together, Ryoko & Kyo meet a mecha from the enemy that looks like Zegapain, the mecha used by Celebrum.  In defeat, Ryoko's data is lost during the force transportation.  In shock, Kyo is sadden about this & tries to find ways to bring her back.  As Shizuno tries to find Ryoko in the data packs in Zegapain, Kyo starts to learn about the real world & how the creator that tried to save mankind from the destruction of the Gards-orm & an unknown virus was in fact the person that spread out the virus for his dream in creating a utopia.  Just as Shizuno has found the missing data of Ryoko, the virtual world is starting to break up as it's time for the server to reset itself back to two years ago.  This creates problems for Kyo as he not only sees everyone getting along with each other & others finding love, but the revival of Ryoko becomes possible when an enemy named Sin makes it happen.  However, the emotions of Ryoko from before is stored in the server & can't come to the virtual world.

The final arc has both sides going at it with full force in terms of risking things that they should protect. It turns out that the Maihama server is located on the moon where the Gards-orm are created from.  As time is running out, Celebrum launches a final attack called Project Resurrection to bring humans back into real bodies.  The plan is successful thanks to Kyo & Shizuno, who is actually just quantum data with no physical body.  However, a possibility to get her a human body exists even though she lost her memories from her past.  Another problem is that the world still recycles itself after every year as the Maihama server is still running.  The show ends with Kyo still part of Celebrum with Ryoko.  After the credit roll, Ryoko is expecting a child.

My Personal Review

Zegapain is actually an amazing mecha anime show with a lot of emotions in it.  It seems to touch the audience very well with death & losing people close to you.  I recommend watching this if you like drama & mechas.

Animation

The character designs are ok.  It's not something I personally like.  The characters don't seem to have much style as they are pretty dull.  Shizuno didn't look too well at times with her lipstick.  Sometimes it's thin & sometimes it's so thick.  The pilot suits are unique in a way as it exposes some skin for both genders; mainly the arms.

The backgrounds are okay & pretty detailed for the real world as we seen the remains of a destroyed city.  The colours are dull in these parts, but in the virtual world it's pretty bold & bright with the exception of the sunset scenes.

The mechas are 3D CGs.  At times, they do look out of place with the backgrounds when they fly around the sky.  But the movements of the mechas are fluid & smooth.  A bit too smooth to make it as a mecha in my view as they are almost human look motions.  For the humans, it's all natural with no weird movements to make it as a silly comedy.

Sound

The sound effects are mainly on the realistic side.  Even the scenes that calls for some silly humour don't turn to those silly sound effects.  The sounds are crisp & clean, even for the loud booming sounds. 

The seiyuus here aren't too bad.  But, I don't like Ryoko's voice.  It's a bit fake & express very little emotions.  Reason being is that the seiyuu is new & young.  This is her first role as a main heroine for any show.  Aside from her, everyone else is fine to me.

The music really helps create the mood well.  It's got a mystical feeling from start to finish.  There are songs that lighten the mood a bit with some silliness.  It's a got a mixture of soft rock & ballad.  It really helps with the story's emotional elements.

Story

In all honestly, I'm not a fan with Zegapain's storyline.  It's quite confusing when Kyo rejects the fact that he's just data living in a virtual world.  It goes in circle a lot.  It feels like it takes up a good chuck of the show.  It's only when you get tired of Kyo's circles that you accept the facts.  This is what makes the show feels like it's dragging as well.  It's also confusing to see Kyo & the others jumping into two different worlds as data partitions.  I couldn't imagine them fighting in the real world with no physical bodies.  But the story gets better along the way.  Aside from the plot, the story delivers some excellent emotional elements.

The elements used to play with the audience's emotions is very good.  You would actually feel for the characters regardless if you hate them or not.  The timing for these emotion seem to be right on cue as well, leaving you with a cliffhanger.  It's these elements that really keep me attracted to the show.  The battles aren't very great, but entertaining to watch somewhat.

The ending is pretty good & somewhat complete.  The show does show that there are some parts that needs to be fixed & it seems reasonable.  I was pretty pleased with it.

Overall Conclusion

Zegapain is a great mecha anime show & a big break from all those Gundam SEED shows that came out before this.  It's got excellent emotional elements  even though the plot is a bit complex & dry.

Zegapain ranks an eight out of ten.  The plot is a bit original as it uses the world of reality & virtual in storylines.  Although it's a bit weak, the emotions it delivers is great. Plus, the ending is very good as it ties up most of the stuff with some problems still existing.

Last updated on February 5, 2008