In the not so distant future much of the earth has been submerged under the sea or destroyed by earthquakes. At the center of the turmoil is the mysterious Orphan. Orphan may or may not be the original cause of the cataclysms. Orphan's goal is to raise a ship hidden deep beneath the sea to the surface, but doing so would result in the destruction of all humans except for the small number which are loyal to Orphan. Orphan's agents pilot mysterious mecha known as Grand Cheres, and search the world for mysterious, giant disks which occasionally appear, flying at high speeds and wrecking much of the countryside, or cities, when they hit the ground. After a dying disc almost kills Hime, a Brain Powerd is born from the disc. Brain Powerds are another type of Mecha, similar to but not the same as Grand Cheres. Hime becomes the Brain Powerd's pilot, forming a symbiotic relationship with the living mecha and joins an International Organization dedicated to stopping Orphan, or at the very least saving humanity should Orphan succeed. (Source: AniDB)
Nenhum episódio encontrado.
There are a few series out there that claim controversy as part of their aura. These are shows like Evangelion, who for some reveal a mess of whine, and for others a complex basket of goods. Brain Powered falls in to this controversy in a matter I can’t quite fathom, because for some it is incomprehensible. The reason I can’t fathom the controversy is because it made perfect sense to me, and I don’t exactly see where the confusion lies. Despite the fact that for many fans watching this is among the worst anime experiences in their lives, I am going to proudly proclaim thisa masterpiece, and hopefully give a satisfying reason why. When Tomino promoted this film, he claimed it was “even better than Evangelion”. This is an extremely brash statement for any director to make, but in a sense he’s right. It touches the same issues as Evangelion at many parts, but ultimately it’s better for the soul. It is an uplifting defense of the power of love at its core, and thus while I would *not* agree that it’s higher quality, it might be better to watch and enjoy. So what exactly is this show that defends love against all? Brain Powerd is about biomechanical living mechs fighting for or against Orphan, a ship that will sail to the stars, but requires draining the energy of all life on earth to succeed. On both sides are troubled teens from broken families, who struggle to overcome their hangups as much as their enemies. What makes this show a masterpiece is the characters. I’ll grant that they aren’t by any means easy characters. They are difficult to understand, and some of them are almost impossible to relate to, such as the antagonist Jonathan. The way the characters behave is complex, and they hide a lot of their feelings. This is what underlies many of the complaints about this show. Without their hearts on their sleeves, sometimes a character will do something “random”, such as Yuu’s defection in the first episode. But once you piece together the characters, everything they do makes sense. Until then, trying to read them is like trying to read real humans. And it’s important to note that the characters are weird. They aren’t weird in the sense that they are incomprehensible, but rather that they have unique modes of expression that don’t conform to stock anime archetypes. This show, basically, refuses to ever pander to the audience. It requires your full attention to understand. It’s no secret that that which demands the most out of you gives the greatest rewards. I could talk about the plot and characters all day, there’s plenty to chew on in those regards. Instead, I’ll give a brief word to the other aspects of this work. The animation is interesting, though maybe not conventionally beautiful. This especially applies to the fights, which function in a specifically non-fluid manner. The antibodies (mechs) sort of “blink” short distances, giving the whole fight a surreal vibe. They often take place over water, specifically utilizing these two mediums in an interesting manner. I really think the fights over water are quite elegant, some of the more memorable mech fights out there. The character designs have been criticized as rather bland, but I never got that impression. I especially like Hime’s design. The music is the only thing about this series that is universally acclaimed, and that’s with good reason. Yoko Kano, famous for Cowboy Bebop, is the one on charge of this front. The opening by Eri Shingyoji, “In My Dream”, is one of my favorite openings of all time. While we’re on the topic, this is another key gripe about the show. The opening features every character naked for no apparent reason. It’s a bit abstract, but my interpretation has always been that when they are stripped bare, at their core what they need is love. Of course, the clothes represent the revealing of their emotions, and the lyrics are what implies that it’s about needing love. This fits in because it is, arguably, the key concept of the show. To sum up my overall impression of the show; Brain Powerd is a drama of the most intriguing characters whose outside conflict mirrors their inner struggles. It’s a bit hokey at times, and it’s not as philosophically deep as it thinks it is, but Tomino directs cheerfully and with a good sense of humor, leading to a show that is downright inspiring. It is basically the optimistic version of Evangelion. I can’t recommend it to everyone, only a few viewers will “get it”, but for those who do this is a fantastic and sublime show.
The Evangelion Rip-off Saga, Part 1: Brain Powerd? More like Brain DAMAGE. The obligatory quote from the show: "Iko, where did you learn to hoe a straight line like that?!?" - About 50 children to an amnesiac girl. Just a touch of background before I begin to describe the awfulness that is to come: Brain Powerd aired in April of 1998, barely 8 months after End of Evangelion came out, and as such, has the distinction of being the first post-Eva Evangelion clone. Headed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, known for his Gundam series, a mecha staple, and the studio Sunrise- also known for any and everything mecha,it sounded like a match made in heaven. Who better to put together a masterpiece and show that hack Hideaki Anno who was the REAL anime master? Yeah, no. Get ready for this. Artwork and Animation: 1 Where do I even start? God-awful? Horse shit? Regurgitated Excrement? It's the typical low budget schlock- repeated zooming in on characters for "effect", panning over still frames, action lines galore, and a ton of "quality" animation. It even has inserts that show the characters heads when they speak, on top of the action. What this does is instead distract you from anything with a modicum of excitement to hit you with some dialogue like a brick to the face. The art looks like you took Gundam, Code Geass, and Evangelion, put them in a burnt out blender, ran it through the garbage disposal, fed it to the dog, picked it up as it fell out of the dog's rear (post reingestion after regurgitation), lit it on fire, took the charred mush that was left and then buried it in a shallow grave. Come back 18 years later, pee all over it, stomp a mud hole in it, and then spit on it. That's what Brain Powerd looks like. Clear enough for ya? Sound and Voice Acting: 2 This is truly the epitome of a bad dub. The actors must have all been deaf, or were required to put earplugs in before recording, because they shout in a nearly unimaginably monotone way that they come across as though they've never heard a human speak in their lives. They sound like deaf cavemen shouting words at random. EVERY. SINGLE. LINE comes out like a non sequitur as if just to fill the awkward, dead air in between speaking parts. The editing is among, if not THE worst I've ever heard, where there are audible cuts, stops, gaps, and just generally garbage to piss poor quality recordings. The actors are sometimes too far away from the mic, and sometimes it's so loud it's as though they ate it! There's absolutely no flow to the voices, everyone speaks in a really monotone voice, whether it's super hammed up, super flat, or super screechy- everything is idiotically overdone. The audio track is also edited so poorly, it's as though there was only one single track, and it didn't allow for anyone to talk over each other, or it would cut the first speaker off entirely. I think the entire auditory half of the show was done in one take, with absolutely no edits. The script must have been a direct translation from Japanese and the first ten geeks off the street were selected to perform these roles. I watched several episodes of the Japanese audio and it was absolute garbage as well. I give this one extra point purely out of respect for Yoko Kanno, whose name graces this otherwise abhorrent turd of a show. I'm still in disbelief that she agreed to work on this, and maybe she didn't even know what it was, because the music absolutely blows just like the voice acting. I can barely even hum the opening theme to myself, much less actively recall any kind of insert or background music in the show. Story and Characters: 1 Since Brain is an Evangelion ripoff, I have to at least discuss the shameless theft that Yoshiyuki Tomino and studio Sunrise committed in the process of producing this piece of crap. Let's begin superficially, shall we? The world is going to be devastated and humanity wiped out by the event of this mountain range sized space ship called "Orphan" taking off (read: Third Impact). There are two warring factions- one that reside in Orphan itself (read: SEELE) growing semi-sentient mechas called "Grand Cheres" (read: Evas), and the lawful good faction that live on a ship with a PYRAMID ON TOP OF IT (read: NERV) that accumulate their own "living" mechas, called BRAIN POWERDS. Funnily enough, Kensaku Isami (read: budget Gendo Ikari) is the father of the main character, Yuu (read: Shinji), who is a incompetent, whiny brat. Yuu's struggle is with his teen angst, and family- including a sister who styles herself Quincy Issa, because she thinks it makes her sound like a badass. There's also Hime Utsumiya, our Asuka analogue, Jonathan the hotheaded mommy issues emo, and a bevy of supporting characters who serve little to no purpose other than to make my eyes hurt more than they already do, post 26 episodes of this trash. The bottom line is that everyone has mommy or daddy issues. Heck, one dude tries to kill his mom because she wouldn't buy him a Christmas present. So, what the hell is the plot to this thing? BEATS FREAKING ME. I spent about 9 hours watching this show, and I still have no clue what the heck happened, was supposed to happen, or if there was even an intention of "happen" in the writing. The first episode really set the tone for the entire series- NOTHING made sense, nothing was connected, and it's never explained who characters are, their motives, goals, pasts, futures, or why I should give a flying flip about them in the first place. Even various scenes in the same episode don't work, given how absolutely random and jarring they are, whether from time skips, jump cuts, or any amount of ineptitude in even the most basic forms of storytelling. I will never willingly watch something made by Tomino ever again. This is the most moronic, nonsensical crap I've ever seen. There was some really hamfisted environmental protection agenda crap at the end... and there was a betrayal I didn't even know was a betrayal because the character was never introduced, they just kind of appeared... there was a twist that... didn't matter in the slightest, Gendo Ikari was reduced to a snivelling, impotent, crying nerd; mechas ice skating, an absolute lack of information involving anything (I have more questions after it ended than I managed to write down), robots that apparently get tired?, and not one, not two, but THREE TACKED ON, PURPOSELESS ROMANCES. We also have fluid suits (read: plug suits) that help the driver of the Brain interface better, mechas ice skating, amnesia, fake drama, BIGGER BAD and well, I could probably read off a laundry list of TV Tropes this show uses, but my life was shortened already just by watching, so I'll refrain. Enjoyment and Overall: 1 I'm forever damaged after watching this show. Let this review stand as testament to my masochist's constitution, as this pushed me to my outer bounds and beyond. I have suffered through Idea Factory, Tokyo Ghoul Root A, The Super Mario Anime, and many, many others. One could even say I'm a purveyor of old, bad anime. But this... this takes the crown. I have been there and seen bad anime. I actively seek out bad anime. If I had known that something that was such odious refuse as this was as astoundingly horrible as it was, I would never have even so much as searched "Neon Genesis Evangelion ripoff shows" It fails on every fundamental level, and in every way imaginable. The plot is complete nonsense, the characters have no motivation nor goals, it looks and sounds like ass, and it's not even funny in how bad it is. It's just painful. There's a reason Brain Powerd has not been remembered by time- because it's indescribably asinine. -~- Lastly, I have to end with the only scene in the entire show that made me laugh, because this whole thing is painful to recount in a review. So, Yuu Isami, piloting his Brain Powerd, drops out of hyperspace in the bumfuck mountains of rural China (somehow he knows he's in China, I guess because he read the script.) and an illiterate farmer wearing one of those conical straw hats (yeah, he's not the only racial stereotype character in the show, either) SOMEHOW knows that the robot he's flying is an "antibody" (another stupid name for the same mechs). The show jump cuts to Yuu landing, he jumps out and picks up a watermelon out of the field and just starts going to town stuffing his face with it. The Chinese guy and about 15 others pull out AKs and blast the fucking watermelon to kingdom come and Yuu starts freaking out, asking "HEY WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR???" WHAT THE HELL DID HE THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, dropping into a remote mountain range in China, where he cannot communicate, and STEALS food that is their only sustenance????
A anime with big ideas Brain Powered is a anime with big ideas. The problem with it is it's execution. First the story is in the earth's near future. Where a strange ruin, known as Orphan, has begun to surface from Earth's oceans. Orphan first appeared from under the tectonic plates, and all signs point to it surfacing and causing a world wide catastrophe when it reaches its destination above the waves. This activity from Orphan has created earthquakes, seismic waves, and tsunami's, which have battered the land regions of Earth, producing wide spread floods and destruction. The humans inside Orphan plan to change theearth drastically by raising Orphan out of the ocean. They also use ant-bodies, giant robots created from Orphan. The story follows Isami Yuu who flees Orphan and Hime a member of Novis Noah a huge ship build to batttle Orphan. Now that I gave the basic story of Brain Powered let's get to the review. Like I said earlier the show had big ideas trying to reach the height of other anime along the lines of RahXephon and Saikano and it generally does. The story I would give a 10 it kept me interested. The characters I'd give 9, they weren't cardboard cut outs and made you care about them. The animation was a 6, it was granny and looked like it was made in the late 80s. Also there were the giant robots that looked terrible. Finally the music I'd give a 7 on, there wasn't anything special but was still good. Overall I'd give it a 8. It wasn't a classic or great like the anime listed above, but it was still very good.
“What do you think you’re doing to my brain?!” That’s my line, fucker! Welcome to Brain Damagd: Yoshiyuki Tomino’s mentally handicapped potential answer to Evangelion. Comparing the latter to the former is comparing Hyperion to a satyr. Perhaps that isn’t strong enough to indicate the sheer gap between the two, or what an utter waste of time this dreck is for those not seeking to witness every single Tomino, mecha, and post-Eva anime out there. The writing is more detrimental than a lobotomy, and more nonsensical than lobotomizing an infant. Their horrendous Eva-inspired attempts at biomechanical pseudoscience and Gundam-inspired attempts at terminology, are as convoluted as they arenonsensical and inconsistent. The show is also spectacularly blunt to the point of telling you exactly what a character is like constantly despite how obvious it is just from the interactions, yet next to none of these characters have any real consistency. Half of what “characters” say and do, particularly early on, directly contradict what was told and shown to us prior, as early as the end of episode 1. Hell, the “characters” can’t even be called caricatures, let alone what I put in quotation marks, with the exception of a fucking scientist side-character and a boring yet remotely competently-written purple-haired girl. None of the rest have concrete personalities and all of them dramatically at the drop of a hat, often within the same scene. This is especially problematic at the beginning, not only because this is where it is most prevalent, but because this is supposed to be the first impression, where we get to know these “characters”. Whenever they even try to give these characters backstories and conflicts, they come from the most hackneyed and unforeshadowed of places, and that’s excluding things done offscreen. Then again, this series has a real penchant for introducing things right out of thin air. Not only do the aforementioned characters engage in excessive last-minute flashbacks as a result, but they also reveal themselves to humongous hypocrites...and we’re supposed to root for the protagonists when they suffer from this almost exclusively. The main protagonist (and yes, none of these cunts deserve to be named) is the worst offender of this, going from kissing to harassing the female deuteragonist -whom he barely even knows let alone seems to like- in a split second, constantly, and goes from acting like an insufferable jackass to an idealistic kid who can’t even get his reasoning straight for why he defected from an organization he previously white-knighted like it was his girlfriend -not like he had one to begin with but damn if they’re gonna try to make him seem like an actual human being worth keeping alive-. Then again, this is partially because they constantly try to play coy with why he left and make it such a mystery, much to the obvious detriment of absolutely everything. He is honestly one of the worst protagonists in anime, and out of all the nothing characters who leave next to no impression in your mind, he stands out simply by virtue of being toxically broken and hateful. Maybe Tomino should have thought twice before trying to do Eva backwards. The visual presentation is unfortunate as well. The mech designs are bland and generic, without any thought into making them look like anything other than unmarketable drones. The character designs are, if nothing else, pleasant for most part, and they are generally on-model, even if actual animation for both the characters and mechs is somewhat limited, if not incredibly awkward in some cases. Fight scenes are downright horrendous, especially since in these particular sequences, shots almost never flow into each other, and they either have very stilted and limited animation, or try the kind of shorthand that could only ever work in DBZ. Even outside of fight sequences, the editing is generally horrible and nonsensical. Whatever CGI techniques they used such as trying to make ocean water CGI, is almost embarrassingly done as well, but that is the least of the visuals’ problems when the show can rarely do rain in a way that isn’t mortifyingly obvious that they drew lines and moved them back and forth for ten seconds. When your opening sequence begins with a borderline laughable static moving background effect, you know you’re in for a production misfire. The music is honestly the least atrocious aspect of it, not that it says much, as even Yoko Kanno couldn’t operate at full capacity. The music is largely, and said music often doesn’t fit when it tries to be more than just stand-in fluff, particularly in the first half. The OP theme is barely any better, and while the ED theme is probably the best piece of music here, it is hardly memorable past the first 10 seconds. The voice acting is also subpar at best, with line delivery that ranges from mediocre to terrible for a majority of the characters. Then again, the script they have to work with is honestly abysmal, so much so that some things just could not work, regardless of acting quality. Brain Damagd is honestly a bothersome experience that stops being bizarrely horrible and just becomes a slog filled with a detestable and borderline nothing cast, and a narrative that works on absolutely no level. Even the audiovisuals are not worthwhile. I wouldn’t even recommend screenwriting enthusiasts to go in for a full autopsy of this disaster, or recommend it to anyone who desperately needs to suffer through every post-eva show out there. I'm not even sure why I’m talking about it or why I watched it; this braindead travesty is an absolute waste of time that should have never been made, barring its ridiculous concepts and some laughable moments. To be perfectly fair, there were moments when the show clearly tried to be meaningful and even human, but they are mere blips in a sea of embarrassment. Unless you plan to watch every Tomino, Post-Eva, or mech anime out there, or watch this with friends, you’re probably better off not acknowledging this show’s existence, unless you want a cheap laugh here and there. Perhaps someone can make a best hits of this show's schlockiest moments; that would be the definitive Brain Damagd experience. Wait...the fuck do you mean it’s not called Brain Damagd?!

I discovered this anime from playing Super Robot Wars Judgment, and decided to check it out because it seemed interesting. Indeed, it was, but it needed more explanatory energy than organic energy. Perhaps I missed it, but one of the greatest flaws in this anime is how it has several core concepts it relies upon that it gives a lackluster explanation for. "B-plates" are mentioned many times throughout the anime, but are never given a real definition. Likewise, "organic energy" is used to explain practically everything, when even the characters in the show don't completely understand what it is. Sometimes it's life force. Sometimes it'semotion. Sometimes it makes a shield or shoots lasers, and sometimes it lets you teleport. Sometimes it's literally what makes plants grow. It becomes a bit more bearable if you remember that the antibodies are super robots and not real robots, so their explanation doesn't *have* to be perfect, but it certainly could stand to be better. Further, while the story remains *mostly* internally consistent (assuming you can accept their loose definition of organic energy, that is), the ending leaves much to be desired, not really explaining *why* things worked out the way they did. Prior to that point, even though some plot points may not have immediately made sense, they were at least given some attention later to clear them up, or in some cases, made sense just after rewatching the scene. Unfortunately, while I can admit certain aspects of the ending were alluded to earlier in the show that might work toward explaining it, it still feels somewhat like an ass pull, with the results not quite matching up with what you expect their actions to do. That all said, if you have a good willing suspension of disbelief, I think you can enjoy this anime. If living robots powered by a poorly defined energy force bothers you, you should stay away. The characters are at least interesting enough to keep it going, and there are some things they did that really served as a nice touch. It's just a shame they wasted it with a mediocre overall plot.
I apologize if I somehow don't use a lot of big words, or just a lot of words in general in this review. I lost enough braincells watching/half-watching this show that it's affected my vocabulary and my memory, and I've just stopped caring altogether to give this a proper review. I'll be mainly going off Wikipedia and TV Tropes for information simply because I can't be bothered enough to go off my own memory for this. I pity the poor bastards who watched this weekly when it first aired, because I bet they couldn't remember jack shit every week—thus why the main character clearly hadto do a quick recap of what happened every single episode, and even SHE didn't seem invested in it. Neon Genesis Evangelion is the pinnacle of the 90s when it comes to anime, and has become one of the most influential series of the decade (that continues to this day). So naturally, people wanted to bank on its success by wanting to make their own Evangelion, whether to prove they could do it better, or just for a quick buck. Likewise with all titles that followed the leader, success varied for each “Eva-clone” that was made. So, uh, you know how every director and every studio, no matter how critically/universally acclaimed they are, has that one bad movie/series they have in them that they have to get out somehow? I think I found the one for Sunrise, the studio that is basically the king of the mecha genre, and Yoshiyuki Tomino, the guy whose reputation amounts simply to “Kill them all”. (Oh, he kills them all, alright. Those braincells ain't coming back.) STORY: Don't make me laugh, what story? Oh, there's a story, but don't ask me what it is because I'm a goldfish. But according to Wikipedia and TV Tropes, the story is, uh, let's see, about a futuristic Earth in which an alien spacecraft that's dubbed “Orphan” is resting at the bottom of the ocean where it's stirring from its dormancy and will kill off all living beings when it decides to leave the atmosphere. A group of people calling themselves “Reclaimers” believe they're the chosen ones Orphan chose to take them to the stars, and wants to aid it by hunting down plates to revive the spacecraft using mechas called “Antibodies”—or Gran Chers—to collect them. One of the residents, a boy named Yuu Isami, revolts against his parents and flees with a newborn “Brain Powerd” (which are basically infant Gran Chers) and runs into a group of rebellious Antibody pilots known as Novice Noah where he becomes attached/attracted to a girl named Hime Utsumiya, who is orphaned and had accidentally become an Antibody pilot to a newborn Brain Powerd, and together, they try to prevent Orphan from emerging and destroy all life. Sounds simple, yes? Far from it. The introduction was too complex for my poor albeit-educated brain to grasp, and it became more convoluted as time goes on as characters are introduced with their own personal demons (and most of them are—what a shock—orphans or those who have parental issues) and yet don't have personalties to call their own. Then revelations of Orphan and the Reclaimers come to light, characters start fighting with each other and angsting/not angsting about their crappy lives, and then the United States gets involved at some point, and what the hell just happened? I'm not going to pretend I was the least bit interested in what was going on, because I wasn't. The beginning episodes-aside throwing us into the action without proper introduction (at least Evangelion was courteous enough to show what was going on), it tried to be interesting, but it was clear no one knew what the hell was going on. I don't know what it's like in the original Japanese, but the dub by Bandai sure was scrambling to find footing and giving up very quickly. Apparently, this is Tomino's take on Evangelion, but I'm clearly not seeing why or how. In fact, I was actually a little surprised how much I was reminded more of Vision of Escaflowne than I was Evangelion, although it's kind of a hybrid of the two. It feels like story ideas that were canned from Escaflowne were used here, except then taken into a different direction right off the cliff à la the fate of the last graboid in the first “Tremors”. CHARACTERS: I'm good with recognizing character designs, so I can see them all in my head. However, when it comes to their names, I can only think of three without looking them up: Yuu because “SHUT UP, YOU”, Hime for “Excuuuuuuse me, princess!”, and Jonathan because that's my brother's name even though the character doesn't act at all like my brother—unless my brother went rogue or something. The other names I didn't bother to remember because they're too exotic or too bland to think of anything to memorize them. Even then, I wouldn't be able to tell you their importance to the story because then that would mean trying to figure out what their personalities are. Yuu is basically this anime's Shinji, except as a generic protagonist who apparently has issues with his family especially his sister, and they tried to make that the central point of his character yet it didn't stick. Hime is the redhead, thus she's the Asuka of this anime right down to the love interest, right? Not quite. She's actually the Anzu/Téa of this anime. So yes, that means friendship speeches. This is her character. Jonathan is like the rival/antagonist/Dilandau of this anime and has mommy issues up the wazoo. And people get on Shinji's back about his daddy issues, but that's because he's more engaging about it, and no one cares to remember this show enough to remember this brat who complained to his mother whom he was about to shoot that she never gave him Christmas presents. The mechas themselves would count as characters if they were interesting enough. They're sentient enough that the pilots bond with them and talk to them and address them as “boy” (they all do it), and they all apparently have the likeness of a child which goes with the themes of childlike ideologies of the world and what it means to grow up. But they're boring. At least when it came to the EVAs, while they didn't talk, the way they bonded with their pilots had emotional connection to the characters, as well as distinctive looks (and in a way, “personalities”) from one-another. And with Escaflowne, while the mecha also didn't talk, it was the god of war in Fanelia, and thus there was importance to its presence in the series and the connection it had with the main characters, particularly with Van. I can't tell you thing one about the Brain Powerds and why they're important to the series outside of the fact only children can pilot/befriend them (sort of, I guess) simply because they're children themselves. Even though wouldn't it make more sense for an ADULT to be the pilot to help nurture these Brain Powerds? ART/ANIMATON: Sunrise as a whole typically produces some exquisite artwork, and had their own style that can be pointed out in a line-up. Sure, you can totally tell this is from them in the 90s, but this is not one of their best works. It was obvious they sent this off to the new people who weren't being paid enough to even give a rat's ass about it while all the experts worked on Cowboy Bebop, which aired at about the exact same time as “Brain Powerd”. The animation is so dated for the time that it's embarrassing because of all the shortcuts and post-production effects that were done, and there were a lot of clunkiness to be found in every episode. The only time it looked good and had that Sunrise touch was when it was admiring the female body in the opening credits. Sunrise is also known for their mechas, as mentioned before, and they have made some creative and distinguishable mechas over the years even though it was all to sell toys in the end. The mechas designs in “Brain Powerd” are some of the most uninspired designs I've ever seen. There's apparently two different mechas used throughout the series, the Brain Powerds and Gran Chers (although they're the exact same mecha, just one's a child and the other's the adult), and I can't tell the two apart at all, which made it infuriating during the battle sequences against the Reclaimers' Antibody pilots. Doesn't help that the Brain Powerds tried to get different designs for each new pilot (especially the one pair that were twins), and I still couldn't tell them all apart. Oh, and the cockpit is in the groin area, and whenever the hatch opened up, it looked like an erection. Make of that what you will (though it explains why everyone would call their mechas “boys”). SOUND: I chose not to watch this in Japanese because I figured this was going to be a doozy to keep up with, and I'm sure I chose the lesser of two evils. My God did no one at Bandai care—which says something because a lot of these voice actors are actually well-known and have done other dubs before and after this (I want to say the Escaflowne dub was done prior to this one because Andrew Francis sounded like he had hit puberty prior to being cast in this anime). I don't know who the ADR director for this was, let alone who translated the scripts, but I bet you no one on that staff and in the recording booth knew what was written on those pages or what was going on on the screen. Everyone sounded confused when they're not stilted in delivery, it was really awkward. The only person who seemed to have cared may have been Yoko Kanno, although if she half-assed it, it's not THAT noticeable. But her music for this show honestly isn't worth looking for despite the soundtrack being the best thing about the show (to the point I was more invested in the music than I was in the scene or the dialogue). And I hate saying that about her, but considering she was working on Cowboy Bebop's soundtrack at this time as well, her priorities were elsewhere alongside everyone else's. Also, the opening song, “In My Dream”, is too good for this show and thus it's the only thing I'm taking away from this. And no, I don't get why it is there were naked women in the opening, which is the only opening I can think of outside of Elfen Lied where nudity was rampant. ENJOYMENT/OVERALL: My brain puked. That's... that's all I can say. I've tried, people, but all I could do was ramble because I have no idea how to process this show. When you're reduced to a blabbering mess and you just go into a trance and wander around trying to acknowledge the surrounding world, your mind goes elsewhere. Well, that could just be me, but this is what this anime has done to me in a way very few anime has had the privilege of doing to me. I'm legitimately surprised I can even function right now, I thought the number of headaches I had developed from watching/half-watching this baloney would've given me an aneurysm. In fact, just thinking about it makes my insides clench and my brain to throb and I want to puke, and I don't want to talk about this anymore. It probably should've stayed that way so it would've saved me and the rest of you the headache of trying to comprehend my thoughts.

A horrendous mecha anime that is worth a peek. Understand that I'm writing this review from the perspective that none of the current reviews represents my perspective of this anime. Normally this means a show is either worse or better than what the overall reviewers have portrayed since I'm not the type to write a review without looking and considering the rest of the reviews that's been written. Brain Powerd is this one exception. Let's get the bad out of the way first: Is this as horrible or cookie cutter as many of the bad reviewers have written? In many ways, it's worse. I'm telling you right now Ididn't finish watching this show and I simply watched the first and the last episode. If you're wondering then how I can review this show without going through the pain of watching this horrendous series, well...here lies the merit of Brain Powerd. As a show: it's horrendous. Mecha designs that try to have that Tekkaman or RahXephon look but fail miserably. Plot that jumps right at the gate yet fails to be exciting. Even the characters given some positive light are truly merely simplistic even by classic mecha standards and yet in some ways it's made more horrible because it doesn't follow a prototypical theme. However Brain Powerd is also more of a failed classical music piece than it is a train wrecked. For those who can't tolerate drudging up a horrible anime to find that jewel within, I sincerely advise you to check out Super Robot Taisen/Wars Judgement for the GBA. Really with the English patch and it being for the gba (low specs for PC emulator), there's really few excuses to not go that route when trying to consume this show. However you're probably asking: Does it still count as an anime review IF you aren't talking specifically about the anime even? This is really were Brain Powerd's quality reveals itself - plot-wise. Normally when it comes to Super Robot Wars as a series, it's known to resurrect interest in lesser known shows by simply showcasing and adding the plot into the overall story of the series. Brain Powerd, however, actually does something else. It's like within the format of SRW J - it's qualities shine. This is credited both to Brain Powerd's overall theme as well as this version of SRW focusing specifically on Brain Powerd's plot. This doesn't mean the anime itself has no superior qualities over it's adaptation but in many ways: the adaptation becomes superior to the anime and I'm not just talking about design or coolness factor or because the robots actually play well. I'm talking literally plot-wise, the arcs in Brain Powerd is never the same after you finish the Brain Powerd route in SRW J. Why is this? To begin with, aesthetically, the SD format really makes the Brain Powerd look and feel better and more fluid than the anime does. The major part however lies in that the central plot of Brain Powerd, it's central premise, relies very hard on certain "vagueness" as well as the threat posed by the synopsis actually feeling like a threat. One could even use the classic Enemy per Episode Super Mecha plot line as a basis for why it's needed. Even as the threats in those series get killed every episode and the whole thing feels like the main mecha is invincible - it has a certain old school feel that attracts many anime lovers who've lived watching those eras. Brain Powerd's plot is on one hand nowhere near that level of "suspense" yet at the same time it's central theme is based around that "suspense" as an over-arcing plot. (Really hard to explain without spoiling many of the actual twists in the series.) The anime fails heavily towards this element though because most of it is based around...how should I put it...dry horrible lackadisical pacing with no additional threat on top of the whole threat. (Plus the so-called antagonist is really mostly a static statue.) Because the SRW J version however contains tons of other threats - the result is that every twist in Brain Powerd because this sort of nostalgic "heavy" event when you're rewatching the anime AFTER you've played the game. This doesn't necessarily mean the videogame adaptation is a perfect copy of the anime (one major character specifically is overlooked by the adaptation for example) but rather with the threat contextified, with the characters sort of formed and with many of the ugliness of the anime versions stripped away - Brain Powerd's one main quality is magnified and many of the positive reviewers have tried to highlight this quality but really I think on average even on a critical level - Brain Powerd is hard to "get". It's below love or hate. It's a series that's just...dull or cookie cutter...until you see it as a whole and then the whole puzzles and forms itself into what the anime becomes. The closest analogy that comes to my mind is to compare the great movies of the past that are really just over-retelling romanticized version of events. Cameron's Titanic for example is basically a ship wreck that becomes one of the most memorable love stories in film history. A news casting of a Tsunami far outweighs the movie version of it. It's this really important distinction that is needed to appreciate Brain Powerd. What is especially masterpiece worthy about it is that I don't know any anime that has that type of quality. Someone for example could point to that SRW adaptation of Evangelion's Shinji and say...that's how you do it right but it's still the same series. Brain Powerd post-SRW J versus pre-SRW J is not the same series. Especially the ending where without the SRW perspective it becomes sort of "trying hard"/"ok I get what you are trying to pull off but it's still silly" into something much closer to a "OMG this is something big!" Nonetheless, I still wouldn't say Brain Powerd is a good anime even with the SRW J adaptation. I actually hate that route in the game and I hate the mecha - they really weren't anything special and they don't have that good of an overall pull but "intrigue" - they have that in spades and although the curiosity wasn't really done well - it's this element that separates Brain Powerd from being just a crappy mecha anime and it's worth retelling the anime as such otherwise it seems criminal to the canon like if you're watching Getter Robo and yawning at the bad mecha without knowing what Getter Emperor is or you're watching Evangelion and then missing out on End of Evangelion. The key is not so much the quality of action or the portrayal of characters but instead the overall symbolistic enjoyment that is missed without reaching those context. As far as what the anime has over the videogame adaptation? The opening song even if you hear it in the game is not as haunting as the anime series and really it's one of the things cementing Brain Powerd's charm and uniqueness as a series. Normally you wait until a climactic moment or the actual ending before you get something good but Brain Powerd's opening is both the ultimate ending/climax as well as being able to pump you up as a first time viewer however without knowledge of the entire plot it is also something of an acid trip especially the original opening theme scenes. All in all it's really a series that is more of a puzzle that adds layers upon rewatching if only if it was that good or the characters were really that well designed or well formed. I would even go so far as saying a direct remake - with no changes in plot but character design, pacing, execution - is on par with Serial Experiment Lain but with Mecha. That's how unique Brain Powerd is IF only it is able to make the right order of settings and it really should go down as that type of anime instead of a either you love it or hate it one because either extreme opinions doesn't do respect to what this anime offers it's viewers that other mecha series don't or extremely rarely deliver.
Brain Powerd is a psychedelic trip, wrapped inside of a sci-fi series, that is then packaged in a parcel that reads "What is the heck is even going on in this series? Really?" which is sent back to the return address, but then the recipient never is given an iota of clarity from the original sender about why the package was ever sent to begin with. Weird, mind-bending, intensely convoluted! But, I do have good memories of watching this series; it was during a single summer and I went swimming afterwards, with it still boggling my mind — I still remember splashing in the coolwater, while laughing about the absurdity of it all. So, overall, I would say that I actually really enjoyed "Brain Powerd"! ⚠️ This review will be spoiler-free ⚠️ —Story/Characters From the sources that I have read, Mr. Tomino claims that "Brain Powerd" and its organic robots was an idea that he created before "Neon Genesis Evangelion" ever aired. Though, notably, Mr. Tomino went on to tell Animerica magazine in a March, 2000 interview, that: "He wanted to write an interesting story for Brain Powerd in order to allow those who watched it to do so without having a nervous breakdown and to show fans that there were often other things out there better than anime. Tomino has wished that more animators would see themselves as entertainers, though he admitted that he felt that Brain Powerd was not very entertaining and thus a ※failure in this regard." ※Despite Mr. Tomino's admittance of failure, he went on to create ∀ Gundam after this, so I suppose that everything happened for a reason! I disagree about the part about "Brain Powerd" not being entertaining, but I do admit that there were times that I had to really strain my brain to try to make any sense out of what was going on with the plot. After the banger of an opening, "In My Dream," we're treated to a very show-but-not-tell type of storyline, with quippy, manic dialogues and fast-paced drama — Mr. Tomino's usual schtick. The story seems to convey the idea of warring psyches and the ideologues that each pilot holds dear. The main thesis of the series seems to be: don't dedicate your life to trying to find the answers and just focus on the ones you love; the here and now. "If Victory Gundam was the work of a depressed man, Brain Powerd is the work of a man who has overcome his depression." —TV Tropes Many of the characters are disenfranchised, Jonathan Green hatches a terroristic heist because he never got to spend Christmas with his workaholic parents, and even the main character (Yū Asami) and his sister, ※Quincy Issa, seem to have problems because of their parents abandonment, during their formative years, and many of their memories are at their grandparent's house. Though this series is more insane with its verbal execution, I'll give it one thing: I does ultimately have a more uplifting message than "Neon Genesis Evangelion"! While, the view of women is still highly debatable (whether or not women should give up their careers to be mothers), it is important for people to have meaningful bonds with one another and for family to be a bigger priority than scientific research. It's like Mr. Tomino was trying to say, "Get out of your own head and look at what's around you!" The series was profoundly meaningful in that way! ※Side Note: I thought that Quincy Issa, a.k.a. Iiko Isami, was the most fleshed out female character in the show, and therefore, she was best girl. There are implications that this show is primarily about sex: the rampant nudity in the opening, the phallic areas that are ejected out of the crotches of the "Antibodies"! But, like my thesis in the paragraph earlier, I think it all just a metaphor for human intimacy. If this series is a response to "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and the AT fields, in that are the barriers of the human psyche, the metaphysical driving ego that tears us all apart, it seems that Mr. Tomino has imaginatively tried to find a way to reattach the disconnected wires in our human souls. Though, without a quintessential sea, like in the narrative of "Densetsu Kyojin Ideon"! —Technical Luna's Favorite Works by Each Respective Creator = ✅ Yoshiyuki Tomino (director, script, original creator), notable works: * ∀ Gundam ("Turn A Gundam") ✅ * After War Gundam X * Byston Well Monogatari: Garzey no Tsubasa ✅ * Densetsu Kyojin Ideon ✅ * Gundam Build Fighters * Gundam: G no Reconguista * Jūsenki L-Gaim * Kaitei Shōnen Marine ("Marine Boy") * Mobile Fighter G Gundam ("Kidō Butōden G Gundam") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam ("Kidō Senshi Gundam") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam 00 ("Kidō Senshi Gundam 00") * Mobile Suit Gundam: War in the Pocket ("Kidō Senshi Gundam: Pocket no Naka no Sensō") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory ("Kidō Senshi Gundam: STARDUST MEMORY") * Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: The Fading Light of Zeon ("Kidō Senshi Gundam: ZION no Zankō") * Mobile Suit Gundam AGE ("Kidō Senshi Gundam AGE") * Mobile Suit Gundam F91 ("Kidō Senshi Gundam F91") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO ("Kidō Senshi Gundam MS IGLOO") * Mobile Suit Gundam NT ("Kidō Senshi Gundam Narrative") * Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ("Kidō Senshi Gundam SEED") —series ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt ("Kidō Senshi Gundam Thunderbolt") —series * Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn ("Kidō Senshi Gundam Unicorn") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam Wing ("Kidō Senshi Gundam Wing") —series * Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ ("Kidō Senshi Gundam Double Zeta") * Mobile Suit Gundam-san ("Gundam Sōsei") * Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack ("Kidō Senshi Gundam: Gyakushū no Char") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans ("Kidō Senshi Gundam: Tekketsu no Orphans") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team ("Kidō Senshi Gundam: Dai 08 MS Shōtai") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin ("Kidō Senshi Gundam: THE ORIGIN") ✅ * Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis ("Kidō Senshi Gundam: Twilight AXIS") * Mobile Suit SD Gundam ("Kidō Senshi SD Gundam") —series * Mobile Suit Victory Gundam ("Kidō Senshi V Gundam") * Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam ("Kidō Senshi Z Gundam") —series ✅ * Muteki Chōjin Zanbot 3 ✅ * Muteki Kōjin Daitarn 3 * Overman King Gainer ✅ * Rean no Tsubasa * Ring of Gundam * SD Gundam Force * Seisenshi Dunbine * Sentō Mecha Xabungle * Umi no Triton Commentary: While Mr. Tomino is very great at directing and framing an atmosphere, plus the choreography of the giant robot battles! Like, dang, they are impressive! His script-writing sense is questionable. In some series, like "Kidō Senshi Z Gundam" and "Densetsu Kyojin Ideon" — while the dialogue is absurd, in some cases, the plot is a spirituous tempest. But, with "Brain Powerd"... it's like the story is layered with several coats of cement, before it is anything more than glorified psychobabble. I had high-hopes for "Brain Powerd" because I really liked how steeped in existentialism and philosophy "Densetsu Kyojin Ideon" was. "Brain Powerd" isn't able to reach such a profound impact, unfortunately as it may be. Though, Mr. Tomino did drape this series with his usual colorful characters (※in fact, there were so many, that it was very easy to forget the purpose of some) and flights of fancy, I commend him for making the show entertaining, to say the least. ※26 key characters, not to mention that Quincey Issa and Higgins Saz have very similar designs. I mixed them up a couple of times, at the beginning of the series! Both are thin girls that are on the taller side, with short, brunette fringe-cuts. ⚠️ Disclaimer! I DID watch the English dub version of "Brain Powerd" — but, with that being said, none of the English cast seemed to know what was going on in the series, so their performances are mostly just them blankly reading off the script. They are all very talented in their own respects. I will list all of their work below, but I can't really say anything substantial about any of them, because of the aforementioned explanation. ⚠️ Good Seiyū Work = ✅ Really Enjoyed the Seiyū's Performance = ✅ ✅ One of Luna's Favorite Performances OF ALL TIME = ✅ ✅ ✅ Tetsu Shiratori as Yū Asami, notable roles: * Lloyd Asplund, Code Geass ✅ * Zancrow, Fairy Tail * Gluttony, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood ✅ * Sai Argyle, Kidō Senshi Gundam SEED ✅ * Kōji Aiba, Mugen no Ryvius Matt Smith as Yū Asami, notable roles: * Tenshinhan, Dragon Ball Z ✅ * Hōjō, InuYasha ✅ * Orga Sabnak, Kidō Senshi Gundam SEED Destiny ✅ Akino Murata as Hime Utsumiya, notable roles: * Enora Taft, Kenran Butō Sai: The Mars Daybreak * Sochie Heim, ∀ Gundam ✅ Lalainia Lindbjerg (※eps 1 to 2) as Hime Utsumiya, notable roles: * Alice Sakaguchi, Boku no Chikyū wo Mamotte ✅ ✅ * Bulma, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z ✅ ✅ * Nobume Imai, Gintama * Mana, Mermaid's Scar * Stellar Loussier, Kidō Senshi Gundam SEED Destiny ✅ ※Maggie Blue O'Hara (eps 3 to 26), notable roles: * Tomoyo Daidōji, Cardcaptor Sakura ✅ ✅ * Bulma (eps 123 to 260), Dragon Ball Z ✅ ✅ ✅ * Juna Ariyoshi, Earth Girl Arjuna ("Chikyū Shōjo Arujuna") ✅ ✅ ✅ * Mariemaia Khushrenada, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz * Cullen Lucciora, Infinite Ryvius * Karan, InuYasha ✅ ✅ * Nanami Agawa, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade ✅ ✅ * Mika, Rockman.EXE ("Megaman.EXE") * Holly, Monster Rancher * Lime, Saber Marionette J and R ✅ ✅ ✅ * Sayaka Tachibana, Soul Taker * Ai Amano, Video Girl Ai ✅ ✅ ✅ Atsuko Tanaka as Shiela Glass, notable roles: * Bayonetta, Bayonetta: Bloody Fate * Mary, Detective Conan ✅ ✅ * Silene, Devilman Crybaby ✅ * Mammo, Dokidoki! PreCure ✅ ✅ * Caster ("Medea"), Fate/stay night ✅ ✅ * Soi, Fushigi Yûgi * Kanako Yasaka, Hifū Katsudō Kiroku: The Sealed Esoteric History ✅ ✅ * Fujina, Himiko-den * Mōkaku, Ikkitōsen * Lisa Lisa, JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken ✅ ✅ * Slan, Kenpū Denki Berserk ✅ ✅ * Motoko Kusanagi, Kōkaku Kidōtai ("Ghost in the Shell") ✅ ✅ * Ateria, Mahō Shōjo-tai Arisu * Konan, Naruto: Shippūden ✅ * Pamela Isley ("Poison Ivy"), Ninja Batman * Claudette Vance, Queen's Blade ✅ * Misuzu Suenaga, Salaryman Kintarō * Valeria Vertone, Seihō Bukyō Outlaw Star ✅ * Hisahide Matsunaga, Sengoku Collection * Nina Williams, Tekken: Blood Vengeance * Mishiro, The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls ✅ * Kyrie Ushiromiya, Umineko no Naku Koro ni ✅ ✅ ✅ * Akira, Usuzumizakura: Garo * Karura, Utawarerumono ✅ ✅ ✅ * Jagara, Wolf's Rain ✅ Ellen Kennedy as Shiela Glass, notable roles: * Uranai Baba, Dragon Ball Z ✅ * Kyōko Otanashi, Maison Ikkoku ✅ ✅ * Lebia Mavelick, Silent Möbius Romi Park as Karen Gimms, notable roles: * Maki Aikawa, Air Master ✅ ✅ * Kuchiha, Amatsuki * Tōshirō Hitsugaya, Bleach ✅ ✅ * Zola, Blue Dragon * Teresa, Claymore ✅ ✅ * Akane Owari, Danganronpa 3 ✅ ✅ * Ganta Igarashi, Deadman Wonderland ✅ * Ken'ichi Harakawa, Dennō Coil ✅ * Ken Ichijōji, Digimon ✅ ✅ * Reiji Ōzora, Dragon Drive * Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist ✅ ✅ * Natsume Hyūga, Gakuen Alice * Nayuta Moriyama, Gakuen Senki Muryō * Emma Guzman, Garo * Seimei, Garo: Guren no Tsuki * Alex McKenzie, GR: Giant Robo * Switzerland, Hetalia Axis Powers * Higepiyo, Higepiyo * Dahlia, Highlander: The Search for Vengeance * Padparadscha, Hōseki no Kuni ✅ ✅ ✅ * Pakunoda, Hunter x Hunter (2011) ✅ ✅ * Popo, Kaiba ✅ ✅ ✅ * Rei Batsubami, Kakegurui×× * Ragyō Kiryūin, Kill la Kill ✅ ✅ * Gyubid, Kuromajo-san ga Tōru!! * Angelina Durless, Kuroshitsuji ✅ ✅ * Kuromitsu, Kurozuka * Ichirō Irabu, Kūchū Buranko ✅ ✅ ✅ * Taiga Shimizu, Major S3 * Heimdall, Matantei Loki Ragnarok * Myōri Unzen, Medaka Box ✅ * Regene Regetta, Kidō Senshi Gundam 00 * Falis, Murder Princess * Nana Osaki, Nana ✅ ✅ ✅ * Temari, Naruto * Adam Blade, Needless * Tora, Nyanbo! * Omasa, Onihei * Naoto Shiragane, Persona 4 the Animation * Jiro ("Brock"), Pokémon ✅ ✅ * Yūjirō Shihōdani, Princess Princess ✅ * Alma, Radiant * Noboru Maeda, Rainbow: Nisha Rokubō no Shichinin ✅ * Tamayo Kataoka, RideBack ✅ * Katsushiro Okamoto, Samurai 7 * Shute, SD Gundam Force * Karasuba, Sekirei * Kenshin Uesugi, Sengoku Basara * Ren Tao, Shaman King ✅ ✅ * Hange Zoë, Shingeki no Kyojin ✅ * Ayumi Saitō, Shion no Ō * Chloe and Kurt Klick, Sōsei no Aquarion * Maguro, Sushi Ninja * Kōta Koga, Suteki Tentei Labyrinth * Hamyuts Meseta, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra * Maria, TO * Sana Maniwa, Toji no Miko ✅ ✅ * Komatsu, Toriko ✅ * Loran Cehack, ∀ Gundam ✅ ✅ * Kōsuke Ueki, Ueki no Hōsoku * 044, Ultraviolet: Code 044 * Yayoi Shinozuka, White Album ✅ ✅ * Syrup, Yes! PreCure 5 GoGo! * Lù Shêng Máo, Zegapain Saffron Henderson as Karen Gimms, notable roles: * Shenhua, Black Lagoon ✅ * Son Gokū, Dragon Ball ✅ ✅ * Son Gohan, Dragon Ball Z ✅ ✅ * Tetsurō Hoshino, Ginga Tetsudō 999 ✅ ✅ * Sōta Higurashi, InuYasha ✅ * Kentarō Ichinose, Maison Ikkoku ✅ * Lucrezia Noin, Kidō Senshi Gundam Wing ✅ ✅ ✅ * Genki Sakura, Monster Farm: Enbanseki no Himitsu ✅ * Bloodberry, Saber Marionette J ✅ * Edge, Saber Marionette R ✅ * Naria and Eriya, and Yukari Uchida — Tenkū no Escaflowne ✅ ✅ ✅ * Kōshi-kun ("Oxford"), Tottoko Hamtarō Gō Aoba as Jonathan Green, notable roles: * Armbrust, Kiddy Grade ✅ ✅ * Guin Sard Rhineford, ∀ Gundam ✅ Kirby Morrow as Jonathan Green, notable roles: * Rogan, Ark * Zusho-no-Suke Himekawa, Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror * Bradley White, Chō Robot Seimeitai Transformers Micron Densetsu ("Transformers Armada") ✅ * Teru Mikami, Death Note * Son Gokū, Dragon Ball Z ✅ ✅ * Miroku, InuYasha ✅ * Billy Katagiri, Kidō Senshi Gundam 00 * Rey Za Burrel, Kidō Senshi Gundam SEED Destiny ✅ * Trowa Barton, Kidō Senshi Gundam Wing ✅ ✅ * Guss Gyunei, Kidō Senshi Gundam: Char's Counterattack ✅ * Yūki Aiba, Mugen no Ryvius * Aikka, Oban Star-Racers * Ryō Takatsuki, Project ARMS * Van Fanel, Tenkū no Escaflowne ✅ ✅ ✅ Kumiko Watanabe as Iiko Isami ("Quincy Issa"), notable roles: * Yurina Sanohara, After War Gundam X * Mother Tachibana, Atashin'chi * Nekomaru Negota, Bakukyū Renpatsu!! Super B-Daman * Gōki Ichimoji and J, Bakusou Kyōdai Let's & Go * JunJun, Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS ✅ * Bonobono, Bonobono (TV) * Tomoki Himi, Digimon Frontier * Gumdramon, Digimon Xros Wars * Regina, Dokidoki! PreCure ✅ ✅ * Héloïse Villefort, Gankutsuō ✅ ✅ * Kei Yung, Gundress ✅ * Pū-chan, Heli-Tako Pū-chan * Shippō, InuYasha ✅ ✅ * Kunyan, Ippatsu Kiki Musume * Keroro and Dororo's mother, Keroro * Katejina Loos, Kidō Senshi Victory Gundam * Kingo Minamoto, Nintama Rantarō * Fukurō and Gari, One Piece * Claire Rondo, Planetes ✅ * Mother Tachibana, Shin Atashin'chi ✅ * C-ko, Shōjo Kakumei Utena ✅ * Fran Doll, ∀ Gundam ✅ ✅ * Kyōko Shirafuji, Working!! ✅ ✅ * Kōta Hoshikawa, Yūsha Exkaiser Jennifer Copping (※eps 1 to 13) as Iiko Isami ("Quincy Issa"), notable roles: * None ※Jillian Michaels (eps 14 to 26), notable roles: * None Maria Kawamura as Higgins Saz, notable roles: * Sakurako Miyagawa, Ayane-chan High Kick! ✅ * Eudial, Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon S ✅ ✅ * Cinderella, Cinderella Monogatari * Cleopatra Corns, Cleopatra D.C. * Lachesis Fatima, Five Star Stories ✅ ✅ * Melmo Watari, Fushigi ga Melmo * Eluza and Fortin, Gall Force ✅ ✅ * Bellin Ajelli, Gothicmade: Hana no Utame * Shirin, Harukanaru Toki no Naka de * Gaw Ha Leccee and Lilith Fau, Jūsenki L-Gaim * Lolita, Kaiketsu Zorro * Yui Takanaka, Megazone 23 ✅ * Quess Paraya, Kidō Senshi Gundam: Char's Counterattack ✅ * Beltorchika Irma, Kidō Senshi Zeta Gundam ✅ ✅ * Kyoko Zeppelin Sōryū, Neon Genesis Evangelion ✅ ✅ * Freya, Saint Seiya ✅ ✅ * Cham Fau, Seisenshi Dunbine * Mamiya Chida and A-ko, Shōjo Kakumei Utena ✅ ✅ * Gracia Ul Naga Saillune, Slayers ✅ ✅ ✅ * Jung Freud, Top wo Nerae! Gunbuster ✅ ✅ * Hedwig von Trapp, Trapp Ikka Monogatari Cathy Weseluck as Higgins Saz (※only in ep 6), notable roles: * Fernando Garcia Lovelace, Black Lagoon * Jin, Card Wang: Mix Master * Nate River ("Near"), Death Note * Catherine Magley, Dog Solider * Trunks, Pu'ar, Chiaotzu, Haiya Dragon, and East Kaio — Dragon Ball Z ✅ ✅ * Yuki Mitani, Hikaru no Go ✅ * Mama Higurashi, InuYasha ✅ * Tachikoma, Kōkaku Kidōtai: Stand Alone Complex — The Laughing Man ✅ ✅ * Mirai Yashima, Kikka Kobayashi, and Katz Kobayashi — Kidō Senshi Gundam ✅ ✅ ✅ * Kati Mannequin, Kidō Senshi Gundam 00 * Dorothy Catalonia, Kidō Senshi Gundam Wing ✅ ✅ * Shiiko Kotobuki ("C-ko"), Project A-ko ✅ ✅ * Shampoo and Azusa Shiratori, Ranma ½ ✅ ✅ ✅ * Khamsin Nbh'w, Shakugan no Shana * Gokdari, Super Child * Shinbei Inue, The Hakkenden * Neteru-kun ("Snoozer") and Hiromi Haruna, Tottoko Hamtarō ✅ ✅ * Yūma Kuga, World Trigger ※Willow Johnson (all other eps of "Brain Powerd"), notable roles: * Tomihime, Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror * Ruby Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura ✅ * Lily McGuire, Fatal Fury —series ✅ * Kikyō, InuYasha ✅ ✅ * Lalah Sune, Kidō Senshi Gundam ✅ ✅ ✅ * Yugo Gilbert, Project Arms * Kasumi Tendō, Ranma ½ ✅ ✅ * Tamako, Rockman.EXE ("Megaman.EXE") Yumi Tōma as Nakki Guys, notable roles: * Helba, .hack —series ✅ ✅ * Urd, Aa! Megami-sama! ✅ ✅ * Saeria Sō, After War Gundam X * Hijiri Kirishima, Air ✅ * Mel, Angelique —series * Ann and Kisenian, Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon R * Rin Kobayashi, Boku no Chikyū wo Mamotte ✅ ✅ ✅ * Leelince, Byston Well Monogatari: Garzey no Tsubasa * Spinel Sun, Cardcaptor Sakura ✅ ✅ * Luna Kozuki, Casshern: Robot Hunter ✅ ✅ * Shaia Shu Silveianu, Chōjin Gakuen Gowcaizer: The Voltage Fighters * Rella Cindy Shirayuki, Cinderella Boy * Jodie Starling, Detective Conan ✅ ✅ * Emma, Eikoku Koi Monogatari Emma ✅ ✅ * Shiro, Fortune Quest * Yui Hongo, Fushigi Yûgi ✅ * Liavelt von Neuestein, Ginga Ojōsama Densetsu Yuna ✅ * Shiho Nishizumi, Girls und Panzer ✅ ✅ * Cortana, Halo Legends * Nami Shiina, Iczer-Girl Iczelion ✅ * Akira Aino, Jikū Tantei Genshi-kun ("Flint the Time Detective") * Chiquita, Jormungund * Deedlit, Lodoss-tō Senki ✅ ✅ ✅ * Sylvie Gena, Macross II: Lovers Again ✅ ✅ * Lipumira Gweiss, Maps * Reiko Takagi, Marriage: Kekkon * Cecily Fairchild, Kidō Senshi Gundam F91 ✅ ✅ * Aspergillus oryzae, Moyashimon ✅ * Najika Hiiragi, Najica Dengeki Sakusen * Irene Lew, Ninja Ryūkenden * Eevee and Freezer ("Articuno"), Pokémon ✅ ✅ * Yáo Fēi-Láng, Power Dolls * Jo Misty, Shinkai Densetsu Meremanoid * Sylphiel Nels Laada, Slayers ✅ * Yù-Líng Pin, Sōten no Ken: Regenesis * Chūn-Lì, Street Fighter Zero * Aya Kobayashi, Super Robot Taisen OG * Refill Sage ("Raine"), Tales of Symphonia ✅ ✅ * Jun Kazama, Tekken * Tokimi, Tenchi Muyō! ✅ ✅ * The Phoenix and Princess Sapphire, Tezuka Osamu ga Kieta?! 20 Seiki Saigo no Kaijiken * Sofia, Tōshinden * Mayuko Inōe, Ushio to Tora Andrew Francis as Nakki Guys, notable roles: * Haseo, .hack//Roots * Kusuriuri, Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror * Tokio Oshima, Chikyū Shōjo Arjuna ✅ * Dende, Dragon Ball Z ✅ * Tatsuma Sakamoto, Gintama * Hiten Raijō, InuYasha ✅ ✅ * Lasse Aeon, Kidō Senshi Gundam 00 * Murata Azrael, Kidō Senshi Gundam SEED ✅ ✅ ✅ * Genki Sakura, Monster Farm: Enbanseki no Himitsu * Airs Blue, Mugen no Ryvius * Rockman.EXE, Rockman.EXE ("Megaman.EXE") * Dilandau Albatou, Tenkū no Escaflowne ✅ ✅ * Chiaki Mamiya, Toki wo Kakeru Shōjo ("The Girl That Leapt Through Time") ✅ ✅ ✅ * Luka Bloom, Ultraviolet: Code 044 * Yū'ichi Jin, World Trigger Conclusively, I would check this one out if you're looking for the zany side of Yoshiyuki Tomino! It isn't "good" — if you're using the mainstream concept of "good" — but it's an enjoyable watch, if you want to pop on the dub during a relaxing evening and want to get a few chuckles from something, that has an optimistic ethos. Also, the visuals are clean and the designs look stylish, even though the animation can just like a layered slideshow in ※some scenes! I would suggest giving "Brain Powerd" a try, if it's your kind of show, and rate it a 4/10! ※There is the occasional scene, where the "Antibodies" just glide through the air and there isn't much movement on their behalf, but everything else meets Sunrise's standards, as far as quality goes. It isn't as shoddily animated and low budget, like "Byston Well Monogatari: Garzey no Tsubasa" OVA! Rating: ★★☆☆☆
This show is overhated. But Im not going to call it great either. It's Turn A/Evangelion/G in Reconguista wrapped up into one atmospheric low-budget package. The soundtrack is one of the all time best (better than Yoko Kannos work that followed in Turn A Gundam), the mechs and world has a creepy 3am in a subliminal space feel to them, and the voice cast features the debut of Sai from Gundam Seed as well as Loran and Sochie from Turn A Gundam. (There are a lot for recognizable names on the list too. If you are a big Gundam fan you can really see how thisfits neatly between Victory and Turn A in terms of themes as well as art direction. It was a weirdly bingeable series and I could feel my brain working in hyperdrive going through each episode. Unfortunately you can tell they were short for time on some episodes, with really crap animation happening every now and then. Now you may have noticed I haven't said anything specific about the plot. Well, the plot is actually simple at its core, but stuffed with so many asides and character moments that it can feel overwhelming despite it. Like G in Reconguista, it's a show that does not care if the viewer knows what's happening, and often we are given information by characters who ALSO don't know what is happening. However it does a better job at making most of it click by the end. I did feel the the end was somewhat unsatisfying though, as the focus shifts to the underlying plot rather than the weird cast of individuals. If you watch a lot of Tomino-directed shows, or are a fan of the off putting apocolyptic atmosphere of shows like Evangelion or Gun Busters, you should check Brain Powerd out.
Brain Powerd is a Sunrise anime from '98. It was directed and written by by Tomino Yoshiyuki, the creator of Gundam and the person responsible for the Garzey no Tsubasa OVA. I was asked to review this on the grounds that I hated Evangelion and this is, as impossible as it sounds, supposedly worse. I find that hard to believe, but let's take a look and decide for ourselves. Brain Powerd.png Story: During an excursion, Utsumiya Hime discovers a giant plate. From the plate emerges a giant mecha, one of the titular Brain Powerd. She becomes its pilot and escapes from a pair of giant robots that arechasing her. One year later, Isami Yuu, one of the pilots, is leaving Orphan, the one-dimensionally evil organisation dedicated to helping their ship, called Orphan, reach the stars even if it destroys all of humanity besides them. Yuu has somehow figured out that this obviously bad idea is, in fact, a bad idea. So, he escapes aboard his own Brain Powerd and meets up with Utsumiya. He greets her like an old and dear friend, in spite of them having only met for all of thirty seconds a year ago. Turns out that she's part of the Novis Noah, a ship dedicated to stopping Orphan. Will Novis Noah succeed or will Orphan manage to blast off? And if it does, will that devastate humanity? Let's start right away with the fundamental flaw with the writing in this series. It's very disjointed. Plot points come out of nowhere, the dialogue jumps around and there's a lot of plot progression that involves the situation just being different for no adequately explained reason. The narrative flows very much like it was just made up on a time crunch with no plan behind it. It's almost like a group of people who don't really understand writing got together and played the party game where you take turns making up parts of a story. There are smaller issues as well. The romance in this is total tripe. It basically involves two characters barely exchanging dialogue, having no chemistry but getting together because.... Undyne can suplex a boulder. This series also doesn't understand how things like energy work and the Novis Noah's “doctor” must have gotten her degree from a diploma mill because her areas of expertise are acupuncture and moxibustion. In other words, Pseudo-scientific nonsense that operates on the placebo effect. Let's just hope no one who pilots these living mecha into battle gets seriously injured and needs real medicine. There are other elements that just don't make sense. The Novis Noah decides to take on a bunch of orphaned children, in spite of being in constant danger and then they act surprised when that decision doesn't go well for them. On the positive side this series, like Garzey no Tsubasa, can be pretty funny in its incompetence. So, that's something. Characters: The trouble with disjointed writing isn't relegated to the narrative itself. Character motivations suffer the same fate. They'll shift without any real reason. Yuu can also be annoying at times. Particularly when he's giving sanctimonious speeches. Aside from that, the characters are just dull. They're archetypes who occasionally shift to different archetypes because the plot says they need to. Brain Powerd1.png Art: The artwork and animation in this are hilariously bad, mostly. The action sequences can be hilarious as can the facial expressions that aren't dull surprise. The future technology is pretty stupid looking and can be funny. The character designs are terrible with one dude looking like he's rubbing his nipples when he puts his fingers in his jacket pocket. The opening sequence gives us inexplicable nudity of a bunch of the young female characters. Because that's super relevant to the mecha battles between Orphan and the Novis Noah. Totally not a cheap ploy to get people to watch the series. Sound: there are some actors in this cast who are good at their jobs but this is also one of those series where you'd never know it to hear them in it. To name a few, Watanabe Kumiko and Paku Romi are both good actresses. The trouble is that the series doesn't need them to showcase their skills. It needs them to have one or two emotions. Which results in performances where none of the actors seem to care. The music is pretty good. It's not Kanno Yoko's best soundtrack by any means, but it is a Kanno Yoko soundtrack and she's damn good at her job. Ho-yay: There isn't any. Which is just as well given how this series handles romantic elements. Final Thoughts: So, that's Brain Powerd. It's a really poorly written series with dull characters, hilariously bad art and actors who read the script and knew they didn't need to put in an effort. That being said, let's move on to the big question. Is it worse than Evangelion? Well... no. For one thing, the protagonists are smart enough to not be part of the cartoonishly evil organisation in this series. For another, the antagonists do have motivations. The main goal is even one that's reminiscent of Ra's Al Ghul's or that organisation from the Invasion of the Dinosaurs Doctor Who serial. So, it's even something that can be done well, when it's in the hands of competent writers but even in this series it's, at least, something. Most importantly, it's nowhere near as pretentious and the characters in this are almost as one-note, but nowhere near as painfully obnoxious. And, while Evangelion was a painful slog, this one can be bad in an amusing way. That brings me to the final rating. Brain Powerd gets a 2/10. Honestly, I don't recommend watching it, even for those unintentionally hilarious moments, just because of the length. Next week I'll look at Mouryou no Hako.
As one who has seen nearly everything that director Yoshiyuki Tomino has made, I am sad to say that Brain Powerd is far and away his worst TV series (but not his worst anime period; that distinction goes to Garzey’s Wing). The show was Tomino’s first TV anime after a four year break and at 26 episodes is his shortest series in over 20 years. Which can only be looked at as a good thing, as I can only imagine how hard this would be to stomach at 50 episodes. In Brain Powerd, mankind has discovered a giant structure known as Orphan, deep underneath the ocean.Numerous scientists and intellectuals have foretold that Orphan is going to rise out of the ocean and head off to space, but in doing so will absorb the energy of the Earth, killing all those not aboard it. Orphan has also created or “given birth” to sentient mecha enemies called either Brain Powerds or Grand Chers (depending on who they are aligned with). Chief among those who support Orphan are the Isami family. Their son, Yuu, who is also a Grand Cher pilot decides to leave his family, joining the organization Novis Noah, who is responsible for fighting Orphan and preventing it from destroying the world. The best way to describe Brain Powerd and its plot is a confusing mess. In the very first episode we have a year time skip, and one may have to watch it multiple times to understand what is going on. Complicated and nonsensical terms are thrown out constantly. Character motivations often seem contradictory or just not realistic. We often have characters going on lengthy rants or switching sides for reasons hard to determine. Sometimes you will be watching an episode and it will feel like you skipped or missed an episode by mistake because of how oddly handled the transitioning is. This ultimately leads to a show where a whole bunch of characters say a lot of stuff, do a lot of things, but at the end one wonders what the point was. Thematically, Brain Powerd seems focused on the concept of demographic collapse. Problematic parent – children relationships are quite a focus, moreso than any of Tomino’s other works. In particular Tomino goes hard after working mothers. Yuu’s mother is shown as largely ignoring him and his sister Iiko, leaving them in the care of her mother while she spends her time at Orphan until they became old enough to become test subjects. Yuu eventually responds to this by abandoning his parents while his sister sticks around with Orphan but changes her name due to her hatred of them. Novis Noah captain Anoa McCormick is shown as having abandoned her son, causing him to become an Orphan pilot and go on a rampage later in the series. Brain Powerd also focuses on this in a rather unique way by portraying the show’s mechs as if they were children themselves, and their pilots were their parents. Tomino is clearly trying to deliver a message here, but how effective he does so is highly questionable and I also got to ask why a mecha anime is the place to go with such a thing. The show is rather notorious for being called an Evangelion clone, and if there is one thing I can say in the show’s defense, it is not. People who call the show an Evangelion clone are clearly quite ignorant of Tomino’s history, or appear to have an axe to grind with him as he was critical of Evangelion when it came out and around the time Brain Powerd was being produced. Brain Powerd in fact draws heavily upon tropes from old Tomino shows, things that Evangelion itself drew inspiration from. People who have a history with Tomino will see so many familiar things here, although usually handled quite poorly in comparison to how they have been used before. Don’t avoid this show due to false and ignorant claims that it took things from Evangelion. Avoid it because it sucks! Design-wise, Brain Powered is a mixed bag. The character designs are rather iffy to me, or at the very least the way the characters are animated are rarely impressive. The mecha designs which are at least halfway interesting come from Mamoru Nagano, who has returned to work with Tomino for the first time since 1985’s Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. This would be the first show that famed musical composer Yoko Kanno would work with Tomino (also teaming up later to do Turn A Gundam). Kanno’s music score helps prop up the show and provide some mysticism it wouldn’t have otherwise. At the same time, her work is far superior in practically every other show she has done. If there’s one more thing I need to touch upon with respect to Brain Powerd it is the rather shoddy production quality. The usage of title cards and eye catches is done in rather inconsistent fashion and they even screw up on one of the episode previews, showing it for the wrong episode. The English language dub is quite the mess, despite being done by a studio whose work I often enjoy (Ocean). The show comes off as if a small group of actors was used for the entire show, with several characters sharing the same voice actors. Two of the show’s key female characters, Hime and Quincy get recast halfway through the show for indeterminate reasons, and at least in Quincy’s case, not for the better. One episode for some unexplained reason also switches out the voices of several of the side characters, as if half the voice cast took the day off or something. I suppose that the dub felt it had to match the total mess that the show’s plot is. In any case, this show is quite the disaster. I suppose one may want to see it if they are a Tomino fanatic, but beyond that this show is worth skipping.
I'm not even sure what I watched when I watched this show. It starts out all right, hiding the hideous truth behind the first episode. This is because, like all shows, you really don't know what you're getting into from the first episode. I was going to give this show a 1, a score I've only graced with only one other show I've watched. That show is the Hakkenden: Legend of the Dog Warriors. However, Yoko Kanno's score saved it from being bottom of the barrel. Who am I kidding though, strike that last sentence. This show is complete garbage. But seriously, that's why I gaveit a 2 instead of a 1. I'm fairly certain that this show is defined under the Geneva Conventions as an act of torture, and is routinely used against captives in Gitmo. What an awful place to be where they'd be showing this pile of trash. You will be less of a person after having viewed Brain Powerd. Your mother and father will love you less. Your spouse will likely divorce you, and you'll have a lengthy battle with depression. One day you'll look up in the sky while farming the dirt, and say, "oh look, a Brain Powerd." By the way, that's actual dialogue. Just some random guy out in the middle of nowhere commenting on the mechas flying in the sky. How did that make it past editing? Save your time, there's better things to watch anyway. If you somehow like this show, you are morally bankrupt and objectively wrong.
Will admit it's been a while since I've had some rather complicated thoughts regarding an anime series and looks like Brain Powerd has done just that with me. Being Yoshiyuki Tomino's answer to Evangelion in the late 1990s, the series is set on a future Earth where the planet is being ravaged by earthquakes and floods due to the massive power emitted from a massive alien spacecraft called Orphan that an enemy faction called the Reclaimers are attempting to learn more about how to harness its power and leave the planet, which would result in humanity's destruction should this happen. Opposing Orphan are those aboardthe battleship Novis Noah, a resistance movement seeking to halt the battleship's restoration and flight from Earth, and whom our series leads, teen orphan Hime Utsumiya and Reclaimer defector Yuu Isami, are aligned with. Many over the years have dismissed Brain Powerd as a shallow "Eva ripoff" attempting to take after similar complicated storytelling beats as Gainax's famous mecha series and as a result, reception to it has been quite mixed. While I'm not interested in knocking the series as such, I will admit that my thoughts on Brain Powerd are rather mixed. I guess I'll go over the positives to the series I have for it first. First off is that the series does have a good bit of substance to its story and themes that it makes an effort to lay out, and isn't just doing things for aesthetic effect. While I do want to be careful on how deep I dabble into things to avoid spoilers, I guess the major element of the series to consider are the mecha used by both the Reclaimers (that they call Grand Chers) and the crew of Novis Noah (that they call Brain Powerd). The mecha within the series are shown to have an empathic connection to their pilots, which shape the relationships that the pilot and mecha each have with both one another and those around them. This is rather noticeable in the different environments that both the Reclaimers and Novis Noah have due to whatever beliefs and personalities are forming within the different factions. This empathic relationship also shapes events going into later episodes as more about the mysterious Orphan spaceship gets dabbled into. Plus, Brain Powerd is consistent with applying its themes and the abilities demonstrated with its various technologies, as I never got any sense of things feeling tossed in just for the sake of plot convenience. I'll just say that the series is rather cryptic and takes its time with how it develops its story and themes, hence it does require the viewer to be attentive to minor details with the series as they develop as it doesn't get into the habit of explaining things too upfront. Because of this angle to the series, I can see where folks could get frustrated and choose to ditch Brain Powerd during its earlier episodes. Another high point is the anime's soundtrack. Composed by the legendary composer Yoko Kanno, the series consists of a good amount of lively and energetic insert tracks, even coming with a catchy opener in the form of "In My Dreams." My only real gripe with the soundtrack is the show's rather questionable placement of insert tracks at points, as they usually don't fit the intended mood and tone of certain key scenes throughout Brain Powerd. Major areas I would consider weaknesses with the series are its characterization and melodrama. For the former, I'll admit that it is rather hit and miss with the quality of the character stories that are dabbled into. Yuu's character story gets perhaps the best development within Brain Powerd as the bonds he gradually develops with his Brain Powerd, Hime, and the Novis Noah crew help him get over his lone-wolf mentality and the hatred he has for the Reclaimers. Some other characters get reasonable fleshing out of their personalities and motives, though the series doesn't go deeply into exploring them. The more weaker character stories within Brain Powerd involve a decent number of those among the Reclaimers, whose motives for their alignment with the group border on the ridiculous with how simplistic and over-the-top they can get with their unhealthy family issues. Melodrama is tied to some of the character backstory issues I have with members among the Reclaimers. But like many mecha titles directed by Tomino, this also comes into play when characters are in the annoying habit of angrily debating one another during heated mecha fights due to their opposing ideologies that can distract from the action. In short, Brain Powerd is certainly quite a mixed bag in terms of quality as an entry in the mecha title. It does have a solid foundation for a story and themes that become more apparent and engrossing as episodes progress, though the slow pacing of its first half and the cryptic approach to its storytelling can turn away first time viewers. It comes with a catchy soundtrack from Yoko Kanno that unfortunately usually has some questionable insert track placements. Characterization is also a mixed bag, with the series also having the typical melodramatic beats from Tomino that usually rear their ugly head. While not the worst anime I've seen of the mecha genre or from Tomino (the latter honor would go to Garzey's Wing), I'll just say your mileage would definitely vary to Brain Powerd with how its storytelling plays out.