The Fall 2021 Preview Guide

Rumble Garanndoll

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In 2019, a rift to another dimension suddenly opens in the skies above, revealing a "turnabout" alternate world called "Shinkoku Nippon." This parallel version of Japan maintained its militarism and remains stuck in the Showa era. Shinkoku Nippon invades our Japan with its "Genmu" gas weapons and giant humanoid "Garan" weapons. The invaders immediately take over our government and all but conquer Japan. As a result, our Japan never ushers in the Reiwa era. A decade later, our Japan has been revamped as Genkoku Nippon, a puppet state of Shinkoku Nippon. Under harsh censorship, the once thriving manga, anime, idol, and similar sub-cultures have completely died off...or so it seemed.

Rumble Garanndoll is an original anime and streams on Funimation on Mondays.

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James Beckett
Rating:

As I was watching Rumble Garanndoll's premiere, I became worried that the Preview Guide cycle and general exhaustion was finally starting to get to me, because I was having the damnedest time just trying to figure out what the hell the show was even about. The opening title indicated some sort of alternate history Japan, which, okay, I can follow that. Then, the nefarious Bad Guy dude that pops up throughout kept mentioning some vague cataclysm, and a “Fantasy Country” Japan that is in some way different from the “True Country” Japan, and all of this has something to do with a ban on otaku stuff, I think? Also, there's a shark-themed robot that fights a bunch of dog-themed robots, and it's apparently powered by…nerd vibes?

It wasn't until I read the summary at the top of this page where I decided that, no, there's definitely something off with how Garanndoll is conveying its exposition, because 90% of the information was news to me. It's easy to complain when bad anime writing leads to incredibly clunky infodumps between characters who sound like living Wikipedia pages, but while I give Garanndoll credit for possibly attempting to trust its audience to figure things out for themselves, it has to meet us halfway by actually being, you know, coherent?

Heck, maybe the exhaustion is getting to me, and you all are reading this and shaking your heads at how ol' James has completely lost it this time. Well, that may be the case, but I'd also wager that I'd have been more in tune with the show's attempt at world-building if Garanndoll had any characters that I gave a damn about. Until he meets sharky robot girl and learns to fight evil with the power of his “oppressed” nerd culture (*shudder*), our man Hosomichi is established as a cynical twentysomething that's been slumming it at the last host club in town. His jaded attitude is the point, I know, but the rule about casting a disaffected grouch as your main character is that, if you aren't going to make him likeable, he at least needs to be interesting. I don't think you could apply that descriptor to any person in the cast of Garanndoll, human, AI, or otherwise. Except maybe for General Bad Guy, but that's only because his name is Balzac, and that made me laugh.

Even though the premise of weaponized otaku fandom feels kind of trite in this day and age, when there are multi-billion-dollar industries established all over the world that exist purely to cater to the whims of nerd culture, there could be a good anime here in Garanndoll, buried deep down somewhere. I don't know if I have the patience to stick around and find out, myself, but if this series somehow ends up being a surprise hit or something, I'm sure I'll find out one way or the other.

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Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Welcome to Rumble Garrandoll, the show that dares to ask, “What if your AI's batteries were charged by how ionate you are about their product?” While there are some, if not many, shows that make us suspect that they were written by a group of very excited teenagers, this one feels as if it were written by a group of very excited college students or recent college grads – you know, the age group where all of a sudden you realize that the real world is bearing down on you and you do things like have your parents send you your old My Little Ponies so that they can have a showdown with your friend's Star Wars toys. (This is, naturally, a completely random example of something that never happened.) That's more or less the sentiment powering the mecha in this show: the so-called “garrandoll” can only achieve enough battery power to fight the evil army if the pilot is sufficiently enthused, preferably by something otaku-related.

Or at least, that's my understanding based on this episode. Our hapless protagonist Kudo lives in a hellish alternate Japan where things like “escapism” are broadly banned, resulting in a nation that somehow never reached the current Reiwa era, although how those two things are related is at this point unexplained. Kudo, who works at a host club despite possibly being 17, is present when a raid goes down, and as he's escaping, he finds an unpiloted mech, complete with VR headset, controller, and “battery girl.” That last, who functions as both the ship's power source and its mascot character, needs him to be all fired up about fighting in a super suit and making the world a better place, and if he can drum up that enthusiasm by recalling a childhood favorite anime, so much the better, because then they can relate to each other. Honestly, it makes about as much sense as anything in this episode, which feels largely like a series of ideas just sort of strung together without a whole lot of thought as to what the end product will sound like.

What it looks like seems to have done a little better – there's a gritty dystopia vibe that works with the sort of fantasy-free world that the story is setting up. Neon contrasts with washed-out greys and blacks, and the candy-bright colors of the rebels (mostly their hair) stands out against the much more normal dark browns, greens, and purples of the soldiers. (Hey, it's still anime-normal.) The mecha all look a little on the silly side, but Shark Cavalier is certainly more fantastical than the army's Komainu designs; heck, the name even implies a soldier riding on a shark, which is about as fantasy-based as you can get.

So it's not that there wasn't any thought put into this. In fact, it may manage to shape itself into something enjoyably ridiculous as it goes on. But as far as first episodes go, it isn't quite working as it tries to cram all of its character and world building ideas into one space, resulting in something that feels like a game that's only funny to the people who made it up in the first place.

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Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

The first thing Rumble Garanndoll reminded me of was Akiba's Trip, an anime from a few years ago built almost entirely around otaku inside-baseball jokes. That show wasn't exactly great, but had a distinct identity built around not just liking or being into anime, but being neck deep in the insular subculture surrounding Akihabara's famous font of anime merchandise. Garanndoll isn't quite as specific yet – it hasn't done anything as wild as referencing a particularly infamous pool used for pornographic photo shoots, for one – but it very much feels like it's playing to the same audience.

That's not inherently a bad thing, but it does leave me on the outside looking in on a lot of what it's playing at. It doesn't help that this episode does a pretty sparse job communicating its high concept premise, despite featuring at least two scenes dedicated just to characters reiterating facts about their setting they should all already know. Looking up the actual synopsis gives more detail: an alternate timeline Japan that never moved past the militarism of the Showa era invades modern-day Japan and takes it over, now an intrepid team of otaku must fight for their right to anime, idols, and sundry other otaku interests. Which is...not every interesting or compelling, if I'm being honest. It's not a bad premise for an action comedy, but like I said, when our heroes' uniting factor is “liking anime” and the stakes are this high, it's hard to relate. A premise like the equally in-jokey Anime-Gataris worked because it started out as nothing more than some weirdos starting an anime club and diving into that subculture, and the high concept apocalypse didn't start until episode 10 or so.

The emotional journey of this whole episode is at least a little better in its delivery. Closeted otaku Hosomichi is an expert and faking his personality to get by in life, but then is offered the thrilling yet embarrassing opportunity to embrace his anime-loving past when he winds up co-piloting a robot with a super robot loving gal named Rin, and is roped into ing the Otaku Liberation Army. He's constantly ping-ponging between embracing his hidden love for children's anime and being mortified at shouting out the silly catchphrases. But somewhere in the presentation it just falls flat. Maybe it's the protracted, repetitive fight sequence that makes up most of this episode, which drags out its action and jokes way too long. Maybe it's just the timing of the gags that makes them fall flat too often. Either way, I came out of this one with not much feeling or interest, and certainly not the ion it's trying to connect to.

I do at least like the visuals, which have a lot of bright and appealing colors that work well to blend the action and comedy halves of the story. The pudgy little sprite used to represent Rin when she's operating the mech is especially charming. The robots themselves feel like something I should enjoy more – I'm very much a fan of SD style mechs, and these have a lot of charm, but something in the busy and compact designs just doesn't click with me. And that's unfortunately the note this whole premiere hits for me. It's not unpleasant, or amateurish, but it just doesn't manage to reach me.