I don’t know what I expected coming into this show. On one hand, I got drawn in by the Real Robots Meets Super Robot take on the show, combined with the involvement Masami Obari. Obari as a director is someone who I almost became more familiar with through his involvement on the Fatal Fury anime series, animating the Brave franchise, along with creating the Angel Blade franchise – putting him at the confluence of strongly choreographed action, spectacularly done super robots, and a lot of… actively heterosexual fanservice. So, I was a little surprised to see just how incredibly queer – and particularly gay, Bravern is.
The premise is pretty straightforward on paper – during joint AD-RIMPAC exercises in Hawaii, in which they’re working on operations with relatively new mech infantry units (the Real Robot side of things), earth is invaded by aliens with giant robots of their own – ones that human robots cannot effect. Fortunately, a sentient Super Robot from outer space – Bravern – arrives, to come to humanity’s aid, bonding with a JSDF pilot named Isumi.
Where this gets silly is in the execution – Bravern acts like a super-hotblooded character from a show in the Brave franchise, while everyone around him is well-trained military professionals – which is made sillier by the fact that this show has such a desire to make the queer subtext just text that I don’t know whether to use the Garth Marengi clip or the George Takei clip. For example – when Bravern describes his first time being piloted by Isami to the AD-RIMPAC brass, he describes it in a way that could (deliberately) be confused with someone describing their first homosexual experience with someone they clicked with, except also in the floral language of someone writing their first slashfic with a heavily sticky noted thesaurus on their desk.
It all makes for an way of mashing up the sensibilities of Real Robot anime with the sensibilities of a Super Robot anime, and managing to keep the camp levels from overpowering the more serious elements of the plot.
Additionally – look, Obari cut his teeth as a key animator and animation director, so he’s not going to let there be any kind of slouching in the actual animation department – and while Bravern himself is 3DCG, he’s designed in a way that fits with the sensibilities of a proper Brave series Super Robot.
The series is 12 episodes, and while normally I like a good 24 minimum on my mecha series, I think here the jokes would have worn out their welcome were the series any longer. By the time the show ends, the jokes still feel fresh, the writing still looks good, and everything still clicks. Had the series run too much longer, I think it would have worn out its welcome. That said, I’m really looking forward to Bravern’s first appearance in Super Robot Wars.
Brave Bang Bravern is available for streaming on Crunchyroll.
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