Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne (First Impressions)

It's Lewis again, but this time wishing you a happy new year! 2012 seems to be chock-full of choices to make and new opportunities to be had. It almost makes me feel a little anxious.

So here's the thing, I just got back from watching a brand new anime called 'Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne' (or 'Rinne no Lagrange' for all the peeps in Japan) and I have to say I really enjoyed it. For an anime Nazi, I am surprised at how much my mind has opened recently to certain anime series.

The first episode is mainly based around the female protagonist Madoka Kyouno and how she is introduced into the big eventful happenings that will be the episodes in weeks to come. The place where this is all based seems to be some sort of Japanese town or city where the sun always shines. It kind of reminds me of the town in another anime I know called 'Air'. Madoka seems to be that sort of protagonist who doesn't have a care in the world and seems to be amazing at everything she does. But she is incredibly humble about it, she's definitely no Prima Donna. Her personality reminds me a lot of Makoto Konno from 'The Girl Who Lept Through Time', or perhaps even Yui Hirasawa from 'K-On!', actually, I think she is the result of what would happen if you blended them together.

Basically this odd girl from another planet called Fin Ay Ludo Sui Lavinty (Lan for short) shows up and she is this anime's signature silent-type character. She reminds me a whole lot of Yuki Nagato from 'The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya' except she is a bit more friendly. Lan wants Makoto to fly robots/mechas for some reason (we'll find out later) and you find out Makoto has some sort of attachment to this one particular robot that Lan shows her. Some bad shit goes down and Makoto has to pilot the robot to defeat the enemy. It's kind of like the initiation episode that is present in quite a lot of animes of this sort, like Sailor Moon. Basically the hero/heroine gains new powers and has to fight an enemy to test them out.

I have been having a look at the discussions on myanimelist.net about this particular anime and they seem to be mixed to positive. Some have said it reminds them of Evangelion or Gurren Lagann, but I haven't seen either and some of the Alt:Mag guys have, so I guess I could ask them to see what they think. I know the whole giant robot theme is present in all three, but that's all I know at the moment. But overall, I found Lagrange exciting. The animation and artwork is fantastic, I just wish the quality of the videos online could be a bit better so it wasn't as pixel-ridden, spoiling the viewer's experience. The story and characters are also very intriguing, and are mostly devoid of clichés.

This one is going to be great, I can feel it!

Happy New Year!