GAAAAATE OPEN!
Two anime titles reminded me of this one. Namely, Gate Keepers and Negima?! but mostly, Gate Keepers. Why, it is because of the title of the first episode and the following scenes that will happen!
IS Academy is school in which they are training young females to become IS Pilots an exoskeleton-like mecha in which only girls can use for global tournaments. Enter our protagonist, Ichika Orimura, the younger brother of the first IS Pilot, Chifuyu Orimura and the world’s only male IS Pilot! See the Gate Keepers resemblance (A guy stuck in a group of girls with superpowers? Nevermind)? Adding the Gate Keepers nostalgia is that we have Houki Shinomono, his childhood friend and an IS Pilot and like Ruriko Ikusawa of Gate Keepers, she ties her hair and both have similar personalities! This scenario alone made me feel at home.
The premise of the first episode is promising, we saw girls equipped with their respective suits fighting some robot with Ichika helping them. The CGI in the fights look fantastic and can give Tony Stark a run for its money in terms of quality! The transition between from CGI to 2D is seamless and the aerial fights are quite an eye candy. Is it because of the lighting? Maybe.
As for the plot of the entire episode, it really reminded me of Gate Keepers’s 2-3 episodes compressed in a single episode. From Ichika being the only guy in the group of females, and the fact that he and Houki are roommates (In GK’s case, Shun and Ruriko are neighbors and just a space apart from their apartments, to be exact they can see each other by the window).
Since this show has a guy stuck in a group of girls, expect the girls being quite an eye candy. Seriously, the character designs for the girls are gorgeous and pleasing to the eyes. Not sure how it would properly gel well with the mecha found in the series. Well, the opening fight gave us the taste on how it will look like and all I can say is, it reminded me of Erza from Fairy Tail using some of her other armor.
First impressions on the characters; Ichika is the dumb guy, Houki is the tsudere and Chifuyu is one heck of a sister, making her my instant favorite character in this series. As for the British chick, she is the bitch. As for Ichika and Houki’s childhood friendship thing, obviously, at the end of the series, they will end up together. Come on! It is pretty obvious!
Overall, IS felt like Gate Keepers except that it has more detailed mecha and more girls and because of that, I will continue watching this series for the sake of Gate Keepers nostalgia. If this show has something distinct from GK asides from the exoskeleton thing and it will keep me interested, I will continue watching this show.