Review for Chrome Shelled Regios: Part 1

Introduction

This is one of those shows, increasingly rare now, that I simply know nothing about. I’ve never seen it streamed on a site like Crunchyroll; I’ve never even gone out of my way to peruse any fan site posts or reviews about it. So the first that I knew of its existence was when MVM announced its licence earlier this year, and the first time I actually contemplated what the show may be about, what it was like, was when the check discs actually arrived ready for review. I should be enthused and excited at discovering something completely new, but honestly I’m not. Maybe I’m guilty of judging a book by its cover, or in this case an anime by its title, but ‘Chrome Shelled Regios’ sounds a bit naff to me. Then again, you wouldn’t expect to turn somersaults over a title like Bubblegum Crisis! Hopefully Chrome Shelled Regios will prove me wrong.


So let me get this straight. It’s some vague future on an alien world, where the atmosphere is toxic, and humans live in giant mobile cities called Regios. The outside world is full of giant bugs called Contaminoids that like to attack the cities, which is why the cities are mobile, to avoid the Contaminoids. Humans have developed fighting skills with Kei energy, and detection and communication skills with Nen’i energy to help them battle the Contaminoids, and the various cities also compete with each other for resources in mock battles using these skills. And the cities are run by electronic spirits, little techno-fairies. And while most of the cities try and avoid the Contaminoids, some get quirky and actively seek them out to pick a fight.


Zuellni is one of the normal cities, and when Layfon Alseif arrives to attend school there, he’s hoping to keep a low profile and avoid combat, just have a regular education as an engineer. Only he gets drafted into the 17th Platoon, when its leader Nina Antalk faces the choice of rapidly recruiting a new member or seeing her platoon disbanded. She wants the pride of excelling at the inter Regios championships, even though her team are the usual underdogs, and putting Layfon through his paces doesn’t strike her with much hope that their situation has improved. But it turns out that Layfon comes from one of those cities that like to go looking for fights with Contaminoids, and he has more actual combat experience than any of the fighters of Zuellni, and someone has manoeuvred him into being drafted into the 17th Platoon.


Hopefully this show will make more sense after I’ve watched the first 12 episodes of Chrome Shelled Regios, presented across 2 discs from MVM.

Disc 1
1. The Conscious City
2. Capture the Flag
3. Electronic Spirit Zuellni
4. Disarmament! Put on That Maid’s Outfit!
5. The Enemy That Lurks in Death’s Ground
6. The Letter From Glendan

Disc 2
7. Adamandite Restored
8. A Former Enemy Reduced to a Ruined City
9. The Right to be a Heaven’s Blade
10. Luecken’s Revenge
11. Spa Resort Kalian
12. A Tender Lie

Picture

Chrome Shelled Regios gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. The image is presented in native PAL, with the 4% speed-up that implies. It’s not the most stunning animation with which to show off your anime collection. It’s soft, lacking in detail, and rather deficient in character animation, although the action scenes come across well. It has a colour palette that tends to the lighter end of the spectrum, and there’s a hazy feel to it which means that even at its best, you’re not going to get all that much detail and clarity from it. It up-scales adequately enough though, and is watchable. It still looks like a show that’s ten years older than it actually is.

Sound

You have the choice between DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. The original language track was watchable enough, if fairly generic, and the same can be said of Funimation’s dub for the show. The subtitles are accurately timed and free of error, while the one major crime this show commits is the egregious use of European style techno in its soundtrack. The end theme is j-Britpop acceptable though. This being a port of a Madman release, it comes as no surprise to hear pitch correction applied to the audio, and once more it’s more distracting than just leaving it chipmunked.

Extras

Both discs present their content with static menus and jacket pictures.

The only extras are on disc 2, and amount to the textless opening credits, and four versions of the textless closing credits.

You’ll also find trailers for the Patlabor OVAs, Is This a Zombie? Of the Dead, and Infinite Stratos.

Conclusion

Taking a look at MVM’s April slate, you find the two tent-pole releases standing prominently, with approximately half of the anime fanbase rubbing their hands in anticipation for Fate Zero, while Girls Und Panzer may just be the anime of the year. Then you have the anime equivalent of Old Faithful, reliable, and certain to get an audience in the third Hakuoki, and then finally you have this, Chrome Shelled Regios, which is probably getting a release now because it’s better than not releasing anything at all, but it’s a close call.


Chrome Shelled Regios is a disappointing mess of a show that does just enough to stop you from ejecting the discs and hurling them into a waste receptacle in frustration. Think of it as a poor man’s Gonzo. Gonzo made a name for themselves in releasing the sci-fi epic genre mish-mash shows, titles like Kiddy Grade, Black Cat, Trinity Blood, and Burst Angel. Chrome Shelled Regios would fit right in with that oversubscribed genre, only it’s nowhere near as good as even the worst of Gonzo’s output. It has a future setting, it has a post-apocalyptic vibe, it has a mystery or two to it, and it has young protagonists with super powers driving the action, and for an all purpose antagonist, it takes a page from Starship Troopers’ book, and gives them giant bugs to battle. It also has its feet firmly in the shonen camp, with its heroes all wielding transforming weapons called dites, fuelled by mystical powers called Kei and Nen’i, and prone to yelling out the names of special moves when they do battle.


It could conceivably be an interesting and engaging show, if the storytelling wasn’t so dire, and the character overload so overwhelming. There are far too many characters in this show, too many to even hope to keep in mind, while the narrative is thrown together piecemeal, in the apparent hope that it will all make sense when the show is done, and all the revelations fall into place. That approach only works if the show hooks you, gets you invested in its mystery, and involved in the story. Chrome Shelled Regios doesn’t, so whenever the focus shifts all of a sudden to another city, and another bunch of characters, whose names you won’t even learn until way past episode six, you become tempted to give up on the show. That’s to say nothing of the inexplicable film noir type segments, with everyone speaking in Engrish (on the Japanese track), which at this point look like a completely different anime edited into this one for a laugh. I’d be tempted to exclaim “What the hell is going on!” if I actually cared at this point.


And a show about a post-apocalyptic world, with everyone living in sealed mobile cities, where the outside air is toxic, and where giant bugs seek to destroy everything, still finds time to have a swimsuit episode! As near as I can tell, Chrome Shelled Regios is trying to do a little of everything, a high school, romantic comedy, action, sci-fi, drama mystery epic film noir mash-up. You can stick an episode on and find little moments to appreciate here and there. The character of Felli is watchable enough. But it is even easier to stick an episode of something else on instead. This collection of episodes takes us to the halfway point of Chrome Shelled Regios. Maybe the second half will pull something out of the hat; make all these random strands of story make sense, offer a little clarity when it comes to unravelling this spaghetti junction of an anime. The question is, will you even care by that point?