Review for Robotics;Notes Part 2

Introduction

When the first part of Robotics;Notes came up for review, I approached it with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation. After all, it’s a Nitroplus semi-colon show, and of the two we’ve seen so far in the UK, it’s been either a total miss, or a downright classic. On the scale of Chaos;Head to Steins;Gate, I wanted Robotics;Notes to be of the quality of the latter, but hoping for it to match that standard seemed ridiculously over-optimistic. In the end, the first half of Robotics;Notes turned out to be really quite watchable, even though it seemed to deliberately follow Steins;Gate’s narrative formula, while the high school setting seemed a little too much like an anime cliché. Still, now that the conclusion is upon us, we get to see if it will veer off onto its own path, and find the originality and identity that will make it stand alone as a piece of anime entertainment; all that without screwing up its story at the last hurdle. It’s a big ask...


It’s the near future, and the world is even more connected than it is now. Your average high school student isn’t too far from his phone-pad, allowing them to interact with the world and each other in innovative ways. But otherwise the schools are much the same as they are now, including the expectation that students join extra-curricular clubs. For Akiho Senomiya, that club is the Robotics Research Club, although she’s practically the sole member. The other member is her best friend Kaito Yashio, but he goes along solely for moral support. The only way he’ll do anything is if someone can beat him at a fighting videogame, and since he’s number five in the world, he can mostly be found lazing while Akiho labours at her dreams. Her big dream is to finish what her sister Misaki started seven years previously, and actually build a working replica giant robot, not just one of the small hobby robots that are in vogue. For that, she’ll need a budget, sponsorship, the school’s support.


But there’s something not quite right in this future world, not least the red aurora that shimmers over Japan every night, or the fact that nine years previously, both Aki and Kai were victims of a strange mass fainting incident on a ferry, which had lasting effects on them both. As Aki goes full throttle trying to recruit new members to the club and realise her dreams, Kai stumbles onto a massive conspiracy.


The concluding eleven episodes of Robotics;Notes are presented across two Blu-ray discs from Manga Entertainment.

Disc 1
12. Until You Like SOMETHING About Them
13. What a Screwed-Up World
14. Let’s Stay Like This For A Bit...
15. I’ll Let You Dream
16. I Love Giant Robots
17. The Robot Research Club is Hereby Disbanded!
18. The Real GUNVARREL is Standing Right There!
19. I Never Should’ve Had a Dream

Disc 2
20. Does She Still Like Robots?
21. GUNVARREL, Forward!
22. Now It’s Time for OUR Game

Picture

Robotics;Notes gets a 1.78:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p resolution. It’s a splendid transfer bringing across the animation with detail and vibrant colours. It’s clear and sharp throughout, with only the minimal of digital banding that I’ve come to associate with Funimation Blu-rays. It’s certainly not as affected by banding as much as its predecessor Steins;Gate was. The character designs are appealing if not particularly memorable, following the usual high school character design stereotypes. The world design is very detailed and effective with just a hint of near-future high tech to the story to give it that sci-fi edge. The animation itself is top notch, energetic and fluid, while it has an atmosphere and ambience to it that is useful in enhancing the drama. This is a show that is very much meant for the HD format.

Sound

Robotics;Notes gives you the usual Funimation options of Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround English, and 2.0 Stereo Japanese, with player locked translated subtitles for the Japanese audio, and locked signs for the English. Just like Steins;Gate, there’s more than a few text translations to read, and a quick finger on the pause button will be handy. I went with, and was happy with the Japanese audio, the dialogue was clear throughout, the stereo gave the action some space, and the music drove the story well. I gave the dub a try, and it’s a strong effort from Funimation, a thoughtfully written script (except maybe the l33t-speak for one character), but as usual hampered by teenaged characters that sound in their thirties.

Extras

The discs get animated menus, and on my new Panasonic player, the pauses between pressing play and starting playback, and those between episodes, aren’t as painfully long as they were on my old one. These look to be the US Blu-rays, localised for Region B by Madman by stripping out the Funimation trailers.

Disc 1’s sole extra feature is a commentary on episode 15 with Apphia Yu (Gezi/Aria), and Clifford Chapin (Kaito Yashio). Due to constraints of time, all I did was check that the track was present, and didn’t listen to it beyond that.


Disc 2 offers the second set of ‘textless’ credits with locked subs. You also get the US trailer.

More substantial is the Science Adventure Series Interview Part 2, which lasts 19:35 and is presented in HD. In it, ADR director Joel McDonald, J. Michael Tatum (voice of Okabe Rintaro from Steins;Gate), and head writer at Funimation John Burgmeier get together to talk about the semi-colon series, Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate, and Robotics;Notes, with a little too much emphasis on Steins;Gate for a Robotics;Notes extra.

Finally there is the audio commentary on episode 22 which features ADR Director Joel McDonald and voice of Kou Kimijima, Eric Vale. I can tell you that this commentary exists on this disc, and that the first minute of it has these two people speaking, introducing themselves, but beyond that, I simply didn’t care to listen.

Conclusion

If there is one thing to be said about Robotics;Notes Part 2, it’s that it’s fun. Put the discs in, switch brain to idle, and revel in the quirky characters, and enjoy the ridiculous story as it unfolds, as a high school robotics club comes together to save the world from an insidious conspiracy. Yes, Robotics;Notes is fun, but in every other respect, it’s a failure, not living up to the promise of its first half at all, opting for cheap and implausible story developments and twists to hold the audience, instead of developing that initial, interesting premise in a believable and engaging way. Robotics;Notes could have been the next Steins;Gate, if it had the strength of its convictions and played that initial story premise all the way through. Instead, the writers choose to go for the quick fix, they break all the rules of the story universe they had created, which means that if you had been approaching Robotics;Notes with the same rigour and level of thought that you needed with Steins;Gate, your credulity would have very quickly been stretched past breaking point.


The first five episodes in this collection do maintain that initial momentum though, as Akiho’s passion for giant robots continues to be expressed in her desire to create one for real, while Kaito continues his investigation into the Kimijima reports. The first episode is pretty interesting, with Jun’s strained relationship with her grandfather explored and resolved. Things begin to get pretty dark thereafter, mirroring what happened at the midpoint of Steins;Gate. Here a hacker posing as Frau causes chaos in Tokyo during a solar storm, driving the city’s robots crazy. When that mirrors what happened with Frau’s mother and the final episode of Gunvarrel, it threatens to throw her into a destructive depression.


The first sign of the show’s impending decent into mediocrity comes in episode 15, as Kaito homes in on the final Kimijima Report, only to discover a rather familiar looking young girl hidden away in suspended animation. Yes, the writers pull suspended animation out of their creative backsides, a little nugget of information about this near future world that you’d think they’d have deigned to share with us before now. Still episode 16 does suddenly raise the stakes to a serious level when one of the significant characters in the show falls victim to the conspiracy, and it looks as if someone close to Aki and Kai is responsible.


Unfortunately, from that point forward the show is on a downward spiral, pulling plot twists and revelations from thin air that make little sense, and don’t conform to the rules of this universe. Prior to this, augmented reality was invoked by use of the IRUO app on the tabletphones. Now we get holograms in the real world! We get a space elevator suddenly appearing in Tokyo for no reason, and it looks real, not a hologram at all! Protagonists suddenly become antagonists and vice versa, and people are being possessed by malicious AIs. And finally, when it becomes clear that what you thought was happening, wasn’t really happening, it leaves one major development in the show lacking any rational explanation, a retrospective plot hole that you can pilot a giant robot through. My suspension of disbelief had snapped long before the black hole bomb from SERN showed up.


Yet Robotics;Notes has the pace, the energy and the appeal of its characters to carry the viewer through to the end, and the climax of the show, while not intellectually satisfying, still manages to deliver a more emotional conclusion. I’ve had to re-evaluate Robotics;Notes on the strength of its second half. The next time I watch this show, and it definitely warrants repeat viewings, I’ll be leaving my brain at the door, and will be watching it as a b-movie of an anime. It’s not to be taken at all seriously, nor should you expect it to remain consistent in its own universe. It’s just dumb, disposable fun.