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Robotics; Notes
Anime Review
Many High Schools and Colleges now sponsor robotics clubs or courses to foster engineering and science talent in the students. It's very likely your school has a club devoted to building a robot to enter into competitions, or be part of a Maker Faire. Yes, robots are for real, even though they are little more than fancy remote control cars with some extra servos.
Now fast forward to 2019 Japan, and that's the setting for Robotics; Notes, except with a slight plot twist. Aki's school started building a Giant Robot, based on a popular anime at the time 'GunBarrel', and the project was started by her sister 8 years earlier and Aki hopes to complete the robot this year.
However, currently her school robotics club just has two members, herself and Kai, a slacker of a boy who'd rather play videogames on his tablet. And they've been denied the budget to complete the robot. So Aki has to come up with a plan to convince more members to join the club as well as win an upcoming competition before the school administration will authorize the budget.
 So she will cajole, fast-talk, and basically force some extra talent into her club, revive an 8-year old toy robot, and do whatever it takes to get things rolling. Following things so far? Good, because now you can throw all that out the window.
That Giant Robot that's pretty much just a shell is about to get real, real fast. Now before you think this is just one of those 'slice of life' shows that goes nowhere, think again. The show ties together so many different plotlines of different anime show genres, it'll make your head spin. Yeah, the first 7 or so episodes might seem a little dull, but trust us, after that it falls headlong into being a story with A.I. ghosts, super powers, an apocalyptic prophecy, mysterious murders, and an international conspiracy.
 On top of that, the show makes use of "Augmented Reality" in a way that is super clever, and is really kind of plausible given the direction our existing technology is headed. But don't think about the plot too hard or there will be a ton of unanswered questions.
The show lampshades itself, I can only imagine what TV Tropes has said about this series. Despite all this, it handles the characters and situations as well as it can given the limitations of the medium. As the story nears the end you will be surprised at how well it all comes together. Even the love story works. Sure, you'll be scratching your head over some of it, but the show is incredibly solid considering the breadth of what is being attempted here.
This could be a new top favorite. Seriously.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, April 2014
Below: Scenes from Robotics; Notes.
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Below: Promotional illustrations and scenes from for Robotics; Notes.
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