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Listeners (2020, MAPPA)

Anime Reviews

Listeners (2020, MAPPA)

リスナーズ

Worth A Watch

Humans are constantly under threat by giant beings known as Earless and the only ones who can stand against them are Players who can pilot equally sized robots known as Equipment. Echo Rec who aspires to become a Player lives together with his sister in the rundown town of Livechester which had been brought to its ruins 10 years ago when the most powerful Player, Jimi Stonefree had wrecked havoc. Now it was considered the slums where its people made a living by picking up scrap parts from Equipment disposed of by other Players.

While doing his daily rounds, Echo comes across a rare part in the trash but to his surprise, discovers it was an unconscious female Player who had amnesia. When their town suddenly comes under attack again, Echo rushes to the girl with the Equipment he had built from junk parts. Fortunately, the girl hadn't forgotten how to pilot an Equipment making quick work of the Earless. And so, Echo decides to name her after the rare part that lead to her, "Mu". And so, Echo decides to travel the world to help Mu recover her memory and in turn discover the secret behind her power that resembles the legendary Jimi.

Went into this show blind and had decided to watch it because someone had said it was good. It was also by Mappa who produced ACCA-13 one of my favourite shows so I thought why not give it a go. The title sounded like (pun not intended...) like it had something do do with sound and it kind of does since all the nouns and pronouns follow that theme.

It's basically a comedy action show with guitar amps that transform into mecha.

It's got fun characters that's for sure even though the character designs aren't your usual fan service sort but, it's not aimed at kids either with its innuendo and the odd dirty joke. It has has a night life area after all but, at least it's one of those rare shows without the awkward fan service.

The Three Witch Sisters just remind me of NieR:Automata with their black dresses and masks but not as cool since they're more like The Three Stooges of the show.

It starts out fun as you watch Mu and Echo on their journey but, it gets kind of messy towards the end as it puts on a serious face and tries to reveal more of the world setting in scrambled order. Fortunately it reverts back to its original style character driven action show direction for the wrap-up.

Visuals have a retro feel to them much like ACCA-13. All the areas resemble Western countries such as that of UK with it's pub (even has a town named, "Livechester" after all) and also the US with familiar tall high school lockers. Mecha designs are quite good too (considering they're guitar amp parts) and the fight scenes aren't too bad either. 3D models blend in well apart from the odd moments they look like frozen figures. It was fun to see a bit of tribute to Vocaloid, Hatsune Miku.

I like how the ending songs are all different and the animation is different too; kind of like bonus scenes you could have seen during the episode (or "track" as they call it) but didn't.

It's an ok-ish show. Fun characters, great looking retro aesthetics; just not that exciting a world setting and story. Otherwise, like rock music and ever wonder what guitar amps would look like if they transformed into giant robots? Here's your comedy action show.

Listeners

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