Summary
Imagine if you will you are watching Saving Private Ryan or some other really serious wartime movie. People are dying, there is death and destruction all around you, and hope is at best slim. Then, out of nowhere, Starlord from Guardians of the galaxy descends onto the scene. He does not belong here. That is the best way to describe Brave Bang Bravern. In a world where even all the mechs of the army have a feeling and look of creations of war and practical purposes, this thing descends as a full-on Gundam with a functioning mouth and playing its own theme music.
But this strange talking robot is the only hope for a world on the verge of the destruction of The Deathdrives, with Isami the only guy who can pilot Bravern. While Bravern can fight alone, only with his Pilot is his full power available.
Is there a term for the opposite of Subversion?
There are times you will see works that look to subvert certain expectations of a genre. This takes the focus a lot of anime have on the importance of bravery, believing in yourself, and friendship and ramps them up to the absolute disregard of anything else in the world. Bravern is so out of place in this world, but it's hilarious. I will spoil on scene here for you, and it happens in the second episode. A council of various nations is holding a deadly serious meeting about the situation the world was suddenly thrust in, and whether or not they could trust Bravern, as well as Isami who could now pilot it. Of course, they could not capture Bravern as it's way too strong for them, so while they are having this serious deliberation Bravern is there speaking grandly about bravery and passion, all while the council just starts to seem done with his shit. This absolute farce of a discussion is occasionally interrupted by clips of Isami getting legit tortured in a dark basement. It is hilarious.
Yet at the end of the day, everyone just kind of seems to end up on Bravern's side. It's like everyone in this show slowly started to realize they were in fact in an anime and just ran with it. Screw your serious nature, screw your purpose-built for battle robots, and screw your logical and realistic approach to the world! Passion, friendship, and bravery are going to win the day!
Do not expect answers.
Almost any other show this would bother me, but there is so much passion and love here I just don't care. You are never really going to get an answer as to what the Deathdrives are, and because of that, you never really get an answer to how Bravern is even here, at least not one that is going to make sense. You are just kind of given these things and expected to take them as they are.
I adore Lulu.
I won't go into the characters in depth here, I just wanted an excuse to post this picture. Watch the show for context.
Intense Fights
None of the fights are particularly long, but they are fast-moving and high-impact scenes. The show treats its fights a lot like its story, you are here for something grand and over the top and that is every single moment of every fight. The build-up to the high-impact moments at the end of a fight is nothing but a string of other high-impact moments. This show is going to blunt force you into being hyped for whatever it does.
The Greatest Engrish
So all the soldiers are from a variety of nations, and will often speak in their native language. However, the actors are all Asain, so you hear what I would lovingly describe as 'A godawful fake American accent of a guy yelling Holy Shit!'. These actors didn't even try for a good accent, and it's wonderful. That said, it's not random when they speak in their native language. It's believable how you hear them slip into their language in goofy little moments or when stress is high.
Overall
This show has a blatant disregard for any kind of sense in favor of ramping up the glorious and over the top. At the same time, there is so much passion and great characters it's easy to let yourself get into the insanity. This is just a work of pure passion. If any of this nonsense sounds good to you, I highly recommend this show.