Ex-arm
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 The response to the unholy acts of the Chuder Empire.
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Ex-Arm (stylized as EX-ARM) is a 2021 anime series based on the manga of the same name, which was released on January 11, 2021. The show was universally panned for its very poor CGI animation and is considered by many to be one of the worst anime of all time.
Plot
In 2014, Akira Natsume seems to almost have a phobia of electrical devices while also being very good at diagnosing them. He resolves to change himself for the better and get a girlfriend like his older brother did. But then, Akira suddenly dies in an accident from an oncoming truck when he tried to stop a group of men taking a girl hostage. 16 years later a special policewoman and her android partner retrieve and activate a highly advanced AI and superweapon called EX-ARM and put it into full control of their ship as a last resort. Turns out the AI is actually just Akira's brain!
Why It Should Be Erased From Existence
- To get the elephant in the room, the animation: this show based on a manga has the absolutely horrible, ugly, nightmarish and unstable CGI cel-shading animation, which tries to be like the animation of Rooster Teeth's shows but it ends up looking like that the The Samsonadzes's animation or SpongeBob in Tehran's. It looks like a cutscene from an incomplete PS2 anime-style game, or, in the best case, an economic anime movie that you might find at a Chinese swap meet. Also, even Berserk (2016)'s animation looks better than this and it and was released four-to-five years earlier! Various CGI fails include:
- Unlike the very well known show that people have memories with over 2 years ago, the 2D-3D mixture here is incredibly garbage and extremely noticeable, also, in some scenes, there are both 2D and 3D characters!
- Awful fight choreography, the fights are so bad that they're intentionally laughable. In fact, one of the fights are actually taken from the opening theme, which proves that the people who made this anime are somewhat lazy and untalented.
- Laughable facial expressions for most of the characters. For example, one episode has a scene where Minami is getting grabbed by the neck and she's seen smiling, almost as if she was enjoying it. Another thing is how their eyes look, which makes them look like they're about to steal your soul.
- Various animation mistakes, like grabbing with "telekinetic" hands, phasing to objects and things, the hair passing through the clothes, and Minami's skirt seemingly being ripped to the back.
- Terrible special effects that look like a transparent GIF, mainly the explosions that make it seem unintentionally hilarious.
- Speaking of the cel-shading, it looks pointless and it would have been better if the anime was animated entirely in 2D.
- Not to mention, but this kind of animation looks unfitting for 2020's standards, as it fits more intro something from the mid 2000's instead.
- It's not helped by the fact that the main staff for the anime adaption are revealed to be less then SIX people who worked on it instead of a lot of people (including directors Yoshikatsu Kimura, Shingo Kinoshita, the music composer So Kimura with writers Shintaro Shimoi, Natsumi Kemuyama, and Tommy Morton), as they stated that they have no experience working on the anime.
- This was because the anime's director Yoshikatsu Kimura, who is a live action film director, wanted to handle the CG anime since he hoped that he'd be better to understand the action in a 3D atmosphere, but failed to do so.
- This was also the debut for a new animation studio titled Visual Flight, which they done some early CG, but failed to handle it.
- The anime feels like it’s past it’s time. The manga was first published in 2015, and ended in 2019, but the show based on them was released in 2021, two years after the manga ended. If the show was released in 2017 around the same time the manga was promoted, it would have been more rightly timed.
- Tons of awkward moments, like when Minami and Alma kiss each other to fuse together. Not to mention that there's a ton of awkward silences most of the time. Episode 7 is the worst offender since there is no sound at all.
- The sound design is very ludicrous. For example, in episode 2, the sound that the guns make sound more like popping balloons or paintballs than gunshots, and the wheelies of cars sound like fart noises.
- Horrendous compositing, like the first scene in episode 1, that shows Akira in negative color floating in the air, which could potentially give people seizures from watching. The worst part is that they reused that same shot too many times, and they didn't even bother to get different angles.
- Weird zoom-ins and zoom-outs in a lot of episodes. They zoom in so fast that it literally makes this anime unintentionally funnier just by watching it.
- Bland soundtrack that mostly consists of cheesy pop songs that are most likely used just to try to fit into a sci-fi anime but fails terribly at it in it's apparent laziness.
- The infamous "President-cum-dictator" line.
- Most of story arcs in the manga were cut out with some scenes consisting of nothing but horrible filler.
- Akira is a very generic protagonist with no character development, as he literally gets killed from an oncoming truck in the very first episode, only to realize that he's now just a brain.
- Some character designs are really bad and unfaithful to the manga, with most of them being rip-offs of other characters from other anime. Like Akira's design, which strikingly resembles Megumi Fushiguro from Jujutsu Kaisen.
- Furthermore, Minami's design is also very reminiscent of Ryuko Matoi from Kill La Kill. Also, her police uniform and heels are replaced with casual clothes and casual shoes.
- Incredibly crappy and unoriginal character names: for example, one of the villains’ robots is literally called Ogre!
- Lazy ending credits that is just a promotional art of the female protagonist, Alma, illustrated by Shinya Komi, which just scrolls down.
- Horrible ending, as it basically skips the final battle from the manga, and nothing really happens.
Redeeming Qualities
- The voice acting is not bad since we got Akari Kito (who voices Nezuko from Demon Slayer), Soma Saitou (Who voices Tatsumi in Akame Ga Kill!) Mikako Komatsu (who voices Maki in Jujutsu Kaisen), Sumire Uesaka (Who voices Shalltear Bloodfallen in Overlord) and Daisuke Namikawa (Who voices Hisoka in Hunter X Hunter).
- Some character designs are decent.
- It's so bad it's hilarious at the same time.
- Speaking of hilarious, The show is also considered to be so bad that it's good, similar to The Room, 12 oz. Mouse and Pickle & Peanut.
- Decent concept, as it's based on a much better manga.
- It's still faithful to the original material, though poorly executed.
Reception
Ex-arm was universally panned from critics and audiences, who criticized the poor quality of the CGI animation, the writing and the anime staff's lack of experience in the anime industry as it's likely the culprit. It got a fan-vote score 1.5 out of 5 in Bahamut, a Taiwan anime platform, which was only better than Kemono Friends 2 and Highspeed Etoile, both considered the worst anime all time. It also holds a 1.6/10 on IMDb.
Videos
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