MJP Team... Rabbits! Ready... go!
A group of unknown beings, likely to be aliens are invading the Undina Base. Powerless, one of the leaders decided that it is time contact the MJP. Enter Team Rabbits aka the Loser Squad composed of five misfits who can't coordinate well in battle... and they are the ones assigned in this mission to save civilians in the said military base. Oh boy, here we go again.
To be honest, I have no plans to watch a mecha anime known as Majestic Prince, especially if the character designer of this show is no other than the guy who did the character designs for the Gundam SEED franchise! The reason why I ended up watching this series is because the lead character, Izuru Hitachi is voiced by Hiroaki Aiba, the guy who played Ryunosuke Ikenami aka ShinkenBlue in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. Aside from that, Ataru Suruga is voiced by Junya Ikeda who played Gai Ikari aka GokaiSilver in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger! To put it simply, I am interested how they perform outside the usual live-action stuff. To my surprise, these two can actually voice act anime characters.
You see, my problem with most regular actors’ voice acting animated characters is that they tend to retain their natural voice in most of the works they did. In this case, they retained some of their natural voice, but they try as much as possible to sound like they are the character and not some actor doing a voice acting job and leave the set and get their paycheck. Lastly, I will praise Junya here considering that he is also part of the cast of GARO: The One That Shines in the Darkness, and he played some badass swordsman in that show. Can't believe he still has the energy to do some voice acting gig!
Now that I am done with the original reason why I ended up watching this series, guess it is time to talk about the series itself. It's actually one fun TV series. Having misfits to pilot the most powerful machines in the show is one concept overused in the mecha genre, and as expected, it worked wonders in this new TV series. But what's interesting is that individually, these five are really great pilots, but as a group, they don't know any teamwork. But when they are sent to the field for the first time, much to my surprise, they actually know how to work together smoothly. Guess it has something to do with the machines.
Speaking of which, the concept of this show's mecha is quite interesting. Inserting the user's DNA to the mecha's system lessens the chance of some other pilot to hi-jack it, but what's more interesting is how the mecha's system is in-synch with the user; if the user intents to fight, the machine will simply respond to it. If otherwise, the machine will hesitate to fight even though the pilot "wants" to fight. As for the mecha designs, they are really interesting, especially the sniper and sensor ones, or whatever the show likes to call these units. As for the mecha fights, it's beautiful, really beautiful, that basically sums up my thoughts about it.
The characters are kinda likable, especially Izuru and Tamaki. Izuru is just a kid who just wants to be a hero and will do his best to become one. I think there is one point in the episode wherein he disobeyed the orders of his superiors to retreat because he cares more about human lives more than his mission. As for Tamaki, she is just one fun ditz, that's all. As for the rest of the team, Toshikazu doesn't want to be part of the team, and the other two are just... there. For the support cast, the captain who kinda looks like Gundam SEED's Athrun Zala with a scar is the only one interesting in the non-maintenance crew.
Finally the enemies, they are mysterious and by the looks of it, they are aliens basing on the unknown language they are using. For their first appearance in the series, they really don't know how to set a good first impression. They just wrecked a military base, then leave after one of the enemy pilots is tearing their machines one by one, and what's funny is that the remaining forces are twice as many as the five machines sent for this mission! Overall, the first episode is one good start. The mecha fights and the comedy are the strongest parts in this episode. As for the characters, there is still room for them to grow.
