Series Info
Director: Full Metal Alchemist, The Slayers Next, Mobile Suit Gundam 00
Animation Production: Full Metal Alchemist, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Noragami, Captain Earth, and many others!
Streaming on: Funimation and Daisuki. Chances are good that it will turn up on Hulu next week.
Overview
Concrete Revolutio episode 1 seems to have two different interchanging threads to give us a bit of character background and set up the plot.
First, we have the story of how Kikko, a magical girl, was recruited by a government agency via a man named Jiro. The Superhuman Bureau protects “good” superhumans and disposes of the dangerous ones.
A sting operation was set up in Kikko’s diner to help capture an alien spy. Once the alien was exposed, it lured out a “good” alien named Grosse Augen who has been fighting to protect humans. Unfortunately, Grosse Augen had possessed a human being and essentially killed him to live. After a crazy superhuman battle in the streets, Jiro sets Grosse Augen free and tells Kikko that the man who was possessed died a long time ago. Kikko ends up joining the Bureau to help protect super humans.
Interspersed with the backstory, we find out Jiro has defected from the Bureau, and agents are trying to take him down. Kikko is pretty conflicted, still calling him Senpai and saying she is 20 now (I assume this should mean something to Jiro). She eventually catches up to him and we discover the man who was Grosse Augen is not, in fact, dead. Jiro had disobeyed the agency way back when and let the man fuse with the captured alien spy. Jiro declares he will not go back to the Bureau.
Thoughts
The episode was a bit hard to follow because it jumped back and forth between the past and present with very little context to help you with what’s going on. I would think this trend would continue because we don’t have enough information to know why Jiro defected, and there are characters in the future timeline we still need to meet.
The art style of Concrete Revolutio is gorgeous. It has beautiful colors that reminds me of comic books and cartoons, and it is often shaded or accented with dots and lines like you would find in a manga or newspaper comic strip.
I love that this show has everything in it. We get magical girls, kaiju alien battles, a shape shifter, and a transforming giant unicorn mecha all in one episode. I can’t think of anything that’s not to like! Kikko’s outfit is over-the-top poofy and her magic is nuts. I think she’s fantastic.
Don’t get me wrong. Concrete Revolutio is kind of insane. But so are many other beloved series out there. I think this one is right up my ally.
