Rinne no Lagrange

Title:Rinne no Lagrange
Lagrange -The Flower of Rin-ne
Rinne no Lagrange: Flower declaration of your heart (Japanese)
輪廻のラグランジェ (Japanese)
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , ,
Notables: ISHIHARA Kaori
R1 License - Viz Media (Shopro)
SETO Asami
Madoka is the lone member of her school's Jersey Club. She is one day recruited by a mysterious girl named Lan to pilot the robot "Vox" and protect her city from space invaders. They are joined by a third girl, Muginami, who has a different goal than Ran. Meanwhile, they still don't know their enemies' true goal, or what "Rinne" might be.
(Synopsis courtesy of ANN)

A Winter 2012 series

24 episodes

"輪廻" = "rinne" (Japanese) or ↗Saṃsāra (Sanskrit) is the endless cycle of rebirth in Buddhism.

Note: The robot designs for this anime were created by the Global Design division of the Japanese car maker Nissan.


A sequel TV series: Rinne no Lagrange: Flower Declaration of Your Heart (2012) will be on air from July, 2012.
See also the 1 OVA sequel: Rinne no Lagrange: Flower Declaration of Your Heart - Kamogawa Days, to be released on June 23, 2012.
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 8 8 8 6 7 7 Ggultra2764 [series:2522#1552]
First season thoughts:
Rin-ne is focused on a high school girl who befriends two alien girls and becomes involved in piloting mecha to protect Earth from an alien threat. For the first season, this series offers enough focus on the main trio of girls to have you care for them, know of their backgrounds and believe in the bonds that they establish with one another throughout the course of the series. It also features some intrigue to it where a dark secret involving the mecha lead to a resistance group of aliens to seek out the girls in later episodes and a conflict that leads to one of the mecha being confined in later episodes. The animation during mecha fights are also quite pleasing on the eyes, especially during a later episode when the girls have to fend off an alien squadron attack with their mecha that involves nicely animated fight sequences that take place both during reentry into Earth's surface and in flight.

That isn't to say this mecha title is gonna be a complete package for making a unique impression on folks. The series isn't really breaking new ground as it mixes light-hearted slice-of-life comedy with serious mecha drama, with the attempts at comedy being more miss than hits for me. It also has some issues with effectively balancing focus between comical and serious moments, particularly at points during early episodes of the series when Madoka is adjusting to piloting her mecha and learning about the alien threat she must face. Also, it does leave some dangling plot elements unresolved involving the nature of the mecha and the aliens that Madoka and her two alien comrades are dealing with.

Overall, Rin-ne is decent in what it offers up with its characters and premise. It doesn't break any new ground and has some rough spots in balancing focus between comedy and drama. But if you are looking for a decent time killer, you shouldn't have any regrets with wasting 12 episodes worth of time on this series.

Second season thoughts:
This season does reveal more about the hostilities between Lan and Muginami's worlds, as well as the origins surrounding the apocalyptic prophecy alluded to from the first season. Beyond that, the series still retains the same mood and presentation style it had from the first season. My thoughts for Rin-ne's second season aren't much different from the first one, thus my ratings are still the same here.

Last updated Sunday, March 09 2014. Created Saturday, December 21 2013.
Unevaluated Stretch [series:2522#628]
(Four episode watched):

This is another series in which a Japanese teenager (in this case, female) is drafted to serve as a mecha pilot by a secret organization. Madoka is given an adequate personality to get things started, and a few interesting questions are raised--like how does her aunt know about this 'robot piloting' business? Who or what is Lan? For the most part, however, we just go through the usual business of Madoka being pressed into service to fight off an unexpected attack and thereby proving that she has what it takes to be a pilot. Whether this show would have what it takes to be truly interesting remained to be seen, as a host of questions which any ordinary person would ask were postponed until episode two. The fact that Madoka's opponents are a bunch of Bishojo pretty boys set off an alarm in my head. That pretty much guaranteed that they would be neither dangerous nor have an interesting story behind their origins. After four episodes just what's going on has yet to be explained, which frustrates me, since nothing else is particularly unusual or engaging. I don't want this to go on for no less than 24 episodes, so I think I will dispense with LaGrange.

Last updated Tuesday, February 21 2012. Created Thursday, January 12 2012.

Other Sites
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Official Website (japanese) http://lag-rin.com/

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