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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Rent | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 7 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:2672#1552] |
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Unlimited Hyobu Kyosuke is a spinoff to Zettai Karen Children that tones down on much of the comedy to the series, focuses more on its darker and serious elements, and shifts major focus from the Children of BABEL to our series titular anti-hero and his comrades among the esper resistance organization known as PANDRA. An esper by the name of Andy Hinomiya with the power to negate esper powers winds up during PANDRA during one of Kyosuke's missions, being a secret agent sent to infiltrate the organization and finding his loyalties to come into question as he becomes more acquainted with PANDRA's familial environment and operations. With Unlimited's more serious bent and the focus shifted on Kyosuke, it is more focused on exploring the hostility between espers and humans from his perspective as we come to learn more of the operations and treatment of his fellow espers that our lead is committed to with his organization. This creates some nice intrigue throughout the first half of the series as Kyosuke and PANDRA butt heads with the Children and BABEL at points, serving as nice foil to the differing ideologies that both organizations have regarding the treatment of espers since both sides would be justified in their actions due to the differing circumstances that both groups arose out of. A couple episodes in the second half of the series even provide back story into Kyosuke's past with how he developed his beliefs against humans during World War II. The addition of Andy to the mix lends more to the story as well where we see his character's internal conflict over whether or not to back Kyosuke's cause as he performs his mission due to feeling neglected by both humans and espers due to his negating abilities. Still for those who did enjoy Zettai Karen Children, the Children do pop up alongside the members of BABEL at points throughout this series and there are occasional comedic bits to lighten the mood which don't detract too badly from Unlimited's more darker storytelling. In spite of my praises though, the series does have its flaws. The final quarter of the series does take a hit a bit quality-wise when the fun gray moral storytelling crosses into more typical "save the world" territory when an enemy from Kyosuke's past makes his emergence felt in spite of no explanation being provided as to how he survived against Kyosuke decades earlier during the war. The ending felt like a bit of a cop-out as well where the series teased of some dire problems that Kyosuke was facing toward the second half of the series yet the final episode to Unlimited hand waves this issue aside to maintain much of the status quo that the series had from its start. Also, Unlimited isn't really breaking any new ground for an anime as there have been a decent number of titles made in recent years depicting dark and serious storytelling mixed with morally grey implications, notable ones being Black Lagoon and Gunslinger Girl. Presentation-wise, Unlimited is an improvement over Zettai Karen Children as the series sports a bigger animation budget. Character designs and scenery shots sport more detail and the color shading is noticeably darker to compliment the title's more serious storytelling. In addition, the battle scenes are a treat as many of them feature fluid movement taking place as espers either fight one another using their powers or unleash them against fleets of military forces. There are occasions where the series cuts on some corners with its animation with shortcuts, but it is nowhere as frequent as what Zettai Karen Children did. To flow with the darker storytelling, Unlimited sports a mix of dramatic and J-rock tracks that do their part to compliment key scenes throughout the show's run, though the tracks lack much in the way of subtlety for the type of mood that it wants you to believe that Unlimited has. Overall, Unlimited Hyobu Kyosuke makes for a decent alternative to Zettai Karen Children as the focus on Kyosuke lends it some more morally grey implications and offers a solid amount of intrigue over both justifying whether BABEL or PANDRA's objectives are justified and new series character Andy becoming conflicted over whom he desires to ally with. It does have its bumps in quality for its second half and it doesn't break any new ground as titles with dark, serious and morally grey storytelling have been done before. But if you are looking for a psychic-action title that is a decent time killer, then Unlimited offers just that. Last updated Friday, May 08 2015. Created Friday, May 08 2015. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:2672#628] | ||||||
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(One episode watched): What the-- this seems to be a spinoff of Zettai Karen Children, in which the principal characters, three esper girls, have been dropped and instead it focuses on the bad guy, Hyobu. It seems to have a completely different tack, being serious and action oriented instead of a comedy. But right from the start I had doubts about whether this was a good idea, and episode one didn't pique my interest much. For one thing, I never liked Hyobu much. He didn't have a distinctive style, he just seemed like more of a jerk to me. His cause of protecting Espers from discrimination wasn't very convincing when the espers were often doing awesome things which made a mockery of the people who were supposedly 'discriminating' against them. People can't discriminate against you when you clearly have the upper hand. I recall that ZKC wasn't fantastic, but the humor was the strong point, and now that has been discarded. At the end of episode one of Unlimited there is a little teaser which restored some of my fading interest, but I really see little reason to look forward to this show. Maybe episode one was all about showing off Esper combat capabilities and number two will tell a more interesting story. Last updated Sunday, January 13 2013. Created Sunday, January 13 2013. | ||||||||
