EGAO NO DAIKA

DESCRIPTION

CAST

REVIEWS

• 

  P1xel

  50/100
  A boring mess with middle school level philosophy and a cast of generic characters.

  Egao no Daika is a run of the mill mecha anime that does very little to stray from convention. The show attempts to explore the philosophical quandaries of war, however, it falls face first by approaching this issue on a fairly rudimentary level. The core philosophical stances this anime takes on war can be broken down into two basic points, war is bad and everyone in a war is human. While it may seem reductionist, it isn't, this show has such a generic message that you'd be hard pressed to find any piece of media related to war that doesn't have this message. Therein lies the problem, this show has very little reason to exist because these points have been illustrated in a far more entertaining and interesting ways than this show could ever hope to achieve. Aside from my gripes with the overall themes of the show there is very little redeeming that this show does. First and foremost the mecha fight scenes are uninventive and frankly boring in most cases. The show relies on ambiguous pseudoscience that's extremely unclear namely the chrars. The chrars are never explained as to what they even are, one is lead to believe they are energy cores of some form, however the show never goes into detail on how these operate or sets up any rules surrounding them. This ambiguity makes the final payoff of the plot completely meaningless and unfulfilling. The plot stumbles around after episode three and never seems to get back on it's feet till episode ten, as such everything that happened in between this time is pretty much a blur of boring plot points. The only thing that occurs in these episodes is that a few characters died and even this is uninteresting because after their death it makes one realize their utter unimportnace to everything going on because the plot just continues with little regard making you ultimately wonder why the character even existed to begin with aside from just pushing the plot along. With the exception of the main characters most of the characters within the show are all interchangeable, as such, they are uninteresting, utterly devoid of all personality and just melt into one bulbous mass of innocuous filler. The main characters are recognizable at least, beyond that they aren't really developed in any meaningful way to make you understand them as people, which is ironic for a show trying humanize war. All in all this show is a boring mess with middle school level philosophy and a cast of generic characters that doesn't bring anything interesting to the table that you haven't seen a million times in a countless number of other war related media.

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• 

  kc2rxo

  79/100
  A futuristic mecha war tale that may of taken on more than it could handle

  The Price of Smiles has a lot of things going on with it good and bad.

  It's a futuristic mecha show that attempts to talk about a lot different issues - all of which are good points but at times fails to deliver them well enough to bring forth emotion on them.

  Lets talk about animation first. Through out the season the animation swayed back and forth. It never was unreasonably bad to the point of being unwatchable but sometimes it was enough to be noticed. This also tended to happen during critical moments in the show where you don't want to be distracted. However visual wise the show looks very good and keeps the feel of being in a constant state of war in the visuals.

  Music wise the show doesn't stand out to me but is definitely not slouching. The OP is fantastic and I never skipped it. The ED less so but it was still enjoyable. Background music is used as needed and never really stood out to me but clearly was good at accenting major events and emotions in scenes that it needed to.

  Now lets talk about story and content. Not too be spoilery here I will say that the show delivers unexpectedly at times. Episode 2-3 especially were hard to watch. I will say the VA for Yuki is out of this world. Her scream at the end of episode 2 is just chilling. While there was more screams, such as Stellas in episode 10, nothing compared.

  This show touches a lot of topics that war themed. The loss of loved ones, the horrors of battle (made even worse with machines), coping with loss, and even the environment (yes really). The show attempts to touch all these topics at various times with varied success. When it gets it right, it really gets it right too - when its wrong it just seems to fall flat.

  The plot twist introduced midway through the show drives the story forward to its conclusion. For that I give the show a decent score for pacing. However at times it felt like we were meant to care about certain characters only to not be given enough time to really do so. The ending too was also a bit of cop out but was foreshadowed long before.

  The shows format of focusing on each side of the war independently while still progressing the plot is good. They could of easily rehashed each episode from the other perspective but instead they gave it enough over lap to actually keep things moving. The story really gives us a hard time deciding which side to be in through most of the show.

  All in all, the show is decent. When it hits the right beats things really work out. At times though you are left wondering what exactly the studio was thinking. For Spring 2019 I definitely feel this is one of the under appreciated shows that aired - it kept the balance of good and bad (with amazing highs contrasted with tolerable lows) but still keep me interested to the end.

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• 

  sam19967

  60/100
  The Price is a bit of a Mess that lost all Potential

  Let's start with the good. The mecha combat scenes are (in 3D CG yes) really well done and they are quite nice scenes to watch as in they are well presented. This is for all the mecha combat scenes in the show making these scenes quite consistent (unlike the plot) throughout the show. While not all the characters are that good there are a few characters that are quite likeable making their story and struggle more relatable compared to other characters. While I don’t really like the plot the world background is quite good as it depicts, the struggle for the general population to survive and the human cost of war is shown really strongly. While that is essence is only backdrop it feeds into the story and the characters in different ways.

  Right the bad stuff now. The world setting is slightly confusing as it was a little unclear who side people where on (a bit of surprise for the last few episodes) meaning while you might be routing for a side take a closer look just to make sure who's side they are on. Further to that the whole main plot is confusing as it jumps around quite a bit without explaining anything with too many turns and twists (example in spoiler section) to create any consistency (which can work is shows like ‘The Idolmaster’ but not this). Overall it makes the show a bit difficult to follow and loses its audience. The problem is due to the inconsistency it draws all the attention to it and it becomes the main focus instead rather than the show itself. On top of that as events are spread out far from each other with long dialog section (where the show gets philosophical but not very well (compared to the world building) it’s a bit boring.

  Spoilers to explain above - Good first, During the story we really get to know Stella on a personal level (meaning the main helped) as she starts to question herself where she should do what’s right for her or her job as a soldier (that said that doesn’t matter in the end as it’s really isn’t a chose (after a mega plot twist (the princess is actually the enemy and what to destroy everything (also end with another plot twist))). But anyway Stella’s story (excellent voice acting from Saori Hayami) is the best aspect of the show. Also the world background as mentioned above is great for example in this world as the war happened many people became displaced, many of them children and we get to see this side of things. But it isn’t used to make a situation lighter but rather to make the whole world darker. Right bad, as you might have guessed there are way too many plot turns and twists in this show and most of them are due to an inconsistent story and unclear factions (see section in brackets in this paragraph for an example). Overall it makes the show a bit difficult to follow and loses its audience.

  In Summary then, while ‘The Price of Smiles’ is deeply inconsistent, very difficult to follow, very surprising (in a bad way) and a little boring, it does have some good points with a okay story, good world building and a nice main focus character. But the best bit it manages to make what would have been a bad show into a fairly okay show by having really good parts that are really good and shows potential but the bad parts that spoil the whole show. I would recommend it if you just wanted something to watch not follow. ‘It’s not bad, but it’s not good either’.

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