Active Raid – Episode 3

Active Raid continues with an episode featuring annoying moe apps, nefarious hackers with willing harems, and dancing idol mechas. And yet, in spite of that, it’s apparently also trying to be some kind of political drama. I don’t really know how Active Raid’s many ridiculous and often contradictory variables will shake out, but so far I’m actually having a solid time with it. It has a sense of fun, which shouldn’t be underestimated – many of the jokes feel fresh or endearing, and the characters are building up well. It’s a mess of a show, but it’s an enjoyable mess.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

Active Raid

Well, we start with Amami stuck in a goddamn cosplay uniform as her “discipline” for destroying a building

Talking about the strange professional relationship between the two main guys

A classic ransom letter with cut-out characters is used to announce that a certain concert will be attacked and Unit 8 will be deployed

Sena’s the grey-haired one who’s more serious

The villain stuff continues to be totally arbitrary and over-the-top scifi nonsense. There’s a big disconnect between what the more grounded office stuff wants to do and what the over-the-top villains lean towards

They learn Logos is the group behind the second episode’s attack

“Who created the situation that forced my hand?” I like that Asami’s investigation is framed as her trying to retroactively explain her own simple failure. It’s not just a plot interest, it’s a character beat

Hiding the development of a performance-focused Willwear, which may have some connection to the military. Again trapped by bureaucracy and government secrecy even from itself. The stuff about the different wings being rivals is good, even if it’s simplistic here

A nice spin on the crazy fan here – he’s actually convinced by the words of his idol, and decides to give up his madness, but both his backers and the news media want him to continue causing trouble

The stupid moe app again. Pretty great running gag

I like their attempts to work together as a team. Amami actually establishes a good plan, it just doesn’t work given their work conditions

The dude in the suit complaining about them fighting each other and not rescuing him

I like that this mech also makes sense for its duties – light and sound control

Jeez, Asami getting the short end of the stick with this job

And now we’ve got a dancing idol robot

And of course, the news organizations use this as evidence of Unit 8’s problems

6 thoughts on “Active Raid – Episode 3

  1. Well, we shall see! I think the political drama, to use your terminology, is mostly there in order to help set up a larger conflict between the police and the media and/or the government, which presumably will play into the climax through a more significant incident. That said, I do not believe the show will ever abandon its silly and lighthearted ways for too long.

  2. I agree with your review. I was giggling like an idiot with thr dancing robot and, basically, everything silly about this episode. The villains are too generic, but it’s balanced out by a “view-from-the-balcony” office picture that I can relate to. It’s silly in that it makes you realize how political and office drama DOES in fact look silly, but not so much to those actually involved in it. And yes, i’m having fun, despite all that.

  3. Episode 2 was okay, but this one was crap. I don’t like how Asami’s always the butt monkey.

  4. Really having fun with this one. The self-serious tone of LOGOS-man really didn’t gel with the silliness of the climax, huh? I’d like for the show to eventually call the villains out on their cheesiness, though I’m not holding my breath for it.

  5. Oh boy.

    I gave Active Raid a fair go, but this episode has convinced me to drop it.

    Episode 1 was a bit awful, despite the cool implementation of police mechas as police officers not superheroes. It doesn’t help that I find the two male Wear users to be insufferable.

    But episode 2 promised so much, the political themes in the background, barely featuring the guys, and generally showing he promise of the premise.

    I think episode 3 probably hinged on whether you could enjoy the silliness of the idol scenes or not. I couldn’t, and didn’t. There was much cringe-induction in this episode for me, in nearly every scene.

    I hope it has more episodes like episode 2 throughout the season, if so I’ll give it another ‘nother chance. Thanks for the write ups.

    • That’s the thing about most series made with an obviously episodic format in mind. Because of the need for variety, it’s very unlikely that every single episode will be liked by all of the audience.

      You can only get away with that in special cases like Space Dandy, where they literally had dozens of very talented independent creators involved, and even then all of the episodes weren’t universally considered to be equally good.

      Can’t say I had too much of a problem with episode 3, but I do agree that episode 2 has been the best so far. Episode 4 already seems different enough, based on the preview, though your issues with the two guys might remain.

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