Brain Powered is in some sense the Daikatana of the anime industry. It had a dream team assembled for its making, most notably featuring director Yoshiyuki Tomino (of Mobile Suit Gundam fame) and composer Yoko Kanno. It was heavily hyped up in Japan as an Eva-killer. Unfortunately, when folks got past the unnecessarily gratuitous opening animation, reality hit hard. The fact of the matter is, some dreams just weren't meant to be....

But, since we are dreaming, why not start off with a world where giant discs randomly fly about, causing mass destruction before inexplicably losing momentum and transforming into "organic" robots? For added believability, we can introduce a heroine who does a sudden about-shift from being scared of one of these discs to acting motherly towards the gargantuan robot it births. After all, those giant red, multi-faceted eyes in that frighteningly twisted body sure look kind to me. Wouldn't you agree?

Brushing believability aside, one of the unintentional main themes of the show is disjointedness. Now, mind you, I don't mind being disoriented a bit at the beginning, if it's for a good cause...but even on rewatching the first episode after finishing the series, I still see no point for some of the transitionless scene shifts. For example, at one point in the first episode we are "treated" to a sudden scene shift to a testing ground where people are testing an "organic engine." This kind of shift would be fine if the happenings in that scene were at all linked to the action of the main plot....but they weren't. Instead, it felt like the impetus of the main plot was sacrificed for the cause of extra term-dropping, another exciting side theme of the show.

This disjointedness doesn't stop at poor scene transition choices, however. It carries over to the presentation of all the idea "seeds" and subplots, some of which could have ripened into quite interesting tales had they been given more space to sprout. The net result is that the show feels like a rushed tour through a startup agricultural research plant - we get to hear a lot of terms that hint at new theory, and see lots of projected data on development paths, but never get a chance to watch the actual growth of the seeds into viable plants. New strategies and explanations for events are relegated to either unexplained, but somewhat suggestive terms or brief lines of forced-sounding explication that rarely do the topics justice; similarly, relationship conflicts are brought up, resolved, and quickly shoved under the rug. Near the end, there are a few arguably interesting plot twists and events, but nothing on a large enough scale to redeem the series from the halls of the lackluster.

With the breakneck pacing, the characters themselves lost a lot of credibility. This lifelessness was further exacerbated by mostly uninspired character designs, personified by the bland Heroine A and Mecha Pilot B look to the main characters, Utsuhime and Yuu. I guess the primary plus of the character designs is that, unlike what is suggested by the opening animation, there isn't excessive fan service of the females during the actual show. That being said, there isn't much left to the imagination by that self-same opening animation, which parades six of the show's females in the nude through a variety of backgrounds....

On the topic of animation, Brain Powered is about par for the course for a recent television series. Battle scenes end up being more about talking heads who are giving their requisite term dropping and forced explication to cover up the lack of fluid battle animation. The backdrops and character cels both featured a fairly average amount of detail; nothing breath-taking, but nothing too embarassing, either.

The music for Brain Powered is easily its strongest point, which is unsurprising given Yoko Kanno's track record. She's done an excellent job as usual in capturing the emotion...or perhaps adding emotion....to the various scenes, with yet another different-sounding score. I will admit to being not all that enthusiastic about the opening song, which underscores the parade of nude female characters with a rock song about making love passionately all night long. But, I'm more than willing to forgive that in light of how the ending song turned out - a very touching melodic piece against a powerful strings symphony which I love to listen to. I'm not certain I would have been able to watch the series in its entirety without the Kanno score in the background, easing my pain.

At the end of the day, Brain Powered feels like a bunch of dashed lines in a connect-the-dots picture book. There are interesting details, ideas, and characters floating around, but there aren't enough lines connecting them for a coherent overall picture to emerge. And unfortunately, staring at an un-traced connect-the-dots picture isn't exactly an enjoyable prospect. As such, I can't really recommend this series to any but the most die-hard fans of mecha series. An Eva or Gasaraki this is not.

One side bonus of note on the DVDs is an interview series where Yoshiyuki Tomino and Yoko Kanno discuss their process of working together on the series. I found it quite interesting to read Yoko Kanno's thoughts and explanation of how she found themes and inspiration in general for the score. The cynic in me would declare this interview series more memorable than the anime series itself. I suppose I'm also honor-bound to mention that those of you working on Brain Powered doujinshi can watch the opening animation uncluttered by credits, over and over. But, as the quote goes about a certain publication, it's all about the interviews!

Distributor: Bandai
Creator: Sunrise / Wow Wow / Bandai Visual
Released: 1998

Plot: C
Character Design: B-
Animation Quality: B
Music: A-
Overall: C