Mecha-Ude: Mechanical Arms – Episode 1

What’s it about? Pulled by a call for help only he can hear, Amatsuga Hikaru comes across a living mechanical arm (or Mecha-Ude) named Alma that attaches itself to his hoodie and seems unable to move without Hikaru nearby. Unfortunately, Hikaru’s impromptu good deed has put him in the crosshairs of a much bigger struggle over the agency of these living weapons.

Passion projects are my favorite thing. They’re little peeks into their creators’ id, powered by sheer dogged determination when professional industries are built to greenlight familiar faces and palatable content above all else. Now, the danger is that peeking into a hotbed of the artist’s favorite tropes can end up extremely obnoxious if your tastes don’t run the same way, but I still live for that bit of fresh air. Naturally I was going to end up drawn to an anime that a female director’s been championing as far back as a 2016 Kickstarter.

That timeline’s an important one to keep in mind; it helps explain why every second of Mecha-Ude screams “THIS IS A TRIBUTE TO KILL LA KILL” at the top of its lungs. We’ve got living objects that bond with their user; we’ve got an angry girl in a black and red sailor uniform whose dual weapons have the same angular eye shape as Senketsu; we’ve got an argument over whether these wearable weapons are tools or partners with their own agency; we’ve got a tower full of mysterious, angular antagonists with brightly colored hair and a nebulously fascistic controlling corporation. Sawano Hiroyuki is even a contributing composer.

How you feel about that will essentially define how you feel about this premiere. As someone who finds KLK’s unfulfilled potential frustrating but its cast largely endearing, Mecha-Ude’s boundless sincerity managed to worm its way into my heart. It helps that the camera absolutely rejects the notion of the panty shot, which I both appreciate and couldn’t help laughing about. The first chunk of the episode if an action set piece, and super assassin Aki executed a series of flips while her miniskirt stuck to her legs with a tenacity that would impress even Maka Albarn. I really enjoyed not having to brace myself for panty shots, mind, but at a certain point it does start to feel like some cute shorts would fit the character’s combat style better (since her weapons are tattooed on her upper thighs) …but then she wouldn’t look as clearly like Ryuko, I suppose.

I wonder if that need for homage over clarity will linger over the show as a whole, or if it’s simply a hangover of the series having a proof-of-concept pilot way back in 2019. It’s not like the episode is just leaning on recognition—there’s a good sense of comedic timing, even if the animation doesn’t have the big monetary guns or experience to get as experimental as a TRIGGER project. It’s on the one hand a little bit of a bummer that Aki can’t just be our protagonist, but Hikaru’s not so bad as the uninitiated cabbage that other characters can explain the plot’s secret organizations and sci-fi proper nouns to. The fact that he wants to do the right thing but struggles with the fact that it’s often awkward, embarrassing, or inconvenient to do so in the quickly-passing heat of the moment is more relatable than most of us would care to admit, and he’s got an easy give-and-take with his Trigger Arm (…) and future best friend, Alma.

I don’t know that I expect this to be groundbreaking, but I’m not sure I need it to be. It’s bright and energetic, the mechanical designs are well-anthropomorphized without it looking distracting, and it’s executing familiar tropes with both competence and enthusiasm. Maybe I just want to root for Okamoto Sae as she works her way up the industry through unconventional means (and here’s hoping she doesn’t go through the burnout that route often entails). Either way, I’m definitely in to give this the ol’ three-episode try.

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