While looking for something to watch, that wasn’t too long, I came across Upotte!! I skipped this one when it was out because it seemed like it would be moe with guns. While it does have some cuteness, it’s not about cute girls doing cute things. They don’t look super cutesy like in Is This Order a Rabbit? or Girls und Panzer which would probably be a show closer in themes since they’re both military.
Upotte takes place at Seishou Academy, a school where the students are anthropomorphized guns that are training to become useful weapons and get their own personal serviceman. The school is broken up into groups: elementary school (sub-machine guns), middle school (assault rifles), and high school (Battle rifles/sniper rifles). The girls are able to manifest their guns and use them, using live ammo. They’re training to hit their targets with accuracy like someone who trains to use guns would do. This is all foreign to the new human teacher Genkoku who first has to get used to the girls being guns and then the battles they go through.
The main protagonist is Enfensee also known as Funco or Fukko, she’s a sweet caring FNC (yeah I know those don’t go together). She holds the group together and is probably the most informational when it comes to guns or she leads into the narrator telling a story about the guns. She’s friends with M 16A4 (Ichiroku) L85A1 (L) and SG 550 (Sig) and they all take on the characteristics of their assault rifle counterparts just like the older sisters in the rifle class and younger girls in the sub machine gun class. For example there is a sub machine gun who talks real fast until she overheats. L85A1 (L) is shy and clumsy, always jamming and overheating like the actual gun. So they gave them personalities and characteristics of the guns which really gives them some depth for such a short show.
I like the fact that this show tried to be creative like having the girls actually be guns and their parts being related to specific body parts like vomiting was ejecting a magazine or stomach cramps for when the barrel jammed. They even have mini interludes where they give info on the guns that the girls represent and even the countries where they were made are used as the countries they’re from. Kind of wish they had voices from those countries too but the dub has mostly American sounding girls. Kind of used to these type of shows being a bit yuri or ai and this one is no different, you actually see the stolen first kiss trope here. They are junior and high school girls so that’s to be expected.
The show has average production value with very few breakdowns. They do use deformed styles in some of the show so don’t be taken by surprise since it’s not something used too often anymore. The show is listed as ecchi but there really isn’t too much ecchi type content except for the OVA. There are one or two ecchi things but nothing major. It’s a pretty solid show for what it is.
I like the show for the creativity. It actually provides real facts about the specific guns too. The actual show itself is just an average school type show with some action involved. This show came out when there was a flow of these female military shows like Sabagebu!, Girls und Panzer, Arpeggio of Blue Steel, KanColle and others. A lot of these shows do have some political agenda type thing thrown in but it isn’t a heavy theme and this show is no different but it doesn’t take away from the core of the show. I think it’s an average show but creative. Check it out if you have time but it’s not a must watch. It’s only 10 episodes so it’s not going to take much of your time.
[yasr_overall_rating]