Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
kottadragon
Buddy Complex is okay. It’s fine. This show has serious potential, but it fails to deliver on any of it or knock you out of your seat, so what you’re left with by the end is a fairly bog standard anime that leaves no lasting impression, to the point where reviewing it actually took a fair bit of introspection just to tackle what it does wrong and what it does right.
The main critique I would level at Buddy Complex is its story and its main cast. I have never seen somebody so slow on the uptake when it comes to the mechanics of a time travel plot; it’s one thing that Aoba does not grasp the exact nature of the situation thrust upon him, but he spends so much time repeating the exact same talking points to people about events they clearly have no knowledge of, due to not experiencing them y…
Read at the sourcespacenewtype
Nice little show, though it feels like it had enough steam to go at least for a 25 episode run, if not a full 50. I don't know why it wasn't longer... Amazingly, it does manage to wrap the story up well enough in a two-parter which is quite impressive. I wish there were more, though, and as a result there isn't as much to dig into and love as there might have been if it were longer.
It is very competent in just about everything it tries, though it does not break new ground anywhere really. If you've ever enjoyed a Sunrise mecha anime in the past, you'll likely enjoy this one too.
The Japanese performances are excellent as you'd expect, the music is good - especially the opening theme. The strongest element in this show for me was the character designs. There's something about them I fin…
Read at the sourceJamieNormand
Buddy Complex is a mecha anime. It has Aobu Watase, an average 16-year-old high school pupil, go 80 years into the future and be part of a group of mecha warriors with special abilities. He meets a tsundere lad of his own age named Dio Weinberg, and he also runs into the girl who had saved him in 2014 from the attack of a mecha from future named Hina. Then, events carry on.
Now, what makes the Buddy Complex anime wonderful for me, grading it nearly 3 points above its average at MAL is the fact that I wanted to carry on watching it. Dio and Aobu are very interesting and loveable characters, one can understand where these two stand in terms of their backgrounds in the story. The production quality is above average and mecha battles are really, truly great. The music score is average. Yet, as…
Read at the sourcemoo_nee
A basic mecha anime with an extremely interesting gimmick ruined by a boring setting, generic characters with half-baked relationships and time travel shenanigans.
Given that the very cool Coupling system hinges on the main leads' growing comradeship the anime would've probably benefitted from having more episodes, as the relationship between Aoba and Dio feels severely underdeveloped and I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the "bond" between Aoba and Hina. I ended up much more invested in Hina's friendship with a certain secondary character, who seemed pretty nice and reasonable until the writers decided to make him do a 180 and make him irredeemably evil and unlikeable in what I assume was an attempt to make us root for Aoba and Hina instead.
The voice cast is positively STACKED and Ha…
Read at the sourceFinalReality56
Have you ever watched something that wasn't bad, but you just couldn't bring yourself to say it's good?
That's the feeling of watching Buddy Complex.
Buddy Complex is a mecha anime by Sunrise, the company behind Gundam and various other notable mecha animes such as VOTOMS, Layzner, and Code Geass. The main premise of this particular outing is that a mysterious girl named Hina takes a high schooler named Aoba to the future, where he becomes a pilot in a war. Basically an isekai-esque concept, except that rather than a fantasy world, the "other world" is simply a future version of the Earth.
This piqued my interest in the series, as I'd been looking for something that had an isekai-ish vibe and a sci-fi twist to it, and this seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I also figured tha…
Read at the sourceReia_Dreams
I have to say that the series was pretty interesting. Besides the fact that it contains the usual mecha characteristics, it had a really intriguing and fairly original story line. Because Hina’s relationship with the main protagonist Aoba was kept from the viewers until the very end, it was necessary to complete the anime (including the 2 episode ONA) in order to have all the questions answered. Not only was the story line enjoyable, the action scenes were executed well. The animation was on point and fun to watch, and the character designs as well as the mech designs were well made. I enjoyed watching this anime, but I can’t say that it’s one of my favorites. It had elements that I liked very much, but some parts felt rushed. For example, I do wish the relationship between the main charac…
Read at the sourceGhostfriendly
An astonishingly vapid and pedestrian mecha anime, which tries to score points with the yaoi fans, but boasts two males leads with all the chemistry of those two dead ducks served up 'side by side in death'. One is mildly straitlaced, one is impulsive in the miserably predictable way that only bad shonen heroes can be, and all the two have in common is their unwavering desire to protect their friends. The single most ubiquitous trait among male protagonists of cheap action anime.
The female lead is somewhat proactive, but nothing to write home about. Everyone else, we've seen before done a lot better; the straitlaced female XO, the disabled imouto, the lazy but brilliant commander, the eccentric good scientist, suave evil scientist and of course, the bridge bunnies. All of these archetype…
Read at the sourceBadAshley
Gotta wonder what Sunrise has been up to lately. Below is an actual conversation between the writers.
Hey, you know that Gundam show we made about Vampire Gundams and immortals? Let's do something even more stupid!
I'm listening...
So you have these two dudes flying robots.
Same robot? No, two robots, but they're going to propose, accept, and couple--because they're best buddies!
Like gay sex?
No, nothing like gay sex. One guy is the feisty one, the other is the brooding silent one. They don't get along at first, like when another cute buddy shows up, their coupling goes down, but when they fight with one another their coupling is super awesome and lasts longer.
...like gay sex.
What is wrong with you?
Can we make one of these... buddies a girl?
Get the hell out of my office you…
Read at the sourceue6o7
Buddy Complex is yet another addition to the string of near-indistinguishable mecha series that Sunrise seems to have no problem effortlessly churning out year after year alongside their usual Gundam installments. It's a pretty standard mecha show that on closer inspection has both standout qualities and heavy flaws.
Right from the first episode alarms were going off in my head; this was going to be another time loop story. I really didn't have faith that the creators could successfully pull one off here, and to put it bluntly: they couldn't. It makes absolutely no sense and is barely understandable even once things are explained. The sheer amount of logical leaps and assumptions that have to be made when it comes to this time travel plot are astounding. It's like they saw Steins;Gate and…
Read at the sourceshi_na
Story: 7/10
Buddy Complex is a mecha anime from Sunrise that does not push any boundaries, unlike Valvrave. At the first battle scene you will think that is this really not a strange anime?
"Connect with Dio"
"Acception"
What the heck??
However, the story development is very well done. The battles display differing tactics after failed attempts rather than having the same few machines doing the same few moves against each other, which happens in quite a few of Sunrise's previous mecha series. It is a delight to see how our main characters get out of the various difficult situations they are forced into.
Art: 8/10
Coming from Sunrise, it is not much of a surprise that the art and sound are well done. The character are normal, but the art of Luxon and Bradyon is nice, and when both of t…
Read at the sourceLittleBrownFox
I expected Buddy Complex to be just another Mecha that I watched for shameful enjoyment. It was, but it was also a bit more.
Admittedly Buddy Complex is NOT going to change the face a Mecha, but it has some good characters and an interesting story-line. I watched through the whole series surprisingly quick.
Now for the bad things.
The ending to the anime (minus the special) is meh, and the special just MADE ME MAD! The pacing is really off at times and there are a fair number of unanswered (or poorly answered) questions.
The art style is nothing amazing and the dialog is better if you are the type to dissect every line (otherwise it can be a bit flat at times).
All that said, the series is definitely a fun and easy watch. The dynamic between Aoba and Dio by itself can keep you smiling.
Bud…
Read at the sourceraps
At first glance the Buddy Complex looks generic... but perhaps it's one of the reasons which makes it more enjoyable...
From studio SUNRISE... that makes Gundam series... from time to time do an original mecha series like this...
Buddy Complex plot and story is basically the basic fundamentals of mecha series... spaceships, mechas, war etc... However the story gets interesting when they include the "time travel" twist... ok I'll stop with that... Like any other SUNRISE original mech series... Buddy Complex also borrows a lot of idea from Gundam franchise which is not bad if it's done correctly... it works fine on this one...
The main story revolves on Aoba the aka mysterious pilot... it's about his journey upon a familiar yet different world his living... plus the two key characters f…
Read at the sourceFuttButar
I have seen many anime and most of the top ones. So what do I think about this anime compared to the likes of Steins gate and Code Geass? Well this anime is shit. There is absolutely nothing new here and everything is rather mediocre.... BUT I found a great deal of enjoyment watching it. Dio was ok and the main guy, whose name slips my memory, was rather enjoyable to watch as he has a strong personality and doesn't have an affinity for finding himself in awkward boob grabbing situations where he blushes and gets all embarrassed. The main reason to watch this anime is Yumihara. One of my favorite Character designs and good voice acting. Really this anime hit all my weak points, and while it fails to break ground on anything it succeeds in entertaining and there is definatly merit in that. I…
Read at the sourceAdakkar
This is my first Review of an anime since signing up with this site. I have used it for a long time, but never actually used it to keep track of what I had watched until recently.
Buddy Complex turned out to be a fantastically enjoyable experience for me. It actually surprised me at how much i ended up enjoying it.
Story - 8
I found the story to be rather interesting. Sure, the premise has been done before, but buddy Complex handled it well. I never felt like i was being forced to accept the storytellers point of view at any time. It was written in a way that let me accept things right along with the protagonist. This is something that I feel is important when trying to tell a story, that I should never have to just accept that this or that happened for no obvious reason. There is no re…
Read at the sourcesamkhoa
Buddy Complex is a action/mecha type of anime recently aired in January 2014. I recently watched it and I find that it's very interesting and entertaining to watch.
-What I would like to point out first is the Overall Design and the Sound of the anime:
It bugs me a lot seeing that the designing is so much similar to another mecha anime, Kakumeiki Valvrave. I understand that they have the same producer, and possibly some artists who worked on Valvrave, but it just annoys me. Otherwise, the other designs besides from the characters I find very original and it hardly bores me with this art style. The battle scenes are perceived very well as well as the music (OP/ED) and some background music during the anime.
-Secondly, the story:
No offence to any Buddy Complex fans here but in my opinio…
Read at the sourceDark_Sister
Second season? Seriously? I will probably watch it because it’s gonna be hard to make it more boring than first one, so maybe I won’t be so disappointed next time, but why just 4?
Story: 2/10
What story? Only the first and the last episode were really worth watching - even though the whole “time travelling” thing doesn’t make any sense… Hey, I’m really curious how Aoba got into the future first time? Cause there must have been reason for Bizon to find him in the past, right? But I expected too much – the whole plot aimed to explain how Hina got in Aoba’s world and that’s all. Rest of the story is vague and we would have not lost anything significant if they had cut off this 11 episodes.
Characters: 5/10
Sorry, but cuteness is not any determinant for me. Characters are 100% schematic and…
Read at the sourceStark700
Buddy Complex implicates two dramatically different ways from its setup. We get a normal high school student named Aoba Watase with friends, a smile on his face, and like most kids, likes to play sports when they’re bored. Then, it quickly shifts to a mysterious girl coming from the future to apparently save Aoba, giant mecha dropping from the sky to terminate him, and a time travel phenomenon that changes his life forever. Sounds complex right? That’s just the tip of the iceberg as the show doesn’t reveal much in the beginning. Everything comes out as cryptic and plays you around like a jigsaw puzzle. The only clues from the beginning are from the mysterious girl named Hina. Let the complexity ensure.
As a show produced by Sunrise, the classic genre of mecha comes to mind. It doesn’t was…
Read at the sourcediioff
"Connect with Dio"
"Acception"
You would think that this is just some other Gundam rip-off, but no. It's a new kind of mecha where they bring in time travel and buddy thing as how the title is.
Story: 9/10
Its simple, the guy in the past go to future then become some cool character then the story slowly unfold how it ended up in 1st episode. War between two nations/country... robot mecha fight around, yea. I like mecha.
Art: 8/10
The character are normal, but the art of Luxon and Bradyon is nice, and when both of them in coupling mode is so damn cool, like how the wings glow and all the cg effects stuff. But the 2 mecha still look like some No-grade Gundam. If Buddy Complex have more budget, the mecha will definitely look nicer with a bit of more detail.
Sound: 9/10
I like both the…
Read at the sourcenaekiyo
I found myself to like this show very much, surprisingly. You may think this is some weird, nerdy mecha anime with painstakingly slow plot progress your too lazy to watch, but Sunrise Studios has done it again. I really liked the funny interactions with each character in each episode, along with the love triangles and the "world war" vibes. The main character, Watase Aoba may look like those generic male characters and kinda is, but there is depth in many of the characters.
I can't also wait for the second season, cause this time they'll be romance, trust me, you won't regret watching this anime. The only mecha show I ever watched is Code-geass, and this show is just a mix of shonen and shoujo.
Read at the sourcenotforge
Story:
Buddy Complex is a new mecha anime from Sunrise that does not push any boundaries, unlike Valvrave. However, the execution is very well done and keeps me entertained every week. The battles display differing tactics after failed attempts rather than having the same few machines doing the same few moves against each other, which happens in quite a few of Sunrise's previous mecha series. It is a delight to see how our main characters get out of the various difficult situations they are forced into.
Art/Sound:
Coming from Sunrise, it is not much of a surprise that the art and sound are well done. The background music during the battles and while they are on standby fit in very well, and the OP and ED are catchy. The battles scenes are amazing and do not have a noticeable amount of re-…
Read at the source