Upotte! Review — C

Another show about cute girls doing cute things in school. Except these girls are assault rifles.

Well, you certainly can’t accuse Upotte’s premise of being unoriginal. Seriously, what were the creators on? The girls in this show are quite literally guns. At least I think they are. They’re supposed to be guns, but they also have human bodies with which they carry the guns. I recommend not thinking about it too much.

The show is an unexpected combination of cute girls doing cute things, military references, sexual metaphors, and combat tactics. It’s certainly unique, but unfortunately I wasn’t particularly enthralled. The show’s biggest problem, I think, is its tameness. Upotte has all the passion and excitement of an episode of Aria. One moment the girls will sit around drinking tea and making snow angels. The next moment they’ll be risking their lives on the battlefield.

But somehow, running towards the enemy under fire has just as much tension and excitement as drinking tea does. Even if they get shot, the girls are guns, so they just get up and walk again after a bit. Even when their human teacher gets shot, he just spends a couple days in the hospital and is fine again. There’s no sense of risk or danger, which is a problem when half your show is battle scenes.

The school life segments don’t need to be exciting, but they were nothing that other shows haven’t already done better. The main characters are a tomboy, a klutz, an airhead, and one character (Sig) who doesn’t quite fit into an archetype (please prove me wrong). Upotte just doesn’t add much to the table. That said, it had its good moments. The gun metaphors and jokes were certainly amusing.

  • Storytelling – D – Girls go to school, fight with each other, and fight a final battle with the power of friendship.
  • Voice – C – Gives the feel of a show where cute girls do cute things, even though these cute girls are shooting each other with assault rifles.
  • Characters – C – I liked Sig and FNC. Ichiroku was annoying and useless girl was useless.
  • Attention Grab – D – Not too exciting.
  • Production – C – Meh.
  • Overall – C

Recommendations – Azumanga Daioh, K-On

5 thoughts on “Upotte! Review — C

  1. Wait, so lemme get this straight:
    L86 = airhead
    M16 = tomboy
    FNC = klutz (wait, really??)
    Sig = ???
    Amirite? 🙂

    1. I was thinking FNC is the airhead and L86 is the klutz. Although L86 is certainly a bit of an airhead as well. 🙂

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