Studio Satelight is known for its mecha stories, maybe not as known as Studio Sunrise is for Gundam, but Satelight has put out hits like Macross, Muv-Luv, and Symphogear so Sakugan for all intents and purposes has at least a decent backing but as of the first episode I can’t come yet to a decision on if this show is for me or not. The whole time during the first episode, I constantly kept tearing myself halfway between Deca-Dence and Gurren Lagann.
The setting is much like Gurren Lagann, underground but the terminology of society, that is to say the terms these characters use in order to refer to each other like “markers” and “workers” are very much like Deca-Dence. Then there’s the dynamic between the main characters, Memenpu and her father, Gagumber. It’s much too similar to Natsume and Kaburagi from Deca-Dence while simultaneously being almost completely opposite of Simon and Kamina in Gurren Lagann. None of this is to say that Sakugan is bad, it’s just that I don’t have any idea what I think of it right now. Another episode or two will clear the air in my head on what I think of this adaptation of Nekotaru Inui’s novel.
The animation is however, absolutely superb. Satelight is bringing some big guns into this show like Shoji Kawamori on the kaiju design, prolific mecha and world designer Stanislas Brunet is also working mecha design for this series. So at the end of the day I’m holding out hope, because this does look like it’s going to be good.
Sakugan can be found on Crunchyroll.